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Rating: 
Summary: Flickscribble Plus
Review: A very good read to clear out those cobwebs induced by your almost futile attempts to complete Gibbon's "Decline and Fall". Have you noticed how many "novels" today are really just screenplays without the stage directions? I believe the term in Hollywood is a "treatment". They're really storylines looking for producers, so they don't have to be real novels. Only in our fast paced, dizzyingly visual, special effects laden culture could this work be called a novel. I mean if the movie "Bullet" were shot today, all of it would be edited to look like the chase scene it's so justly famous for. (Ah, the curse of those early music videos!) So I hereby designate this genre, affectionately, "Flickscribble". And this book is a much better evocation of the genre than most and justifies the four stars above. Just don't call it a "novel".
Rating:
Summary: Flickscribble Plus
Review: A very good read to clear out those cobwebs induced by your almost futile attempts to complete Gibbon's "Decline and Fall". Have you noticed how many "novels" today are really just screenplays without the stage directions? I believe the term in Hollywood is a "treatment". They're really storylines looking for producers, so they don't have to be real novels. Only in our fast paced, dizzyingly visual, special effects laden culture could this work be called a novel. I mean if the movie "Bullet" were shot today, all of it would be edited to look like the chase scene it's so justly famous for. (Ah, the curse of those early music videos!) So I hereby designate this genre, affectionately, "Flickscribble". And this book is a much better evocation of the genre than most and justifies the four stars above. Just don't call it a "novel".
Rating:
Summary: The Sexual Occupation of Japan
Review: I found strengths in all five of the previous reviews of this novel. Yet, I tend toward seeing the book and valuable and entertaining despite its flaws. My son is stationed at Atsugi, which is one of the U.S. bases featured in the book. My wife and I just went for visit, and we've been to Japan before. We love the country and are comfortable there. We feel a connection to the people. Moreover, my brother served in the Navy in the 60s and had some of the Japanese service experiences reflected in the book, and some of the adults I knew as a child echoed some of the stories seen in Setlowe's novel about the period immediately after the War. Setlowe's book is complicated and has racist, shallow elements but cannot be dismissed as racist and shallow. I rejected as implausible some of the story elements, yet was entertained nonetheless. We spent several days on this trip with my son's Japanese girlfriend and found it interesting where we could venture with her in conversations and where we could not. Some of Setlowe's take on the strains and social problems of these relationships is on target and reflect his own experiences. That is not racism, not does Setlowe see the Japanese as inferior due to cultural straitjackets. I do not see the "sexual occupation" aspect as important a motivating force in Japanese business activities or closed market pyschology as Setlowe seems to, but it is a factor, a continuing factor that Japan must face. In the end, Japan is not just one of the World's most successful nations, it is one of the most complicated. I feel that Setlowe was aware of this and that Zen, and other aspects of Japanese culture are deep and difficult to master, yet things one cannot reject or skip over. He made an effort not to ignore them. Maybe it could have been stronger, but the author clearly was writing as much with affection and interest as he was with criticism.
Rating:
Summary: Cultural Differences
Review: I recently finished reading THE DEAL. Most people do not realize how great the cultural differences are between Americans and Japanese. I enjoyed the book. It held my interest and I felt some identification with it. Perhaps because I have a Japanese daughter-in-law I am more aware of these differences. It took a long time for my son and Yoshie to work them out. This book reinforced my awareness. I feel it is important to recognize these apparently irreconcilable differences . We need to learn to accept them and adjust to them in order to achieve a mutually beneficial globalization that future generations will live with.
Rating: 
Summary: Depressingly mundane.
Review: Like Setlowe's earlier novels, this story treats the reader to a smooth blending of history, information and romance. What sets this new novel apart, however, is its timely exploration of East/West politics, its haunting evocation of the folly and bravery of another era, and its wisdom in delineating the ways in which the past and present interweave. Vivid characters abound, whose lives and ultimate destinies become important to the reader. Similar in ambition to "Snow Falling On Cedars," this novel provides a rich, literate reading experience for grown-ups. Great title, too.
