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4.5
The late seventeenth century in Europe was the Baroque period, a time of empty bombast and meaningless rhetoric, at least in poetry. In contrast, Japanese poets were seeking to cast off all artifice and reduce their poetry to the bare essentials. The greatest of these was Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), widely regarded as the finest exponent of the haiku. "The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches," translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa, is a collection of several of Basho's travel diaries, including "The Records of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton," "A Visit to the Kashima Shrine," "The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel," "A Visit to the Sarashina Shrine," and "The Narrow Road to the Deep North." Basho was no mere tourist. His insatiable wanderlust stemmed from a desire to lose himself, to become one with nature. A Zen Buddhist, Basho was on a quest for Enlightenment. Whether he was successful is beyond my competence to say. Although he often travelled alone, at other times he was accompanied by friends and disciples, and on the way he met many people who helped him--Buddhist priests, samurais, wealthy merchants. Basho's prose and verse display a deep love of nature, spiritual richness, and a sense of history. His work also conveys a strong sense of loneliness and melancholy and he doesn't shy away from the less romantic aspects of travel--getting lost, being thrown off a horse, staying in cheap, flea- and lice-infested inns. He also displays a self-deprecating sense of humor.Those of us who learned to write haikus in school may be puzzled by Yuasa's translations, which are in four lines instead of the standard three. Yuasa's introduction explains that he found it impossible to convey the richness of Basho's thought in only three lines. The translation is highly readable, with a helpful introduction (which takes up a third of the slender volume) and notes, which are essential for those of us with little background in Japanese history and culture. A book well worth reading and re-reading.
