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  • The Lady and the Monk

  • Four Seasons in Kyoto
  • Written by: Pico Iyer
  • Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard
  • Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (3 ratings)

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The Lady and the Monk

Written by: Pico Iyer
Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard
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Publisher's Summary

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.

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 PM, 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.
©1991 Pico Iyer (P)1999 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Biographies & Memoirs Travel Writing & Commentary
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What the critics say

“A beautifully written book about someone looking for ancient dreams in a strange modern place.” ( Los Angeles Times Book Review)

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A different view

Brilliant writing, and a deep understanding of Japan’s people and society, especially the women. I read this book 24 years ago and was so happy to find it on Audible. It seemed completely different and more meaningful today. I think one day, it will be considered a great time capsule of life as it was in Japan’s late 20th century.

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