Doing things out of chronological sequence as I frequently do. Have just finished “On The Narrow Road To The Deep North” by Lesley Downer, a re-creation in 1989 of a journey made 300 years previously by Matsuo Basho, and I have now started on the latter, being the original.

Basho was a traveller and poet whose Haiku (17 syllable poems) made him nationally famous in seventeenth century Japan and whose travels provide an insight both into urban and remote rural life in the country during that period.

Downer’s primary motivation was to see whether any vestiges of the hermit priest way of life encountered by Basho in the north of Honshu still existed. She certainly found communities far removed from the glossy, hi-tech supercharged Japan of the 80s/90s, villages where subsistence farmers assumed that all foreigners were richer then Japanese people, and were astonished to learn from Downer that most foreigners viewed the Japanese as among the wealthiest people on earth. Downer has no qualms about walking and hitch-hiking her way around Japan, and is met with almost universal kindness and interest, lodging with and being fed by families who have in some cases little to share. Recommended.

Now back to 1689 where Basho is sitting outside his lodgings in the evening:

“The voices of plovers

Invite me to stare

Into the darkness

Of the starlit promontory”

Liza Dalby is another excellent writer on Japan. I adored her imaginative recreation of the life of Lady Murasaki Shikhibu, the writer of the first novel it is suggested, “The Tale of Genji”. The novel The Tale of Lady Murasaki hits that perfect note of melancholy and poetry characterised by much written around that 11th c period. The book is gentle and slow, full of poetry and nature, and might be a healing antidote for COVID times. Dalby also wrote Geisha. She was the first, maybe still the only, non-Japanese woman to become a geisha. A really interesting view from inside the geisha world. ( )

On the Narrow Road to the Deep North is Lesley Downer's first book, a travelogue that reveals small town and rural Japan in the late 1980s, a place that's a world away from the Japan of popular thought. Downer had lived in Japan a decade earlier, and had studied the language and history of the country. Her depth of knowledge coupled with her engaging writing makes this a gem of a book. She takes her lead from the poet Matsuo Basho, following in his footsteps 300 years after his pilgrimage into the Deep North. On her trip, Downer lets go of the comforts and reassurances of modern life and allows herself to experience Basho's world. She is welcomed into the homes of different people, experiencing the joy of being made a part of their lives for however short a time. I loved the way this book transported me out of my immediate surroundings and into another world. That's what all good travel writing should do. ( )

This was not a fast book to read, but a book that takes its time. Lesley Downer, a Japan scholar from Britain, sets out to trace the steps of the famous 17th century Japanese poet Basho and his companion of their trip to the North of Japan, through mountains and distant valleys. Basho, famous for his haiku's, wrote in detail about his trip and also wrote many haikus at the places they stayed during their 5-month long walking trip. Lesley quotes some of these in her book when she visits (or tries to, some are gone) the same places as they did. Away from the coastal cities concrete, neon, and traffic, she is looking for a lost Japan, a country that might have some similarity to how Japan was in the 1600s, rural, peaceful, and undisturbed by the stressful, modern world.. She does find it, but it is endangered and not much left of it.

Her detailed writing gives you a fantastic introduction to Japanese medieval history, literature and haiku, and also the current and past traditions of 'regular' people. She doesn't avoid talking about fear of foreigners, her own tiredness and embarrassments, and highlights the great people she meets by coincidence during her trip, which isn't as long as Basho's in time, and not all by foot. She uses trains, buses, and hitchhikes, and walks where is is possible, mostly in the mountains. I know very little about Japan, and I think this book taught be at least five times more than I knew. Densely written at time, it is a lovely book, a book for contemplation and reading 2-3 pages at the time. Highly recommended to anybody that loves biographical stories, foreign countries, history, and literature.

Read more: http://pondpond.blogspot.com/2011/01/book-review-on-narrow-road-journey-into.htm...
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I love this book and have read it so many times over the years. Lesley Downer's travels in the footsteps of Matsuo Basho are touching and amusing at times. ( )

British author retraces the footsteps of legendary 17th Century Japanese writer Basho. She does a good job of contrasting the past and present, though the literary/historical references did bog down things slightly at times for me; readers with a background in those areas should find this book a real treat! ( )