Rating: 
Summary: For good & bad, read this book
Review: Embarking on a life in Japan, I picked up this book for the rich cover art if anything else. On turning the pages I found myself being taken by Alex Kerr on a very personal journey through a world lived by him yet rarely seen by foreigners to Japan; From Kabuki, to Calligraphy, to tea ceremony, Mr. Kerr's idealism in aesthetics is evenly balanced by a sharp cynicism for the greed & corruption of modern Japan that is slowly eating away at this once colourfully overflowing world. However it wasn't the cynicism but the beauty that I found my self retracing. Alex has a wonderful way of transporting the readers mind into the same sense of appreciation he himself obviously has for the culture that makes Japan so unique. Without turning his experiences into religious epiphanies, he describes with great earthiness the true ideals of tea ceremony & ikebana & how stifling ritual itself may be destroying such `rituals'. Reading this book has given me more cultural insight into this country, both good & bad, than a whole year living in this socially impenetrable society. For good & bad, it's a must read for anyone who loves the beauty of Japan, or simply beauty alone.
Rating: 
Summary: All true but....
Review: Everything he says is true, but part of me reacts the same as I do to Bill Bryson geting upset about disappearing Britain- we can't all live in Disneyfied pavilions of history! (any conclustion to be drawn from the fact that both these authors are American?). I often found myself agreeing with Kerr, but at times also found myself thinking how pretentious he is, sitting around doing calligraphy etc. He obviously came from a prvileged backbround in the higher echelons of the US military and had a lot of advantages and connections that those of us fending for ourselves in modern Japan didn't have. I think his life bears little resembalnce to that of the average Japanese nowawadays- I know he realises that though. Just have to disagree with another contributor to this page- "Audrey Hepburn's Neck" will not tell you more about modern Japan, it will merely give you a list of things that one 'gaijin' thought himself so clever to be observing. I recommend Alan Booth, esp. "The Roads to Sata" for an excellent read about Japan.
Rating:
Summary: Best Available Look at Japanese Esthetics
Review: Having lived in Japan for almost 15 years and read about everything worth reading (and much more not worth reading) on the topic, Alex Kerr's book remains the most intelligent description of modern Japan in recent memory. This is not fiction; not some ennui for a Shogun inspired cultural Disneyland, but a look at what is being lost now. This moment. Beauty and loss are central to Japanese arts. No book on Japan by a foreign resident has ever succeeded as well at making felt both elements. As a supplement, any writing by Alan Booth is to be recommended (yes more beauty and loss).
Rating:
Summary: Insightful and well-written
Review: I enjoyed this book and think that anyone who has ever lived in Japan will too. For someone just beginning to explore the beauty and depth of the Japanese people and culture, however, I recommend that they begin with a different book and work their way up to Kerr. I agree with some of the other reviewers in that Kerr does come off as an elitist, but that isn't necessarily a negative thing. Anyone who has studied at Yale and Oxford, and has lived in Japan for as long as Kerr has, I think, has some authority to write as if they know what they are talking about, especially if they do it tastefully like Kerr does. I liked some chapters better than others in this book, but overall, I thought it was well done and included useful insights into Japan and its culture that only a gaijin (foreigner or "outside person") would understand. As much as I love Japan, I am not as interested in Japanese traditional art and theatre as Kerr is, but reading his short compiled articles (this book is a compilation of articles originally published in Japanese) did help me appreciate and better understand the mysteries of Japan. Moreover, this is a fairly short book and is not difficult to get through. This is a good book for anyone remotely interested in a country that is very traditional and ancient, but yet one of the most modern countries in appearance and thought in the world - Japan.
Rating:
Summary: Thought Provoking and Insightful
Review: I found the subtle convincing argument style of the author to be quite remarkable and effective. He leads his reader through a series of interesting personal experiences occurring over the many years he has lived in Japan - each one making up a single chapter within the book. He carefully explains the essential characteristics of each experience as to why it has had a profound positive or negative lasting affect on him. He describes how his friends, his educational background and his teachers, all of the highest caliber, helped him to appreciate the artistic values he encounters within the scope of the experience. Finally, when least expected, he hits the reader with a profound, but obvious, truth or conclusion that helps to explain deep aspects of Japanese culture of surprising significance. It should be noted that the original text was written as articles submitted to a Japanese magazine, and that this series of articles was so well received by Japanese readers that they were incorporated into the original version of this book that was written in the Japanese language. Again the book was well received. The only criticism that I might venture to make was that I didn't find this compilation of articles to provide me sense of inevitability to make me feel that the book as a whole was going to reach a timely conclusion and final ending. On the whole, though, I think it's a really nice piece of work.
