Two-time Booker Prize winner Peter Carey cannot be pinned down to any one genre. He has explored the Australian outback in \Oscar and Lucinda"" and the back streets of London in ""Jack Maggs.""
In his most recent work, ""Wrong About Japan,"" he ventures from the English-speaking world to Japan to take a trip with his son and satisfy his own curiosity. Carey finds streets without typical addresses, anime fanatics and Mister Donuts. As he tries to understand the country he wrestles with the multiple meanings of the word ""otaku,"" ranging from loner to fan to psychopath and comes up with his own definition.
The Daily Cardinal recently spoke with Carey about the Western perception of Japan, swords and why his book is filled with anime.
The Daily Cardinal: About how long was it from when you started noticing your son's interest in anime and manga until your trip to Japan?
Peter Carey: I don't know. He was the one that started saying, ""Can we go to Japan?"" I was writing about Australia, which I sort of converted to a book about Japan.
DC: You talked about how you perceived that there was a Japanese aesthetic. Do you think that's a common perception, or misperception, about the Japanese among Westerners?
PC: I know that for myself, anyway, I think of all the things that I really think about all the things I love about Japan. You think about all those elegant, rustic, beautiful, minimal houses where everything is made out of wood and it doesn't occur to you that those are the houses of the very rich people. ... In my case, anyway, I grew up thinking of the Japanese of these people who habitually produce elegant, spare, beautiful things. Of course, there's a huge gap between that perception of Japan and what it's actually like to be there.
DC: What do you think of the current popular perception of Japan, like in a movie like ""Lost in Translation?"" Do you think they capture that perception correctly or miss the whole point?
PC: Think of Madison, Wisconsin, for instance. There are so many different ways you could capture it-and there's probably as many different ways of looking at it as there are people looking at it. Every book, almost, I've ever written is filled with people misunderstanding each other.
DC: You talked about the address system in Japan. What, now that you're removed from it, do you think of the way they find their way around?
PC: I don't know. It seems to suit them well. For us it seems wildly complicated and inefficient but it works for them. It may be slightly slower to find something, but that's how they do it. All you can do is appreciate the odd beauty of it.
DC: One thing that was fascinating was the way swords still have a sacred status in Japan. What did you think of the modern status of them?
PC: What I was interested in was doing this thing with my kid. The primary objective for me was that I have a kid who I love and I have a rare opportunity to do something that I'm interested in and he's interested in. What I was curious about with the sword maker, was that this was a very beautiful thing and the Japanese have a historical fascination with cutting things up. But when I wanted to get something to talk about it, it was a little more difficult.
DC: One of the words that frequently popped up in the book was ""otaku."" Now that you're removed from Japan, do you think it means?
PC: Here, in the world of anime, it means aficionado or fan. That's all it means. But the truth is layered and contradictory. I think all the meanings are, in their way, correct. I'm sure also that it also means something like a trainspotter. Everyone was always telling me that 'It's not this, and not this, and it's not that.' But, in a way, the word has all those meanings. It's not pin-downable.
DC: What's it like eating at a Mister Donut in Japan?
PC: There are a lot of things that you see in Japan and Tokyo and you think they're so Western. And what could be more Western than a Mister Donut? Yet it's completely and utterly Japanese. When you walk in there's a little sing-song greeting, welcoming the customer and everything is clean and there's a certain level of politeness. There's definitely something Japanese about it. It's re-invented in some way. It can't be Western, though it is.
DC: What made you decide to use illustrations in ""Wrong About Japan?""
PC: My publishers in the very beginning said, 'A lot of people really don't know what anime is. Why don't you have some reproductions to illustrate that?' A great deal of it provides information that helps understand the book.
