The Lady and the Monk
Four Seasons in Kyoto
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · October 27, 1992
When Pico Iyer decided to go to Kyoto and live in a monastery, he did so to learn about Zen Buddhism from the inside, to get to know Kyoto, one of the loveliest old cities in the world, and to find out something about Japanese culture today -- not the world of businessmen and production lines, but the traditional world of changing seasons and the silence of temples, of the images woven through literature, of the lunar Japan that still lives on behind the rising sun of geopolitical power.
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- Who it’s for
- A thoughtful, lightly ironic encounter with Kyoto’s traditions and its changing present.
- Themes
- Zen Buddhism and Kyoto, Old and modern Japan, Cross-cultural infatuation
- Genres
- Japan Travel, Zen Buddhism, Travel Writing
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When Pico Iyer decided to go to Kyoto and live in a monastery, he did so to learn about Zen Buddhism from the inside, to get to know Kyoto, one of the loveliest old cities in the world, and to find out something about Japanese culture today -- not the world of businessmen and production lines, but the traditional world of changing seasons and the silence of temples, of the images woven through literature, of the lunar Japan that still lives on behind the rising sun of geopolitical power.
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All this he did. And then he met Sachiko. Vivacious, attractive, thoroughly educated, speaking English enthusiastically if eccentrically, the wife of a Japanese "salaryman" who seldom left the office before 10 P.M., Sachiko was as conversant with tea ceremony and classical Japanese literature as with rock music, Goethe, and Vivaldi. With the lightness of touch that made Video Night in Kathmandu so captivating, Pico Iyer fashions from their relationship a marvelously ironic yet heartfelt book that is at once a portrait of cross-cultural infatuation -- and misunderstanding -- and a delightfully fresh way of seeing both the old Japan and the very new.
Kyoto in Two Registers
A thoughtful, lightly ironic encounter with Kyoto’s traditions and its changing present.
Come here for
- Zen, temple quiet, and the textures of traditional Kyoto
- A cross-cultural connection marked by affection and misunderstanding
Expect
- A personal lens on old and new Japan
- Warm irony alongside genuine feeling
Where it sits
| Japan Travel | 84% |
|---|---|
| Zen Buddhism | 72% |
| Travel Writing | 45% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Japan Travel
- Travel Writing
- Pilgrimage & Sacred Travel
- Authors
- Pico Iyer
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Published
- October 27, 1992
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Zen Buddhism and Kyoto · Old and modern Japan · Cross-cultural infatuation
- Reading lane
- Japan Travel