A very neat little book with great art work. Translated by Sam Hamill. This is said to be one of the great works of Japanese literature; unfortunately all of the allusions to Japanese and Chinese literature, locations, events and religion, although pointed out in footnotes, didn't mean much to me and I can't really experience its "greatness". ( )

The genius of Basho (1644-94), Japan's greatest haiku poet, elevated the haiku to an art form of utter simplicity and intense spiritual beauty. The masterpiece of Basho's career-and one of the most revered classics of Asian literature-is a diary written in prose and haiku of Basho's journey through the villages and mountain temples of the northern interior of Japan. Much more than a simple travel journal, Narror Road to the Interior is also, in the words of the translator, Sam Hamill, ' a long journey to the soul's interior.' Hamill's rendering of Basho's classic brings to life the charm and beauty of the original and is certain to become the authoritative translation for generations to come.

Sam Hamill has published over twenty books of poetry, translations, and essays. He has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Japan-U.S. Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and other honors. One of America's foremost poets and translators, Hamill has been compared by thomas McGrath to 'Kenneth Rexroth at his peak,' and W.S. Merwin has praised him as a translator and poet who is 'able to bring his world up close and transparent, and to set it in words that are a pleasure to come upon and to remember.' His translations of Japanese poems, Only Companion, is forthcoming in Shambhala Centaur Editions.

Stephen Addiss's painting and calligraphy have been exhibited in San Francisco, New Orleans, London, Tokyo, and Beijing. He has also written a number of books on Oriental art, including The Art of Zen.

'Sam Hamill's translation captures the swift and unlabored tone of Basho's Narrow Road to the Interior, while at the same time bringing across the depth of feeling that makes it one of the undisputed masterpieces of Japanese literature. Hamill acieves a kind of luminosity of language that I find unparalled in other translatins of the work.'-Professor Burton Watson, Columbia University, and translator of Chuang Tzu and Han Shan's Cold Mountain.

Contents

Acknowledgments
Translator's introduction
Narrow road to the interior
Notes

This is a combination of 17th century travelogue and poetry collection from one of Japan’s top poets. I picked it as “a book/genre I wouldn’t normally read” and enjoyed it very much — it is much more accessible than most collections of Japanese poetry, too.

Aside from the beauty of the poetry, I liked learning about the “haiku party culture” and the groups of poets, students, etc and their interaction with the outside world. Even better, he undertook a trip to the area north of Tokyo, an area I’ve visited (by train). There were a lot of incidental insights into what these places were like in the time, and 1000 years of history before his trip.

Reading some of the poems in Romanji (despite not understanding Japanese other than sushi terms, it is an easy and regular language in pronunciation, at least when written in that form) added some, although I still actually preferred the travelogue aspect with the poems embedded in context. ( )

Oku no Hosomichi is a major work of haibun by the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho considered "one of the major texts of classical Japanese literature." The text is written in the form of a prose and verse travel diary and was penned as Basho made an epic and dangerous journey on foot through the Edo Japan of the late 17th century. While the poetic work became seminal of its own account, the poet's travels in the text have since inspired many people to follow in his footsteps and trace his journey for themselves. It has been said of the work that it is as if the very soul of Japan had itself written it.

While the first half wasn't very interesting at all (It relied on having prior knowledge of the locations that Basho visited and contained little actual descriptions), the second half was lovely. It had more characterization in-between the haiku. Basho being alone during the Autumn section created a really reflective mood that I loved. And of course, the haiku were all great. Still, the first half (and some) dragged enough to make me consider dropping a star. ( )