Informative and entertaining perspectives on Asia.
In this scattershot collection, Buruma (Anglomania, 1999, etc.) examines a wide range of cultural, sensual, and destructive encounters between East and West and the gross, subtle, and sometimes violent ways in which Orient and Occident have misunderstood and changed each other.
Buruma’s dichotomy of “missionary and libertine” sums up contrasting Orientalist misperceptions of the Far East: at the extremes, Westerners often viewed Asian countries as zones of guilt-free eroticism and, on the other hand, as places in need of the bracing discipline of Western morality. Asians, in turn, have had their sometimes-surprising take on the West, on colonialism, and on their own traditional cultures. Critiquing the literature, popular culture, film, and politics of Asia, Buruma meditates on some of the results: the disorienting blend of Western-style narcissism with traditional Japanese themes in the life of the “suicidal dandy” novelist Yukio Mishima; the kitschy work of Japanese writer Yoshimoto Banana; the Tokyo musings of American Japanophile Edwin Seidensticker; the Western-influenced work of Bengali director Satyajit Ray and novelist V.S. Naipaul; the real-life affair between Mircea Eliade and Maitreyi Dasgupta, and its literary aftermath; the political autobiography of the Radcliffe-educated Benazir Bhutto; the peculiar combination of racism and benevolence that characterized the American conquest and rule of the Philippines; Hong Kong’s transition to Chinese rule; contrasting Japanese and US views of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and the mutual underestimation of Japanese and American that helped cause the Pearl Harbor attack and persists today. Complementing the generous scope of the author’s imagination is Buruma’s humane and literate voice, which illuminates the cultural (and other) contrasts between East and West while always engaging the reader.
Informative and entertaining perspectives on Asia.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50222-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
A straightforward tale of kindness and paying it forward in 1980s New York.
When advertising executive Schroff answered a child’s request for spare change by inviting him for lunch, she did not expect the encounter to grow into a friendship that would endure into his adulthood. The author recounts how she and Maurice, a promising boy from a drug-addicted family, learned to trust each other. Schroff acknowledges risks—including the possibility of her actions being misconstrued and the tension of crossing socio-economic divides—but does not dwell on the complexities of homelessness or the philosophical problems of altruism. She does not question whether public recognition is beneficial, or whether it is sufficient for the recipient to realize the extent of what has been done. With the assistance of People human-interest writer Tresniowski (Tiger Virtues, 2005, etc.), Schroff adheres to a personal narrative that traces her troubled relationship with her father, her meetings with Maurice and his background, all while avoiding direct parallels, noting that their childhoods differed in severity even if they shared similar emotional voids. With feel-good dramatizations, the story seldom transcends the message that reaching out makes a difference. It is framed in simple terms, from attributing the first meeting to “two people with complicated pasts and fragile dreams” that were “somehow meant to be friends” to the conclusion that love is a driving force. Admirably, Schroff notes that she did not seek a role as a “substitute parent,” and she does not judge Maurice’s mother for her lifestyle. That both main figures experience a few setbacks yet eventually survive is never in question; the story fittingly concludes with an epilogue by Maurice. For readers seeking an uplifting reminder that small gestures matter.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4251-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Howard Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
As with nearly all of Lewis’ books, this one succeeds on so many levels, including as a well-written primer on how the...
Lewis (The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds, 2016, etc.) turns timely political reporting he published in Vanity Fair into a book about federal government bureaucracies during the first year of the Donald Trump presidency.
At first, the author’s curiosity about the relationship between individual citizens and massive federal agencies supported by taxpayer dollars did not lead him to believe the book would become a searing indictment of Trump. However, Lewis wisely allowed the evidence to dictate the narrative, resulting in a book-length indictment of Trump’s disastrous administration. The leading charge of the indictment is what Lewis terms “willful ignorance.” Neither Trump nor his appointees to head government agencies have demonstrated even the slightest curiosity about how those agencies actually function. After Trump’s election in November 2016, nobody from his soon-to-be-inaugurated administration visited federal agencies despite thorough preparation within those agencies to assist in a traditionally nonpartisan transition. Lewis primarily focuses on the Energy Department, the Agriculture Department, and the Commerce Department. To provide context, he contrasts the competent transition teams assembled after the previous elections of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Displaying his usual meticulous research and fluid prose, the author makes the federal bureaucracy come alive by focusing on a few individuals within each agency with fascinating—and sometimes heartwarming—backstories. In addition, Lewis explains why each of those individuals is important to the citizenry due to their sometimes-arcane but always crucial roles within the government. Throughout the book, unforgettable tidbits emerge, such as the disclosure by a Forbes magazine compiler of the world’s wealthiest individuals list that only three tycoons have intentionally misled the list’s compilers—one of the three is Trump, and another is Wilbur Ross, appointed by Trump as Commerce Secretary.
As with nearly all of Lewis’ books, this one succeeds on so many levels, including as a well-written primer on how the government serves citizens in underappreciated ways.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-324-00264-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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