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The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan

por Christopher Benfey

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When the United States entered the Gilded Age after the Civil War, argues cultural historian Christopher Benfey, the nation lost its philosophical moorings and looked eastward to "Old Japan," with its seemingly untouched indigenous culture, for balance and perspective. Japan, meanwhile, was trying to reinvent itself as a more cosmopolitan, modern state, ultimately transforming itself, in the course of twenty-five years, from a feudal backwater to an international power. This great wave of historical and cultural reciprocity between the two young nations, which intensified during the late 1800s, brought with it some larger-than-life personalities, as the lure of unknown foreign cultures prompted pilgrimages back and forth across the Pacific. In The Great Wave, Benfey tells the story of the tightly knit group of nineteenth-century travelers--connoisseurs, collectors, and scientists--who dedicated themselves to exploring and preserving Old Japan. As Benfey writes, "A sense of urgency impelled them, for they were convinced--Darwinians that they were--that their quarry was on the verge of extinction." These travelers include Herman Melville, whose Pequod is "shadowed by hostile and mysterious Japan"; the historian Henry Adams and the artist John La Farge, who go to Japan on an art-collecting trip and find exotic adventures; Lafcadio Hearn, who marries a samurai's daughter and becomes Japan's preeminent spokesman in the West; Mabel Loomis Todd, the first woman to climb Mt. Fuji; Edward Sylvester Morse, who becomes the world's leading expert on both Japanese marine life and Japanese architecture; the astronomer Percival Lowell, who spends ten years in the East and writes seminal works on Japanese culture before turning his restless attention to life on Mars; and President (and judo enthusiast) Theodore Roosevelt. As well, we learn of famous Easterners come West, including Kakuzo Okakura, whose The Book of Tea became a cult favorite, and Shuzo Kuki, a leading philosopher of his time, who studied with Heidegger and tutored Sartre. Finally, as Benfey writes, his meditation on cultural identity "seeks to capture a shared mood in both the Gilded Age and the Meiji Era, amid superficial promise and prosperity, of an overmastering sense of precariousness and impending peril."… (más)
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The Japanese archipelago was closed to all foreigners (on penalty of death) until Admiral Perry's "kurofune" (black ships) forced open Tokyo Bay, and triggered an internal "Meji Restoration" which placed top priority on modernizing the Japanese economy and military in 1868. During the Belle Époque from 1870-World War I, Japan became a favored go-to destination for scholars, adventurers, and artists, who couldn't get enough of this new and novel, previously-unknown culture. The book follows some of the most prominent Westerners, as well as emissaries from Japan who traveled to the Occident and became minor celebrities.

The book is not overly scholarly; it's basically a period piece, showing how bits and pieces of Japanese culture were eagerly consumed and imitated by the West- mainly by the United States. The one thing that came as a surprise to me was how Boston was the undisputed epicenter of the early 20th century American obsession with Japan. Socialite/art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner funded numerous purchasing expeditions, and even today, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum have the most extensive collections of Japanese classical art outside of Japan. Many of the other luminaries mentioned in this book were in Gardner's social orbit during this time: zoologist Edward Morse (Boston University has an auditorium named after him), astronomer Percival Lowell (whose discovery of trenches on Mars led to the popular belief that intelligent life must have dug these canals; thus fueling H.G. Wells to write "War of the Worlds"), and the sexually twisted astronomer/author power couple David and Mabel Todd (Mabel wrote Emily Dickenson's biography). Herman Melville is also mentioned.

To be honest, the book didn't exactly knock my socks off, but it was interesting to see how much cultural cross-pollination occurred between Japan and the US before World War I. Since the end of World War II, Japan and the US have shared an amazingly close relationship- in part because the US occupied Japan, and set up many of its modern-day institutions, modeled on our own image. This book clarified my own misconception that the two nations hadn't been particularly close before then. ( )
  BirdBrian | Feb 2, 2014 |
An interesting look at many of the connections that literary, artistic, political and other folks -- primarily in the Boston/New England region -- had with each other and with Japan during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Centering heavily on Boston and its art museums and benefactors, you also learn about that region's influence on Japan, and Japan's influence on it and American society in general. It does meander at times, plunging into grand (but interesting!) diversions that seem at first disconnected yet ultimately make sense related to Japan, but overall a great read. Originally written on Oct 17, 2007 at 02:08AM ( )
1 vota ceruleandaze | Feb 17, 2011 |
An amazing look at some of the American progressives, that came to Japan after the opening up of the country, to look for a more "pure" place. Great stories and personalities. This book gives an understanding of what kind of currents were in the intellectual scene of Boston in particular. Also shows that these people, who thought they found the "authentic Japan", were all shown the same tourist attractions. Recommended! ( )
1 vota danielbeattie | May 24, 2008 |
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When the United States entered the Gilded Age after the Civil War, argues cultural historian Christopher Benfey, the nation lost its philosophical moorings and looked eastward to "Old Japan," with its seemingly untouched indigenous culture, for balance and perspective. Japan, meanwhile, was trying to reinvent itself as a more cosmopolitan, modern state, ultimately transforming itself, in the course of twenty-five years, from a feudal backwater to an international power. This great wave of historical and cultural reciprocity between the two young nations, which intensified during the late 1800s, brought with it some larger-than-life personalities, as the lure of unknown foreign cultures prompted pilgrimages back and forth across the Pacific. In The Great Wave, Benfey tells the story of the tightly knit group of nineteenth-century travelers--connoisseurs, collectors, and scientists--who dedicated themselves to exploring and preserving Old Japan. As Benfey writes, "A sense of urgency impelled them, for they were convinced--Darwinians that they were--that their quarry was on the verge of extinction." These travelers include Herman Melville, whose Pequod is "shadowed by hostile and mysterious Japan"; the historian Henry Adams and the artist John La Farge, who go to Japan on an art-collecting trip and find exotic adventures; Lafcadio Hearn, who marries a samurai's daughter and becomes Japan's preeminent spokesman in the West; Mabel Loomis Todd, the first woman to climb Mt. Fuji; Edward Sylvester Morse, who becomes the world's leading expert on both Japanese marine life and Japanese architecture; the astronomer Percival Lowell, who spends ten years in the East and writes seminal works on Japanese culture before turning his restless attention to life on Mars; and President (and judo enthusiast) Theodore Roosevelt. As well, we learn of famous Easterners come West, including Kakuzo Okakura, whose The Book of Tea became a cult favorite, and Shuzo Kuki, a leading philosopher of his time, who studied with Heidegger and tutored Sartre. Finally, as Benfey writes, his meditation on cultural identity "seeks to capture a shared mood in both the Gilded Age and the Meiji Era, amid superficial promise and prosperity, of an overmastering sense of precariousness and impending peril."

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