9781861890344
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Tokyo: A View of the City (Topographics Series) share button
Donald Richie
Genre Travel
Format Paperback
Dimensions 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 0.50 (d)
Pages 139
Publisher Reaktion Books, Limited
Publication Date April 1999
ISBN 9781861890344
Book ISBN 10 1861890346
About Book

Donald Richie takes the reader on a revealing tour of the different districts of Japan's capital city. Starting from the original centre of Tokyo – the Imperial Palace – Richie branches outwards, taking in other areas such as Yoshiwara, the original red-light district, and Ginza, the world-famous shipping street. The author has kept a diary for the entire time he has lived in Tokyo, and excerpts from it provide on-the-spot insights into the significance of fashions and fads in Japanese culture (for example the recent Tamagochi craze), as well as the various aspects of life in a small neighborhood. Richie gives a real sense of how Japanese society has changed since the Second World War, yet remained rooted in its past.

With the eclectic eye and ear of a film-maker, Richie describes the flavor and idiosyncrasies of this chaotic, teeming city. Tokyo is illustrated with 30 intriguing photographs by Seattle-based photographer, Joel Sackett.

Reviews

Library Journal

This small book is more an impressionistic "appreciation" than a guidebook or reference. Richie, the author of several books on Japan and an authority on Japanese film, discusses Tokyo's history, oddities, fads, mores, and habits. At the same time, he starts at the Imperial Palace in the middle of Tokyo and leads us outward, discussing areas including Asakusa, Ueno, the Ginza, and Shinjuku, though without maps. Richie quotes liberally from his own journal, kept continuously from 1947 to the present, as well as from such diverse authors as Aristotle, Italo Calvino, Edward Said, and Japanese authors Kobo Abe, Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, and Yasunari Kawabata, among others. The quotations deal with general impressions of life or observations about various cities around the world, comparing or contrasting them to Tokyo. Richie is certainly knowledgeable and pleasant to read, but this book seems better suited to those who have visited Tokyo or who appreciate one person's view of life there.--Kitty Dean Chen, Nassau Coll., Garden City, NY Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
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