Rating: 
Summary: Counter-Revolutionary!
Review: I have mixed feelings about this book. There is a central thesis to the book - that Japan's culture is "lost," and worth saving. However, the episodic nature of the book, and the fact that his most impassioned writing comes at the beginning, distracts from the thesis. Instead, the book comes off as an extended one-way conversation with the author, which I must admit wasn't entirely a good thing. While he's obviously intelligent and sensitive, and intimately involved with what he writes about, I found myself a little turned off by the constant name-dropping, claims that anybody mentioned anywhere in the book is a genius, and the tangential anecdotes and facts which seemed entirely self-serving. At one point, he mentions being accepted into an Oxford school society so elite that undergraduates haven't been allowed in for two hundred years. Impressive, but it doesn't have anything to do with the book, and comes off as posturing. Having been born in Honolulu, with similar problems such as ugly, sprawling hotel districts and a kidnapped culture, I'm extremely sympathetic to Alex Kerr's anger at the uglification and cultural deadening of Japan. However, his attitude towards modern Japan is one of instant revulsion. The revulsion lends the book a bitter-old-man sentimentality, that everything has gotten worse. That's not a minor gripe - the author has made it his goal, both in this book and in personal life, to prove that the traditional ways of Japan should be more a part of modern Japanese life. Waxing on about Japan's traditional arts, while unilaterally rejecting modern Japan, just furthers the book's counter-thesis: that the modern and traditional aren't compatible. Perhaps I'm being too negative, and for those interested in the current state of the traditional in Japan, Alex Kerr knows the subject well. Regardless, I found myself disheartened that the book has such a strong thesis, has such an intelligent and undeniably knowledgable author, makes so many good points, but still ends up being an extended bitter rant.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: I read Lost Japan while travelling in Japan for the first time, and so perhaps it coloured my perspective of things I encountered. Nevertheless, Kerr's personal observations on Japan's cultural and ecological destruction seemed remarkably accurate, or at least believable. Unlike other books of this kind, Kerr's laments are put properly in the context of his own cultural baggage, and of Japan's rich history. Compelling reading throughout.
Rating: 
Summary: Please put it back on the shelf!
Review: I read this book on a plane to Japan for a two week vacation in November. I thought it was depressing and achingly nostalgic. As I was extremely excited to explore Japan, Alex Kerr focuses on how Japan used to be great in so many areas, but how it lacks in everything now. From nature, to people, the arts, and society in general, he contends that the country is suffocating. One may enjoy this book if that is what you are expecting. I, however, did not view Japan in the light that Alex Kerr portrays it.
Rating:
Summary: An engaging, first-person account.
Review: I really enjoyed Kerr's book for its insights into little understood aspects of Japanese traditional and contemporary culture. The book moves across a wide range of topics with Kerr's life as its unifying element. Like most travelogues, the reader learns as much about the author as about the country. Kerr's advantage is that he is able to write about experiences over three decades rather than just a short trip of a few weeks. Japan has changed greatly during those decades. But they are subtle changes that even residents of the country may not perceive. Perhaps that explains the popularity of the original Japanese version of the book. Kerr has helped the Japanese better understand the changes taking place around them.
Rating:
Summary: Lost without this book
Review: I was extremely lucky to find and read this book before I took a trip to Japan. Alex Kerr unravels many mysteries about Japanese society, art and culture -- among other things, he explains the conventions of kabuki and what they say about the behaviors of everyday Japanese, and how Japan's traditional need to save face led to the stock-market crash and the subsequent bursting of the Bubble Economy. Kerr's revelations surprised even the native Japanese people I spoke with about the book. Sure, most of the vignettes take a negative tone, but the more Kerr criticizes Japan, the more it becomes apparent that he loves the country -- he mourns its decay, and he hopes for its return to glory. After finishing this vivid and tasteful work, I felt like thanking Mr. Kerr. I look forward to reading his next book, Demons and Dogs.
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