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Summary: Why I am afraid to visit Japan
Review: I have read all of Mr. Iyer's books but The Lady and the Monk remains my favourite. It was a book I read at one sitting. It doesn't matter that it may be a highly personal view of Japan (and no traveller can hope to get the entire picture) or that he seems at times afraid to spell out what he felt for Sachiko or even that the book merely flirts with Zen Buddhism. It is Mr. Iyer's prose that carries the day and here he is at his warmest and at his best in evoking Kyoto, Sachiko,the romance of travel and the search for self-realisation. His prose is so delicate and wonderful that one is afraid to visit Japan in case the spell is broken. Anuradha
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Summary: I think I am a little in love with Pico Aver
Review: I stayed up all night reading the Lady and the Monk. This is the second book I have read by Pico Aver, the other being Video nights in Katmandu. I teach Japanese woman in Hawaii, and I can attest that Sachiko is real. Her constant tears brought me back to encounters with my Japanese friends. When the Japanese mask is removed, there is alot of repressed emotion and longing there. I am going to reread this book again. A first reading is never enough to digest Pico Ayer's lyrical descriptions. I feel he is a poet. I feel his soul through this book. For example, the way he comforts Sachiko, never lying to her that he will stay with her. It is a beautiful love story as well as a transporting guidebook to Kyoto. I am going to Japan to teach and can't wait to see Kyoto through his eyes. I encourage readers to read all of Ayers books. He has a way of observing aspects of a culture in a very short time that are both right on and romantic. He respects different cultures but is not shy about revealing his perceptions that are most of the time true. I recommend this book highly to all sensitive armchair travelers as well as for people who are just interested in Japan. I think I am a little jealous of Sachiko. They say it is better to have love and lost than to never have loved at all. And I think she was truly in love. This is one observation that Pico Ayer kept to himself
Rating:
Summary: I think I am a little in love with Pico Aver
Review: I stayed up all night reading the Lady and the Monk. This is the second book I have read by Pico Aver, the other being Video nights in Katmandu. I teach Japanese woman in Hawaii, and I can attest that Sachiko is real. Her constant tears brought me back to encounters with my Japanese friends. When the Japanese mask is removed, there is alot of repressed emotion and longing there. I am going to reread this book again. A first reading is never enough to digest Pico Ayer's lyrical descriptions. I feel he is a poet. I feel his soul through this book. For example, the way he comforts Sachiko, never lying to her that he will stay with her. It is a beautiful love story as well as a transporting guidebook to Kyoto. I am going to Japan to teach and can't wait to see Kyoto through his eyes. I encourage readers to read all of Ayers books. He has a way of observing aspects of a culture in a very short time that are both right on and romantic. He respects different cultures but is not shy about revealing his perceptions that are most of the time true. I recommend this book highly to all sensitive armchair travelers as well as for people who are just interested in Japan. I think I am a little jealous of Sachiko. They say it is better to have love and lost than to never have loved at all. And I think she was truly in love. This is one observation that Pico Ayer kept to himself
Rating:
Summary: As if leaving Kyoto wasn't hard enough...
Review: I was fortunate enough to visit Kyoto for a week during a three-month internship in Japan two years ago and instantly fell in love with the city. The harmony between the ancient and the modern in Kyoto and Japan in general is both astounding and captivating, and it was with great sadness that I had to tear myself away and head back to my job. After returning to America, I bought this book and read it twice, without putting it down, it so brought me back to Kyoto and Japan. I've not read any of Iyer's other books, but this one was excellent. He conveys a definite emotion in his writing, and one that is quite suited to discussion of Japan I think. A sort of tragic interpretation of the events he experienced, which fits in very well with the Japanese psyche, where the greatest heros are the ones who come to tragic ends. The reviews here which note that Iyer paints with too broad a brush, so to speak, I feel are unfounded. I don't think it was ever meant to be an encompassing guide to Japan or any sort of critique of its dichotomy-filled society, though he does note with care all of them he encounters. Instead, it is simply one man's experience in Japan, take it or leave it. Sachiko is a real person he met, with real problems, and she went about solving them in a real way. I know Japanese women in similar situations, so to say they either don't exist is silly. I don't want to say too much about what happens, so I'll just finish by saying that I personally found this book very moving. I miss Japan a lot and I hope I can go back soon. Five stars easily.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointed
Review: I was very disappointed by this book. Based on the reviews, I thought it would provide some insight on modern Japan and it's culture. Unfortunately, the only insight it does provide is how hard it is for a 'gaijin' to penetrate the Japanese culture enough to know about it. This book is more about the experience of foreigners in Japan. Be warned...
