Japanese Author – …on the B.L.

Difficulty: II
Length: I
Quick Review: A beautiful look into the history and importance of tea from a master and historian.

Written by and for the tea lover. This incredibly short book is jam packed with teaism. In reality, The Book of Tea isn’t a book at all but a long essay by the Japanese scholar Kakuzo Okakura. Written in English for the Western world to pear inside the world and history of Japan through tea. Tea is a central component of Japanese and Asian identity. It has played a major role in their culture for a millenia and some. With a beginning in the religious and medicinal worlds, tea evolved into a staple beverage in Asia and eventually the world. As times changed so did tea. It has lived a life in three different stages with three different preparations. Boiled Tea came from a cake or brick of tea, which, at one point in time, the ingredients included salt and even onions. After that period, Whipped Tea was concocted from a powder forever leaving behind salt and onion. As technology progressed, tea arrived in its modern form of Steeped Tea utilizing the leaves. Whipped Tea or powdered tea is still present but not popular.

The first traces of tea, as we know it, arriving in Europe was documented by Marco Polo in 879. Tea gained immense popularity in the sixteenth century as access increased and cost decreased. Tea became a drink of the people no longer reserved for the filthy rich and royal.

Okakura talks extensively about the history and significance of tea. It embedded itself in the Asian cultures and religions. Tea plays a significant role in Taoism and Zennism. The tea ceremony has evolved as Tea Masters have mastered the art. Okakura discusses the masters in length before describing the tea ceremony. The efforts required to hold the ceremony are extensive starting long before one even begins. The tea room must be built from the best materials, flowers must be just so, the tea must be grown correctly, so on and so forth. Like many things in Japan, the tea ceremony is executed with precision and mindfulness.

Okakura’s first language was Japanese, but he wrote The Book of Tea in English. The language is simple, elegant, and captivating. He draws the reader into his world. Through focusing on tea, he is able to allow the Western world into a culture vastly different than our own. His words are about more than tea; they are about appreciating the beauty in life.

Memorable Quotes:
“Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage.”
“In joy or sadness, the flowers are our constant friends.”
“He only who has lived with the beautiful can die beautifully.”

Title: The Book of Tea
Author: Kakuzo Okakura
Publisher: Dover Publications, Inc
Copyright: 1964
ISBN: 9780486200705

Read Yes
Length 925
Quick Review Long but worth it. It’s a surreal, mystery, dystopian, fantastical love story. Technically it’s three books, but I read it in a volume of one.

Haruki Murakami wrote 1Q84 in three separately published books; however, the translated version appeared as a single volume with subsequent publications separating them again. I read it as one, and my only complaint is it’s awkward to finagle that large of a paperback.

1Q84 is a woven narrative of two characters finding their way through a world they happen into towards one another. The characters are rounded, real, and tangible to anyone who has feelings. Though the storyline is dystopian and the plot full of things no one on earth will ever experience, the characters are reachable. Their overwhelming sense of loneliness uniquely captures an aspect of humanity everyone feels in varying degrees of severity.

Murakami explores themes like religion, cult, politics, love, fate, and ultimately humanity by stepping away from the world we live in into a dystopian universe with two moons.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t read any of Murakami’s other works. If this is the standard, I need to read more. Though, I’m sad it’s only available to me in translation. Books always lose things in translation. Since I have experience in the field, I always read translations wondering what was changed, what was lost, are their cultural things I’m not getting, etc., and I am left to wonder how fabulous the original happens to be.

It’s odd. Less than 200 pages from the end of the third book, the narration style changes briefly. Throughout the book, up until this point, the narrative focuses on the perspective of one character per chapter. Here, the narration includes the happenings of the other significant characters implying the convergence of the storylines. Normally, the narrator is third person from whatever character is the action of the chapter. In this minor section, the narrator is different. The narrator becomes omniscient for the blippest of a moment. Though subtle, it stands out because it veers so drastically from the 976 pages of previously dominating narrative. Just as quickly, the new style evaporates into the original. As far as the last 50 pages, the narration style is thrown into the air as everything comes together.

Memorable Quotes
“If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.”
“Feelings like that don’t give you any choice, do they?” Aomame said. “They come at you whenever they want to.”
“‘Massacre?’ ‘The ones who did it can always rationalize their action and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don’t want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can’t turn away.’”
“But people can never fully divorce themselves from the images implanted during early childhood”
“There is always just a thin line separating deep faith from intolerance.”
“Somehow the world survived the Nazis, the atomic bomb, and modern music.”

Title: 1Q84

Author: Haruki Murakami
Translated By: Jay Rubin (Book 1 & 2) and Philip Gabriel (Book 3)
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Copyright: 2011