Great Mirrors Shattered: Homosexuality, Orientalism, and Japan

...which is probably what's tripping most people up. The title is misleading; when I found this book I was expecting a scholarly analysis of homosexuality as it is viewed and practiced in Japan. Instead, it turned out to be about a year the author spent in Japan after fleeing America to escape the spread of AIDS, only to watch the epidemic unfold in Japan as well--a year in the life of an introspective, promiscuous, slightly amoral intellectual. He draws from many different sources, sometimes juxtaposed in a manner that's difficult to follow, and touches on a variety of different topics that some way or another intersect with his conception of Japan, AIDS, and being gay. This is not an academic work, this is a personal essay stretched large, a chronicle set in the 1980s gay scene. He doesn't shy away from describing the uncomfortable aspects of that life any more than he flinches from discussing the equally uncomfortable racist, neocolonialist attitudes held by various generations of white conquerors, including his own. He deconstructs these views, analyzes the causes and logic behind them, but it is clear that he does not endorse them, no more than he would endorse the quotes that are hostile or offensive to homosexuals. Racism and colonialism are inherited, and even if we as individuals choose to reject them, they are still inherent and pervasive in our culture. Where did these ideas originate, and why? Treat ponders such questions at length, and unfortunately that sets him up for attack from people who would rather disregard uncomfortable topics than discuss them. This is not an anthropological book, or even an ethnography. It feels almost like fiction, which makes it an engaging as well as insightful read, but it is one man's experiences and not to be confused with any sort of authoritative treatise on homosexuality in Japan.

I've been a big fan of Treat's essays since I read Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture, so I picked up this book with some understanding of his writing already. Anyway, I expected this book to be about gay life in Japan and Japanese literature, but it turned out not to be about that at all... or at least, not much. A lot of the book is a memoir/travel-diary that Treat apparently wrote on the side as he was living in Japan on fellowship money, working on Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb. Treat reflects on various lovers that he had in Japan, things they did together and places they went, what gay life is like in Tokyo and a few other places in Japan. And all that is interwoven into news stories about the growth of AIDS in Japan, stories from Japanese literature, and Treat's own experience being HIV positive and having to hide it during his stay. It's not, by any means, a comprehensive autobiography (Treat isn't so famous as to attempt that), but it's interesting in the way that stories about living in another country often are. On the whole, the book isn't so much about homosexuality and Japan as it is about AIDS and Japan. There are some very interesting sexual anecdotes in the book, all told with a kind of hyper-awareness of the historical relationship between the Occident and the Orient, and the roles the author himself, as a white man, plays in his sexual relationships. Despite being surprised about the main themes, I found it to be an interesting book, and all the personal anecdotes keep the theory from becoming too dry. The book is very honest and candid, and I came away from it with a greater understanding of John Treat as a person, which I liked. And I think a big part of Treat's intent with the book was to show how the "self" and "other" really have more in common than they think, and on that level he succeeded.

For the reviewer from Mars: This book is a subjective account of life in Japan during the time of AIDS. This is not meant as a depiction of gay and lesbian Japanese life, no could it be. The Japanese misperception of American life is echoed in this review. I found this book soul-baring and intense. Well done!

Reading this book brought me back to Japan. So much of what the author indicates resonated with my experience that I found myself nodding in agreement with many of his observations. Is it accessible, therefore, for others outside of this circle of experience? I believe so. The author's writing style is so open and it brings the reader in with its power. I think the reader will learn and experience on many levels: intellectually, spiritually, physically.

I really found this book to be a lot more provocative than I expected. Treat does a really effective job of presenting the attitudes towrds homosexuality and AIDS that he experienced while living in Japan at various times in recent decades. His "shapshot" style of presenting a scene from his life followed by a quotation from someone else followed by his discussion of someone else's ideas followed by another scene from his life did get confusing at times. But, overall, his ideas were interesting and really got me thinking about AIDS and homosexuality in a culture that I don't know too much about. I'll be going back to this book, I'm sure.