Rating:
Summary: I LOVED it.
Review: I would highly recommend it, extol it even, to anyone (even the greatest cultural ignoramus) who is interested in Japanese culture. I found it tender, moving and exceptionally sensitive ...
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Summary: The old and the new
Review: I've been living in Osaka, Japan for almost a year. I read this book three times before I came here, and each time I did so I felt even more impatient to get here. What struck me the most about Iyer's portrayal of Japan was not the beauty of old Japan, but rather that this beauty is juxtaposed with ugly urban modernity. In fact, I made up my mind to buy the book when I read one detail on the back: the monks who befriended Iyer when he arrived wore Nike shoes. Like many Western visitors to Japan, I wanted to see an old culture, knowing full well that this culture no longer exists in its pristine state. So, far from tempering any yearning on my part for ancient Japan, incongruities such as the monks' shoes made me even more curious. In the character of Sachiko, Iyer attempts (among other things) to personify this clash between ancient and modern. However, I don't think Sachiko is an entirely plausible character because Iyer presents her as a personification of the incongruities that he finds in Japan. She embodies contradictions that I, at any rate, have never discovered in any Japanese person. (Maybe I should get out more.) In other words, I can't help feeling that Sachiko is painted in extreme colours for artistic purposes, perhaps even exploited. Ultimately, therefore, the book is much more about Japan than about Sachiko. It is often said that Japanese people see what they want to see, ignoring the unpleasant or unpalatable. Like any other cliche, there's a kernel of truth in this. I think that "The Lady and the Monk" is a consciously 'Japanese' kind of book, from the flavour of certain metaphors to the way that certain details are left tantalisingly implicit - as other reviewers have already pointed out. Even more importantly, however, Iyer sees what he wants to see. There is little, if any, criticism of Japan in this book; it is by no means a balanced picture. Still, is criticism compatible with infatuation? I think not. A couple of days after arriving in Japan, I saw a woman in a kimono making a call on her mobile 'phone. Iyer had been right.
Rating:
Summary: A moving personal narrative
Review: Iyer's "The Lady and the Monk" is an engaging and ultimately moving story about a his time in Japan, working as a reporter and attempting to learn something about Zen. Early in his visit he met a young married woman who became a close friend, despite tremendous language difficulties seperating them. The book details both his coming to grips with Japanese history and society and her struggle to find her own identity within the constraints of the rigid roles that exist in Japanese society. In the end, both learn much about themselves, and about Japan.
While The Lady and the Monk is a mainly a story about two people, it nonetheless manages to convey more about the nature of Japan than many books that devote hundreds of pages to that end. Iyer also conveys much of the spirit of Zen, and of the differences and similarlities between Western and Eastern culture, and how we perceive each other.
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Summary: It was like I was in Japan again!
Review: Maybe its my love of Japan and Japanese culture. Maybe its how wondeful I thought Kyoto was. Maybe it was my failed romance with a beautiful Japanese girl. Whatever the cause, this book struck a nerve. It was like I was transported back to the beautiful city of Kyoto. The whole time I read this book, I truely felt like I was back in Japan. The descriptions of the city and its people, plus the contrast of Western expecations and Japanese realities made this book almost magical. This book is a must for those who have been to Japan and still think about their magical stays there. It is a must for those of us who still try to cling onto the memories of our visits.
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Summary: Iyer's analysis is accurate
Review: Pico Iyer captures the spirit of Kyoto as a foreigner in this book. Iyer portrays in his book the difficulty in communication between Japanese women and the foreigners they fall for. The mysticism of O-Bon, the Japanese festival of the dead. And the frustrating and even heartbreaking relationships of too many Japanese couples - all while he himself is slowly falling for a married Japanese women that he cannot effectively communicate with. But he does a good job at it. I lived in Japan as a foreigner for a few years (made me appreciate the book more) and can say that Iyer is pretty accurate in his analysis of the country. Nonetheless, it's a good read for anyone.
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