Richie claims to have written a zuihitsu; lots of high school students claim to have written haiku, as well, but, you know. They aren't Basho, and Richie is not Chomei. I'm not really the audience for this text, which feels very 'mystical East,' a feeling that is probably more about me than Richie, who obviously knows more about Japan than I will ever know; I'm just very sensitive (i.e., I object) to the idea that there is some impassible barrier between Japanese thinking and everyone else.

Reading Japanese authors on this topic is more enjoyable, and not that hard to do; for those looking for a very easy way in, this is a flawed but approachable book. ( )

Six-word review: Deft, spare elucidation for Western audience.

Extended review:

For a Westerner, the aesthetic principles encountered in Japanese paintings, poetry, gardens, and other art forms can be elusive and mystifying. The late Donald Richie was an expert on Japanese culture (and movies in particular) and a gifted explainer. In this short work he conveys his understanding, through both form and content, about as well as I think it can be done for a reader who has not been an ardent lifelong student of the subject.

Without any facetiousness at all, I'll say that I think that after reading it three or four more times I may be able to tell you something about what it says.

Meanwhile, much as I've felt after hearing a dharma talk at the zendo, I can't tell you exactly what he said, but I think I understand something a little better.

My rating of this book means nothing at all. The book is a bound essay of 70 small pages plus glossary and bibliography. And I'm sure that, true to its subject matter, it uses as many strokes as it needs and no more. But the limitations of my scale prevent me from recognizing it on its merits alongside works ten times the length. Consider this a fault of my ratings or of ratings in general and not of the book. ( )

As Richie explains in his preface, he has deliberately chosen to write A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics as a zuihitsu , the form in which many influential Japanese chose to address aesthetic matters. Such an essay is not logically organized, not linear, not deductive. The author is supposed to "follow the brush" (I suppose we must say follow the pen, though, now, are we to follow the keyboard?), follow his thoughts as they arise. To heighten this, for him necessary, nonlinearity, he juxtaposes alongside the main text further texts which enrich the reader's understanding but which he apparently felt that he could not work into the main text in a more organic manner.

I had no problem with this approach and regretted only that the book is so short. I wish Richie had further developed his sketch of how certain central aesthetic terms had evolved through time and had provided more of his aptly chosen examples to illustrate this evolution. I wish he had submitted the more secondary terms, whose existence he merely indicated, to the fuller treatment accorded to the primary terms. I further wish he had followed up the deliciously suggestive analogies between Japanese and Western aesthetics he so briefly drew. Please, sir, may I have more? ( )