Sake & Satori: Asian Journals, Japan

Rating:
Summary: New Posthumous Publication/author of enduring interest!
Review: ". . . passages convey his appetite for the sights and sounds of Japan. For Campbell, religion was a subset of mythology, and the exposure to Japanese Buddhism was important to the next leg of his journey as a scholar. "Sake & Satori" is a glimpse of a supple mind, mid-career."
- Shambala Sun Magazine

Rating:
Summary: A travel diary
Review: "Sake and Satori: Asian Journals, Japan" is a travel journal, containing Joseph Campbell's musings and reflections during his 1950s Asian journey through Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Taiwan, Thailand and mostly Japan. The Japanese journey takes up around 75% of the book.

During his Japanese stay, encompassing several months, Campbell was taken around Japan by a variety of people, from American Buddhists to Japanese Professors. He saw many of the major sights of Japanese religion, in areas such as Tokyo, Nara and Kyoto. He was shown Japanese traditional arts such as Noh and Kabuki theatre, as well as hostess bars and houses of prostitution. Along with this are intricate discussions on Buddhism in Japan with local experts, and a mental ordering of ideas that was later to become "The Masks of God."

Frankly, the book is not as interesting as I was hoping. I wanted to peek into Campbell's mind, and hear his reflections on Japanese culture and religion. I wanted insights and personal thoughts about the temples and monuments of Japan that he was seeing, such as the Great Buddha of Nara. Instead, more attention is paid in the journal to which restaurants he went to that day, and how he is progressing with his Japanese language studies, and what old friends he met that day and such. He goes to restaurants and studies Japanese more than anything else, but even with these there is little insight, and mostly statements of facts.

A standard entry is along the lines of "Tuesday: Had breakfast at cute old inn. Very delicious. Was taken to see Great Buddha at Todaiji in Nara in the afternoon. Came back to Kyoto for dinner, a nice Indian restaurant. In the evening, wrote letters to Jean, and studied Japanese. I think I am getting the hang of it!"

There is much more insight and process of Indian culture than Japanese, and Campbell is clearly still bitter about his journey to India. There are many comparisons of Indian and other Asian cultures, reflecting how they got it "right" and Indian culture is stuck in a quagmire. Reading the first volume of the Asian Journals will help put all of this into perspective.

There is some good stuff here, and it is an interesting read, but it is probably more for those interested in Campbell as a person than those hoping for unique insights into Japan and Japanese culture. In one passage, Campbell wonders if he has not perhaps wasted his trip to Japan by spending long hours studying Japanese language rather than experiencing the country. I could not help but think the same thing.

Rating:
Summary: The social and political world of Japan come to life
Review: Sake & Santori is the fifth volume in a series of collected works of philosopher/spiritualist Joseph Campbell and focuses upon his cultural and spiritual interactions with Japan during his 1950s Asian journey. The changing social and political world of Japan come to life in a a set of entries relating Campbell's discourses with Japanese from all walks of life.

Rating:
Summary: The social and political world of Japan come to life
Review: Sake & Santori is the fifth volume in a series of collected works of philosopher/spiritualist Joseph Campbell and focuses upon his cultural and spiritual interactions with Japan during his 1950s Asian journey. The changing social and political world of Japan come to life in a a set of entries relating Campbell's discourses with Japanese from all walks of life.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing insight into Campbell and Japan
Review: This book is a set of journals--heavily illustrated with Campbell's own drawings and photographs-- that follow the master mythologist through an amazing period of epiphany--a crystalization not only of his understanding of his own subject, but of what that subject is and where he wants to go with it. It's also a breath-taking insight into Campbell the man: you follow him into bars, fending off the advances of married American women (and a Frenchman!), into geisha houses (a section where he is shocked to find that he has procured the services not of a masseuse but of a prostitute is both hysterically funny and incredibly touching), into Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. It even follows him on a working vacation, trailing his beloved wife, dancer Jean Erdman, as she teaches and performs around Japan. In addition to the wonderful pictures, the editor has done a great job of annotation, giving an amazing background for all the erudite references and colorful characters that come and go. I'd read Baksheesh and Brahman when it came out four or five years ago; I've just finished this one and enjoyed it every bit as much, if not more so--it answers many unanswered questions, and takes Campbell off on brand-new adventures.

Rating:
Summary: New Posthumous Publication/author of enduring interest!
Review: This is the long awaited 2nd part of Joseph Campbell's journals of his trip to the Orient in the Fifties. The first, Baksheesh and Brahman, told of India, and this book tells of other countries but mainly Japan. The book reads like a journal with varied entries about traveling, people and places of interest, etc. The post-war mood is obvious, and the political climate is interesting.
This book is less naive than the first where JC was disappointed by the spiritual/caste hypocrisy of India, and more insightful of modern Oriental life.

Rating:
Summary: Companion to Baksheesh and Brahman
Review: This is the long awaited 2nd part of Joseph Campbell's journals of his trip to the Orient in the Fifties. The first, Baksheesh and Brahman, told of India, and this book tells of other countries but mainly Japan. The book reads like a journal with varied entries about traveling, people and places of interest, etc. The post-war mood is obvious, and the political climate is interesting.
This book is less naive than the first where JC was disappointed by the spiritual/caste hypocrisy of India, and more insightful of modern Oriental life.