The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan

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When the United States entered the Gilded Age after the Civil War, argues cultural historian Christopher Benfey, the nation lost its philosophical moorings and looked eastward to “Old Japan,” with its seemingly untouched indigenous culture, for balance and perspective. Japan, meanwhile, was trying to reinvent itself as a more cosmopolitan, modern state, ultimately transforming itself, in the course of twenty-five years, from a feudal backwater to an international power. This great wave of historical and cultural reciprocity between the two young nations, which intensified during the late 1800s, brought with it some larger-than-life personalities, as the lure of unknown foreign cultures prompted pilgrimages back and forth across the Pacific.

In The Great Wave, Benfey tells the story of the tightly knit group of nineteenth-century travelers—connoisseurs, collectors, and scientists—who dedicated themselves to exploring and preserving Old Japan. As Benfey writes, “A sense of urgency impelled them, for they were convinced—Darwinians that they were—that their quarry was on the verge of extinction.”

These travelers include Herman Melville, whose Pequod is “shadowed by hostile and mysterious Japan”; the historian Henry Adams and the artist John La Farge, who go to Japan on an art-collecting trip and find exotic adventures; Lafcadio Hearn, who marries a samurai’s daughter and becomes Japan’s preeminent spokesman in the West; Mabel Loomis Todd, the first woman to climb Mt. Fuji; Edward Sylvester Morse, who becomes the world’s leading expert on both Japanese marine life and Japanese architecture; the astronomer Percival Lowell, who spends ten years in the East and writes seminal works on Japanese culture before turning his restless attention to life on Mars; and President (and judo enthusiast) Theodore Roosevelt. As well, we learn of famous Easterners come West, including Kakuzo Okakura, whose The Book of Tea became a cult favorite, and Shuzo Kuki, a leading philosopher of his time, who studied with Heidegger and tutored Sartre.

Finally, as Benfey writes, his meditation on cultural identity “seeks to capture a shared mood in both the Gilded Age and the Meiji Era, amid superficial promise and prosperity, of an overmastering sense of precariousness and impending peril.”

Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

How friends introduced Japan to America in mid-19th century June 7, 2003
14 out of 16 found this review helpful