Rating:
Summary: Grow up America
Review: Peter Saxon, traumatised Vietnam Vet who neither understands, respects nor likes Japan (except for the one who slept with him of course) is sent there to set up a deal. After calmly explaining to the Japanese that they do not have the capacity to run a Hollywood studio because they don't understand the way of thinking, he suggests that he run their business (because he doesn't understand the way of thinking). If they fail to sell what they own, the black ships will be launched. The black ships of course are the American steamers which steamed into Tokyo Bay in 1853 with the following message: Self determination is not your right. Your culture has no merit. You will become like us. By doing so, it will make you free. We are doing you a favour. Don't believe us? Ask the Indians. He then learns to his astonishment that the Japanese don't like people who don't like them, but rationalises that they are just angry because American servicemen spent so much time sleeping with their women. However, judging from the unbelievable intensity of Saxons page by page condemnation of Japan, it is more likely that he is the one with the king sized chip on his shoulder. The Japanese (all of them) try to kill and embarrass Saxon. They fail but succeed with a half Japanese half black American hostess. She had grown up under both predudice, and the care of her loving and extremely practical mother. Saxon laments at her bad luck at not having left her mother and been brought up by her deadbeat father, who couldn't have aspired to more than being lower middle class, in Detroit during the 80s. Hmmmmm At times it appears as if Setlowe started with a list of greviances to hurl at the Japanese and structured the story accordingy. The most transparent occasion is when Saxon tells of his dirty dark secret. In order to save his life behind enemy lines, he killed someone who was trying to kill him.(pretty big revelation for a soldier! ) His girlfriend reciprocates with a story of beheaded American prisoners. The moral: You were right to kill him, Vietnamese are just like Japanese. Or perhaps more to the point, Americans in Vietnam are just like Americans in WW2. Personally the part time psychiatrist in me is tempted to pursue this victim/villian association game a little more but suffice to say, in the end, good defeats evil. I've lived in Japan for 8 years and read everything going. I never thought in the 21st century I would read such rubbish. It's racist to the core. The story is weak. There is no way the scenario could play out. There is no way this could happen. Surely the lesson of the 90s is that when America stops pointing the finger and playing the victim, it thrives. The Japanese are not going to become American clones. Get used to it. 'Rising Sun' did not offend the Japanese. It amused them. This one they will ignore. So should you. Setlowe has appealed to the worst of America. Will there ever be a Western writer who can write a Japanese/Western novel that doesn't rely on demonizing the Japanese? Grow up!
Rating:
Summary: Cultural Differences
Review: Stationed in Japan just a few years ago, there were always parts of the experience I could not decode. Although I spent my evenings being tutored by a Japanese woman in a small farming town; although I learned to speak and read Japanese well enough to avoid being constantly offensive; despite spending the majority of my time as immersed in the culture as I could, there were certainly undercurrents of emotion in the people I met. Setlowe's book is an entertaining novel that indirectly addresses some of that anger, fascination, fear, and attraction that I felt during my time there. The Japanese culture is a particularly difficult one for younger Americans to understand. It is complicated and it has a memory. It is not openly angry, but neither is it completely welcoming towards young servicemen. This book offers an entertaining way to gain a small piece of appreciation for that which shaped the Japanese culture of today. A VERY EASY READ SUITABLE FOR A LONG AIRPLANE OR TRAIN TRIP. &... is a fair price. As for those reviewers below who claim rascist and actually said "...this could never happen..." about events in the book...this is FICTION and a NOVEL. That means "not real" and a "story." Glad to enroll you in English 101 at your nearby community college if you'd like.
Rating: 
Summary: It explains a few things...
Review: Stationed in Japan just a few years ago, there were always parts of the experience I could not decode. Although I spent my evenings being tutored by a Japanese woman in a small farming town; although I learned to speak and read Japanese well enough to avoid being constantly offensive; despite spending the majority of my time as immersed in the culture as I could, there were certainly undercurrents of emotion in the people I met. Setlowe's book is an entertaining novel that indirectly addresses some of that anger, fascination, fear, and attraction that I felt during my time there. The Japanese culture is a particularly difficult one for younger Americans to understand. It is complicated and it has a memory. It is not openly angry, but neither is it completely welcoming towards young servicemen. This book offers an entertaining way to gain a small piece of appreciation for that which shaped the Japanese culture of today. A VERY EASY READ SUITABLE FOR A LONG AIRPLANE OR TRAIN TRIP. &... is a fair price. As for those reviewers below who claim rascist and actually said "...this could never happen..." about events in the book...this is FICTION and a NOVEL. That means "not real" and a "story." Glad to enroll you in English 101 at your nearby community college if you'd like.
Rating:
Summary: Understanding the post WWII Japanese attitude to Big Brother
Review: While some readers will dwell on the similiarities to Crichton's "Rising Sun" or links to Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha", this reader enjoyed Setlowe's theory of Japanese economic revenge for past transgressions, both sexual and incendiary. The status of tall blonde women as the consorts to high rolling businessmen, the fierce feudal exclusion of foreign investments and the trophy like acquisition of high profile American icons, are the brush strokes of culture with a patient but relentless memory. That memory is selective, as we are reminded, the vanquished were once brutal transgressors. The same people who shun the mixed breed offspring of their occupation, fail to recognize their responsibility to the victims of the sexual imprisonment of thousands of Dutch and Chinese women during WWII. Through the eyes of Peter Saxon, a Hollywood lawyer with a twisted past, we see the business side of Japan today. Caught between the memories of the past and the forgiveness of the future, are strong emotions which stand in the way of a merger which will revolutionize the entertainment industry. A middle aged Saxon must cope with the intricities of negociations where "no" is meant but never spoken and the haunting presence of a past love and trauma, experienced thirty five years earlier when he flew Navy missions from Japan into Vietnam. A little suspension of reality is called for, but otherwise a non-stop thriller of immense enjoyment.
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