Keene, Donald. Chronicles of My Life: an American in the Heart of Japan. Columbia University Press, 2008.
Reason read: November 3rd is Cultural Day in Japan…or so I have heard.
Despite being brief, Chronicles of My Life is a fascinating look at Japanese scholar, Donald Keene at eighty-four years of age. A love of languages led Donald Keene to work as a Japanese translator in Hawaii in 1943. Joining the navy as an interpreter led him to China and subsequently, Japan. Keene soon developed a routine of wintering in New York and summering in Japan. Over the course of many years he met and became close with many writers, translating their works when he wasn’t teaching at Columbia. His dedication to lifelong learning and scholarship prevented him from settling down and having a family, but regardless he led a very full life.
As an aside, I was struck by how remarkable the Japanese were for their acceptance of an American living and studying in their midst so soon after the Occupation. While Keene experienced abrupt endings to some friendships which baffled him, he managed to remain generous with his compliments of them.
Lines to think about, “I often think sadly of how much worse the world has grown” (p 137).
Keene mentioned The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Ono. It is on my Challenge list. I need to make sure I read the translation by Arthur Waley. Another Japanese work on my Challenge list is The Sea of Fertility series by Yukio Mishima (Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn and Decay of the Angel).
Author fact: Donald Keene was a scholar, studying not only language and literature, but calligraphy, music, and theater. He died at ninety-six years of age.
Book trivia: Chronicles of My Life was illustrated by Akira Yamaguchi.
Music: Kirsten Flagstad, Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, Victoria de los Angeles, Boris Godunov, Salome, Norma, Lauritz Melchior, Boris Christoff, Ljuba Welitsch, Maria Callas, Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs, Beethoven’s Eroica and Fidelio, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Wagner, Tannhauser, and Verdi.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Japanese Journeys” (p 116).