...We've all had the experience of meeting someone, only to discover what a small world it is. They dated your cousin, or you have friends in common, or you are connected by some other uncanny coincidence. It's not six degrees of separation, often its just one or two.
With even a passing familiarity with things Japanese, that's what it is like reading "The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese eccentrics and the Opening of Old Japan" by Christopher Benfey.
On nearly every page Mr. Benfey introduces an American intellectual, writer or artist, or fact, or Japanese artifact, or incident, that makes the reader smile in wonder at the web of connection.
Mr. Benfey looks at how a wealthy circle of New England friends and relatives introduced Japan to the United States. Aptly named for the Hokusai print, evoking the tsunami - the social and cultural tidal wave that crashed across the United States and over Old Japan - Mr. Benfey has put together a cultural puzzle, linking Herman Melville, John Manjiro, Isabella Gardner, Henry Adams, John LeFarge, Lafcadio Hearn, Kakuzuo Okakura, Frank Lloyd Wright, Emily Dickinson, Theodore Roosevelt and a dozen others, mostly friends, relatives, lovers and schoolmates, who made it happen.
The book opens with one such coincidence.
Herman Melville boarded the whaling ship Acushnet, in Fairhaven, Mass. Jan. 3, 1841, bound for Japan. Two days later, on the other side of the world, a 14-year-old boy named Manjiro, set out on a day-trip from a fishing village on Shikoku, Japan, only to be caught in a storm, washed out to sea and rescued by an American whaling ship, which eventually took him to Fairhaven.
Coming from opposite sides of the world, they were befriended by the same missionary in Honolulu, missing each the other by a couple of months. Each was destined to be a player in the introducing of East to West, and West to East, Melville with his books, and Manjiro, once back in Japan, as a translator and diplomat.
It would be 13 more years before Commodore Perry sailed into Yokohama harbor to "open" Japan. But from the time Manjiro and Melville passed each other on ships in the night, a handful of individuals, mostly from wealthy New England families, and small group of Japanese diplomats, artists, and writers, were to meet, marry, have affairs, travel, write, collect, catalogue and create art with one another, in an unprecedented intermingling and crosspollination of talent and energy, centered on Japan.
In each chapter of the book, Mr. Benfey picks two individuals and tells their intertwing stories. For example, one chapter is dedicated to Melville and Manjiro. Another to Okakura and Gardner. One of the most fascinating, to my mind, details the lives of Percival Lowell, a Washington astronomer, and Mabel Loomis Todd, who wrote what many consider to be the most erotic diary of the Victorian era. Suffice it to say, you'll never read your Emily Dickinson the same way again.
While the principle characters are familiar as individuals, Mr. Benfey places each in context with the others and Japan. My only complaint is that I wish Mr. Benfey had provided a schematic or genealogy to keep help keep it all straight.
The book is full of surprises.
Washingtonians know Henry Adams, and the Augustus St. Gaudens memorial to his wife "Clover" in Rock Creek Cemetery. Who knew it was inspired by Japan's Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of Mercy, and a trip Adams took to Japan, with the artist John La Farge, after his wife's suicide?
Okukura, who knew India's Rabindranath Tagore, spoke several languages, studied and traveled with Ernest Fenollosa, and scandalized Boston society, with a rumored affair with Isabella Gardner, also collected art for American museums. He produced several books on art, Japanese tea and culture and was something of a cultural ambassador.
He was one of Adams' hosts in Japan, when Adams was traveling with La Farge, who managed to merge East and West in his Church of the Ascension mural in New York, a seminal painting that uses Japan's mountains as background.
His writings influnced at least three American poets: Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.
One of my favorite stories in the book is that German philosopher Martin Heidegger after reading Okakura's "The Book of Tea," apparently borrowed some of the concepts that were introduced to the West as his own in "Being and Time."
There is plenty more.
The New England collectors criss-crossed Japan, buying art, religious artifacts, ceramics, prints, and whatever else caught their fancy. The ones bent on preserving the Old Japan, may be most familiar to us today - as we have the Sackler Gallery in Washington, the Gardner Museum in Boston and the Peabody in Salem, all of which grew out of the Asia trade first established by New England whaling captains. who brought home stage and wonderful souvenirs from their travels to exotic lands. The New England collectors added to them to create amazing repositories of Asian art.
I found myself marveling at the web of friendships, kinships, relationships and interests this circles' legacy. The characters in Mr. Benfey's "Great Wave" seemed to know every important artist, diplomat, writer and intellectual in the world. It's an adventure to enter their circle and make their acquaintance.

5 out of 5 stars

"To open Japan culturally meant to open themselves in turn." July 20, 2003
13 out of 14 found this review helpful

The Meiji emperor's opening of Japan to trade in 1868 led to a relentless wave of Yankee artists, writers, and scientists who gravitated to Japan for the peaceful and beautiful alternatives it offered in the aftermath of America's Civil War. A coarse, business- and trade-centered culture of commercialism was replacing what they saw as America's old values as the country rebuilt, and they sought solace and inspiration in a completely different, aesthetic world. In this story of the remarkable interactions of Japanese and American intellectuals from 1868 - 1913, Benfey shows how the two cultures viewed each other, learned from each other, and influenced each other's future, focusing on the literary, artistic, and aesthetic legacy, rather than on the hard political realities.

Like a wave spreading outward in concentric circles, the intellectuals of New England radiated their enthusiasm for Japan and its traditions. The American travelers knew each other, learned from each other, and influenced each other. Edward Sylvester Morse of Salem, Massachusetts, was one of the first to make a life commitment to Japan, attracting in his wake Isabella Stewart Gardner, William Sturgis Bigelow, Percival Lowell, and artist Ernest Fenollosa. Isabella Stewart Gardner, in turn, introduced T.S. Eliot, Edith Wharton, and Henry and William James to Japanese art and thought, while historian Henry Adams and painter John La Farge attracted William Morris Hunt, architects H. H. Richardson and Frank Lloyd Wright, and others. Kakuzo Okakura, journeying to the U.S., had similar influence.

