The tale of a young Japanese woman's encounter with the West during the Meiji era—as told with unfortunately little resonance by great-granddaughter Kuno. In researching this story, Kuno not only retraced her ancestor's footsteps in the US but found a rich trove of letters and memorabilia to draw on in the Yale and Vassar archives. Sutematsu, daughter of an impoverished samurai who'd supported the shogun against the emperor, was a young participant in the 1868 siege that ended the shogunate. Four years later, the 11-year-old Sutematsu and five other girls left Japan to be educated in America. Their education was funded by the imperial government, which had embarked on a program of rapid modernization, but this support didn't reflect any official embrace of women's equality but, rather, the ``dubious premise that intelligent women would become intelligent mothers and intelligent mothers must give birth to children as equally endowed with brains.'' Sutematsu was fortunate to be placed in the New Haven home of the Rev. Leonard Bacon, a noted abolitionist and preacher, where she became a beloved member of the family and formed lifelong friendships. Kuno records the young woman's successes in high school; her even more luminous time at Vassar, where she was class valedictorian; and her poignant reentry into Japanese society. Recalled home by the government in 1882, Sutematsu soon realized that Japan wasn't ready for an emancipated woman. She married Japan's army minister, a much older but cosmopolitan and enlightened man, in order to work behind the scenes to realize her ambition of educating women—which she did by helping to establish the nation's first school of English and higher learning for Japanese women. A rather perfunctory introduction that only hints at the implications and pathos of Sutematsu's story. Sutematsu and her brave companions deserve more, but this is at least a long overdue beginning. (Twenty-six b&w photographs—not seen)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1993
ISBN: 4-77001-638-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Kodansha
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1993
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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