Martin Cruz Smith, the best-selling author known for works like "Gorky Park," detective thrillers that use Russia for a backdrop, set a huge challenge for himself with his newest novel and first book on Japan, "December 6."
The novel's plot unfolds on the very eve of Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and seems to inventory just about every stereotype of the country along the way. Mr. Smith's gamble was this: how to populate his story with simpering geisha, officers who lop off people's heads with swords samurai-style, thuggish yakuza and fanatical kamikaze pilots, and still avoid clichés.
- Howard French, in "After 2 Visits, Taking on Japan at War" from The New York Times
My immediate reaction upon reading the above this morning in the Herald Tribune was to wonder which to despise more, the novelist or reporter. Recycling stupid Orientalist stereotypes is considered a good thing? It seems to me Smith, if the reporter's characterization of the book is accurate, is already deploying clichés by the shovelful. This is a book I am not looking forward, the newspaper story sounding like it will a cross between an overly researched Michael Crichton polemic and a throwback to some cheesy 50's adventure paperback (though presumably with more explicit--but no less "exotic"--sex scenes).
I'm also wondering how kamikaze pilots can make an appearance in a book set before the beginning of World War II, when the kamikaze were historically a last-ditch effort by the Japanese Imperial Military, to cope with the encroaching American machine landing on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. (Yes, I am aware that there some kamikaze attacks during the invasion of the Philippines, but the bulk of them were during the invasion of Okinawa in early 1945.) Maybe the kamikaze do make an appearance (I'm skeptical), but their inclusion in the newspaper story's first grafs seems like the either sloppy knowledge of a New York Times Tokyo correspondent who should know better, or more of the Tokyo Bureau's freak-show coverage.
The Buffalo Beast:
Not Japan related, but I recently came across a blogger based in Buffalo (who seems to have too much time on his hands) who has compiled a list of The Fifty Most Loathsome People in America.. A sample, based on his entry for Michael Moore (#42):
Misdeeds: Every would-be oppositionist in the country has lined up to blow Moore every since he put out the amazing film Roger and Me, anointing him as a leading political figure and a brilliant creative mind even though he's been an unfunny, egomaniacal blowhard for over ten years now. Moore wears his dissident credentials not on his sleeve, but on his head and his waistline: his mesh baseball cap and fat body are now the leading brand-ID marker for political discontent among the narrow, incestuous "enlightened left" demographic. Gertrude Stein said that "A mouth is a mouth is a mouth"; Moore shows that a media darling is a media darling is a media darling.
Aggravating Factor: The O'Reilly Factor is a hundred times more entertaining than TV Nation ever was.
Aesthetic: Upper-class poor hygiene and grooming habits disguised as working-class sloth.
This probably makes The Buffalo Beast an apologist for the Republican Party in the eyes of some, but I notice that he includes, among others, David Horowitz (#36), Pat Robertson (#34), Bill Reilly (#29 "To watch him is to be inspired to thrilling hatred, which may explain his ratings success"), Ari Fleischer (#16), and Karl Rove (#9).
In the top position? Ann Coulter: "Goebbels with tits. The phenomenon we all should have seen coming; the merger of bimbo sex appeal and neo-fascist vituperation."
Links of the Day:
The Economist: The business-oriented, somewhat conservative, British newsmagazine, a weekly must-read for me despite its stiff cover price (¥919, with tax). Its coverage of the world is thoughtful, idiosyncratic, and--this is a plus--not American (meaning it doesn't follow the herd to the extent that American media does).
Anthony Bourdain in Tokyo: The chef and author reads an essay--later incorporated in his best-selling Kitchen Confidential--on Minnesota Public Radio's food show The Splendid Table, about his trip to Tokyo to help advise a branch of his employer, the New York bistro Les Halles.
The show doesn't archive the segments individually, but you can find it between 26:30 and 37:09 on the RealAudio stream here
Books I'm Reading:
