The Lady and the Monk (Vintage Departures) [Paperback]

I was baffled to read some of the criticisms readers at Amazon gave this book. I found the accusations that Iyer is condescending to be the most perplexing. I've read lots of travel writing, and have found that many travel writers spend most of their time analyzing their chosen destination with a God-like impersonal analysis of the place's foibles that certainly does often come across as arrogant or ignorant.

What struck me about this book was how much Iyer does *not* do this. He certainly spends a lot of time analyzing and trying to figure out both Japan and the people he encounters there, but he is no more critical of others than he is of himself, no more critical of Japan than of his own culture(s). He does not watch from a distance, but participates in what he writes about, from interacting with 'The Lady' to dipping his foot into the waters of a monk's life, and exposes his own floundering. He criticizes not only that which he participates in, but also his own foibles and inability to realize the rigor and discipline of Zen, his own inability to understand Sachiko and give her what she needs and wants.

I came away from the book seeing Sachiko *not* as someone who is helpless or hapless, but rather, as someone who, like all of us, struggles between dreams and duties. Yet unlike most of us, Sachiko taps into a well of deep inner strength and vision and breaks through the restrictions of her cultural conditioning to realize her dreams. I thought Sachiko came across as much stronger, with more grace and understanding, than Iyer, who often is reduced to clumsy assurances as he tries to fathom her rich inner world. Yet this is not to say that Iyer comes across poorly, but rather that he comes across as an honest and likable narrator unafraid to expose the personal hues and struggles of his journey.

The analysis of Japan and the people he meets in which Pico engages is a usual feature of travel writing, and as always, his analysis may or may not be accurate. But unlike many travel writers, he exposes his own biases and inaccurate perceptions often by comparing his idealized visions of Japan to the idealized visions of others about other cultures. He clearly shows how his preferences shape his experience, instead of presenting snippets of literature or cultural observation as if they were gleaned from an impersonal textbook about Japan. This is a very personal experience, and I find Pico to be a very warm, likable, and human narrator, whose personal sense of magic and wonder fills this book and transports the reader.

Mr. Iyer has the ability to paint a complex portrait in words. I found myself sharing his discoveries, from his experiences in the temples to the very modern music clubs. The center of the book, however, is Sachiko. She's 30 years old, the mother of two children and married to a Japanese businessman who spends 18 or more hours a day at work. She speaks English with difficulty but has read a lot of classic literature and is also an aficionado of a wide variety of pop music icons. In spite of her traditional upbringing, she yearns for a larger life, beyond the confines of her home.

Mr. Iyer becomes her friend and they do a lot of sightseeing together. She's free all day and so is he, which makes their friendship easy. Some of the most interesting scenes are when he tries to speak Japanese and she tries to speak English and misunderstandings follow, both because of the language itself and also because of different ways of thinking.

I'm a romantic and fully expected their relationship to blossom into an intimate one, but Mr. Iyer is so evasive that even though they do become very close, he avoids those kinds of topics. Instead, he focuses on what he perceives to be her feelings and his growing understanding of her. It seems a little strange to me that only in the later part of the book did he drop a gentle hint that their relationship was a bit more than that of just friends. But even then, I never was sure.

This is a great travelogue. I not only learned a lot but also recognized things I have come to understand about the Japanese character. There are long sections about literature, both Japanese and Western, which I found to be boring. And the relationship between Iyer and Sachiko left me annoyed. But for a unique picture of Kyoto and a deeper understanding of the cross-cultural differences between Japanese and Westerners, I do give it a definite recommendation.

The title comes from a Buddhist story about a beautiful woman who tempted a monk, much as Buddha was tempted by an evil god as he sat under the Bodhi tree searching for enlightenment.

Pico is an essayist for Time magazine and he is far more interested in the somewhat schizophrenic nature of the Japanese people than he is in Buddhism. His main subject is a housewife named Sachiko who is married to a Japanese "salary man," who works from six in the morning until eleven at night. His family life is an afterthought. Sachiko loves everything foreign from the Beatles to Mickey Mouse. She calls Pico a "bird" because he is free to wander all over the globe while she is a slave to her husband and two young children.

According to Iyer, Japan is close to a utopian society and Kyoto is the cleanest city he's ever seen. Sachiko is a fascinating character. When she introduces Pico to her children she apologizes for their misbehavior although they are much more well-behaved than western children Pico has known.

Pico and Sachiko's relationship is perplexing at first. She hints that she might want something more than a platonic relationship. He's wise enough to know that it's the dream of a romance, the romance she's seen in the movies, that she's after.

There are some wonderful moments in THE LADY AND THE MONK: Sachiko's mangled English with the occasional Japanese word thrown in and the lack of articles; Iyer's description of cherry blossom time; the albino monk Pico meets when he stays at the temple; the Hanchu Tigers last game of the year when Randy Bass, their American homerun hitter, bows to the fans fifteen times. The fans are just as enthusiastic as they would be if this were a World Series team and not a team thirty-some games out of first.

The main emphasis of the book, though, is Sachiko's story arc; we see her beginning to grow away from her salaryman husband, we see her trying to make her dreams become a reality, despite the censure of her mother and friends. We get the impression that the more Japanese women are exposed to the West the more Sachikos there will be.