I didn\u2019t know anything about the author of this memoir, but it seemed like I should have somehow. He arrived in Japan just a few years before I did, and he started a new life here, just like me. He has done a lot of walking all over Japan, and especially he enjoys the backwater places that are less populated and sort of run down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m envious of the free time that he has to walk around, to perambulate on pilgrimages both known and improvised. This book covers his time walking around the Kumano Kaido – not too far away from where we live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story here describes his travels, and the way he is using it to work through some issues and come to terms with the death of a childhood friend. The book is written as a letter to this friend (oddly enough, named Bryan with a \u201cy\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think I would have gotten a lot more out of it if some of the places that he visits were less familiar to me – I can see people used to the vision of an urban Japan might be surprised and attracted to the ghost towns in rural locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He spends time talking with the locals, which is interesting and fun to hear what they are dealing with and what they think about this Japanese-speaking foreigner walking around. Some of his translations seemed a bit unnatural to me – but I guess that every translation will be affected by the translator and how they envision what they are rendering into their own language. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I read a lot of travel books, and I always appreciate if the author outlines their goals and guidelines for their upcoming journey. It helps give a sense of the storytelling arc, and the reader can feel when the author is making progress (or being waylaid). As best as I could tell there were fewer guidelines here and the book is a composite of many journeys to the same area over several years. My personal preference is one continual journey – so I need to figure out a way to focus on those kinds of books in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall it was a quick and fairly interesting read. The photography included was also enjoyable to look through. I\u2019ll keep an eye out for the author in my own travels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next I am reading The Nix by Nathan Hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I didn\u2019t know anything about the author of this memoir, but it seemed like I should have somehow. He arrived in Japan just a few years before I did, and he started a new life here, just like me. He has done a lot of walking all over Japan, and especially he enjoys the backwater […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-Zh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}