Wrong about Japan: A Father’s Journey with His Son (Peter Carey, Vintage, $24.95 pb, ISBN 1740513258, November) ***

In a departure from what we have come to expect from this two-time Man Booker prize-winning novelist, Peter Carey’s latest offering is a memoir about travelling to Tokyo with his 12-year-old, five-foot-eight son Charley. The story he tells offers insight into his relationship with his adolescent son and provides an interesting account of what it is to be a gaijin (foreigner) in one of the most exciting and intriguing places on earth.

Carey developed an interest in Japanese comics (manga) and animated films (anime) through his shy son’s obsession with these highly popular art forms. He witnessed Charley coming out of himself while engaging with him in analysing and theorising about the possible hidden meanings within anime and manga. He sought to encourage this interest further through their visit to Tokyo.

Following the advice of his son and using his contacts in the publishing world, Carey sets up meetings with legendary anime directors. Carey’s desire to achieve a better understanding of Japanese culture leads him to encounters with a 10th-generation swordmaker, the transsexual publisher of an 825-page encyclopaedia of anime and a survivor of the World War II fire-bombing of Japan. Charley is adamant that they avoid ‘the real Japan’, wanting no part in temples, tea ceremonies or kabuki. Unbeknownst to his father Charley has a contact of his own, Takashi, whom he met via the internet. Looking like he stepped straight out of an anime cell, teenage Takashi is an eager guide and Charley’s immediate ally.

As is common with many travel companions, this father-and-son journey is not without tension. Carey insists his highly resistant son accompany him to a kabuki performance. Charley declares it the worst four hours of his life, worse than when he cut his heel and was stitched under inadequate anaesthetic. There is also tension around Takashi, whose presence had not been factored in when Carey had been planning their very brief stay in Tokyo. Carey writes very sensitively about an offence that he and his son unwittingly cause their young host.

Carey is very effective in conveying his appreciation and respect for the people he encounters despite his theories about the culture being consistently rejected. Prior to reading Wrong about Japan my knowledge of Japanese culture was limited to cherry blossoms, saki and sushi. Because the trip and the book are so brief, I was far from sated, but rather left avidly wanting to discover more about the essence of this mysterious place.

Helen Latemore has been a bookseller at Reader’s Feast in Melbourne for over seven years

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2004, Thorpe-Bowker