![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
#5 Platform - Tokyo Rising
Apr. 13th, 2008 02:20 pmA more disjointed history from a great lover of Tokyo.
Book #13: Tokyo Rising
Author: Edward Seidensticker
Provenance: Bought used off of Amazon.com
This is the second half of the history of Tokyo from Meiji on by Seidensticker, covering the time period after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 until the end of the Showa period in the late 1980s. Much like the first book, you get a very good sense of how much Seidensticker knows about the city: both the outward appearances and the pulse of it that lies underneath. He definitely gives a good sense of the changes over time, as well. One definitely can get a sense of Tokyo from the book.
That said, I feel that the book isn't as good as the first one, and certainly shouldn't be read without having read Low City, High City first. Again, the main trouble is one of organization. In the first book, mostly about Meiji, the chapters were grouped roughly by topic, which worked fairly well, although he jumped back and forth in time, and so it got hard to follow at points. In this one, the chapters are divided by time period: reconstruction after the earthquake, leadup to the war, occupation, etc. Each chapter tends to then look at each of the subareas of interest to Seidensticker: population movement, architecture, entertainment, etc. The problem still is that he jumps around in time a lot, and when you're grouping by time period, that's a real problem. It does get hard to follow some of the time, because of it.
But Seidensticker still has great stories and anecdotes to detail his points, still has that wry voice in his writing that I really like, still gives you lots of information about the city that I find quite interesting. I did still like the book, but I think it could probably have used a bit more revision before going out, so it all hung together a bit better. Even if I feel ambivalent about his main point (Tokyo no longer has a culture of its own, but has a national culture for Japan), it's well presented... just a bit jumpy sometimes. If you're inclined to books on Japan, this won't be a bad choice, but I wouldn't start here.
Next up: Looking for Class. Yeah, more non-fiction, but it's more about travel, so it should be faster.
Book #13: Tokyo Rising
Author: Edward Seidensticker
Provenance: Bought used off of Amazon.com
This is the second half of the history of Tokyo from Meiji on by Seidensticker, covering the time period after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 until the end of the Showa period in the late 1980s. Much like the first book, you get a very good sense of how much Seidensticker knows about the city: both the outward appearances and the pulse of it that lies underneath. He definitely gives a good sense of the changes over time, as well. One definitely can get a sense of Tokyo from the book.
That said, I feel that the book isn't as good as the first one, and certainly shouldn't be read without having read Low City, High City first. Again, the main trouble is one of organization. In the first book, mostly about Meiji, the chapters were grouped roughly by topic, which worked fairly well, although he jumped back and forth in time, and so it got hard to follow at points. In this one, the chapters are divided by time period: reconstruction after the earthquake, leadup to the war, occupation, etc. Each chapter tends to then look at each of the subareas of interest to Seidensticker: population movement, architecture, entertainment, etc. The problem still is that he jumps around in time a lot, and when you're grouping by time period, that's a real problem. It does get hard to follow some of the time, because of it.
But Seidensticker still has great stories and anecdotes to detail his points, still has that wry voice in his writing that I really like, still gives you lots of information about the city that I find quite interesting. I did still like the book, but I think it could probably have used a bit more revision before going out, so it all hung together a bit better. Even if I feel ambivalent about his main point (Tokyo no longer has a culture of its own, but has a national culture for Japan), it's well presented... just a bit jumpy sometimes. If you're inclined to books on Japan, this won't be a bad choice, but I wouldn't start here.
Next up: Looking for Class. Yeah, more non-fiction, but it's more about travel, so it should be faster.