Benfey brings American and Japanese cultural history to life, creating real people with real emotions, problems, and commitments. His insight into the creative process adds verisimilitude to his portraits, and his ability to describe and evoke moods, whether they be in his recreation of samurai life or his depiction of a tired climber's first glimpse of Mt. Fuji, give a liveliness to the prose usually more characteristic of fiction than non-fiction. His nature imagery is so vibrant that the reader experiences journeys to the countryside alongside the participants.

In an Epilogue, which focuses on the year 1913, Benfey ties up the loose ends and finishes the stories of the characters on whom he has focused. His limited time frame has allowed him to explore America's influence on Japan in great detail, along with the "Japanese phenomenon" in this country, bringing to life the individuals who were responsible for it and illustrating the long-term effects. The book is a thoughtful and lively account of one of the most important cultural exchanges in history, and Benfey makes it both understandable and exciting. Mary Whipple

5 out of 5 stars Ripple-Effect May 31, 2003
12 out of 15 found this review helpful

OK.....we all know from our schooldays that there was a Boston Tea Party. We also know that in Japan they have a very elaborate tea ceremony. Early on in this very clever, erudite, and complex book, the author mentions these two facts. Is there a reason for him to do so? Well, yes, there is. It is one of the many interesting ways that Mr. Benfey shows the connection between Boston and Japan. Merchant ships from Boston (and the surrounding area) were deeply involved in the oriental tea trade. Also, ships from nearby ports were involved in whaling and frequently travelled to the whaling grounds off of Japan. Also, as the author shows, quite a few Boston Brahmins were interested in the culture of "Old Japan." They were disgusted with what they perceived to be the material crassness and lack of spirituality of America, as well as the jarring modernity of the Industrial Age. They wanted to go to Japan and to study the Japanese way of life before Japan, which had recently been "opened" by Commodore Perry, became "westernized." It was felt that there was much to learn by studying the religions of Japan, such as Buddhism and Taoism, as well as Japanese art and architecture. Mr. Benfey describes a few Japanese that travelled to the West, but most of the book details traffic going in the other direction. The author does an excellent job of describing how people as diverse as Henry Adams, Herman Melville, Frank Lloyd Wright, the artist John La Farge, the writer Lafcadio Hearn and the astronomer Percival Lowell (the man we mainly remember for his, erroneous, theory regarding the presence of "canals" on Mars) were shaped or influenced by their journeys to (or study of) the "mysterious East." Mr. Benfey weaves a magisterial tapestry, as he has purposely chosen people whose lives intersected. Thus, in a chain-reaction, one person who has fallen in love with Japan sparks an interest in another person, and so on down the line. So, for example, Percival Lowell influenced, through his writings on Japan, his poet-sister Amy Lowell. Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow, attempting to get Theodore Roosevelt to adopt a pro-Japanese stance, figured it would be best to appeal to the President's aggressive side. (Roosevelt was well-known for not believing that "the meek shall inherit the earth.) In Bigelow's view the smart thing was to steer clear of oriental art and Buddhism and get the President interested in judo and the warrior ethic of the samurai. If the President could be convinced that the Japanese were manly and not effeminate, he might be more inclined to favor them. Bigelow got Roosevelt hooked on judo by pinning him to the floor in his office. Roosevelt set aside a Judo Room in the White House and studied with an authentic Japanese judo master. The enthusiastic Roosevelt even mentioned at a cabinet meeting "that his 'Japanese wrestler' had throat muscles 'so powerfully developed by training that it is impossible for any ordinary man to strangle him.'" Another interesting section of the book details how Frank Lloyd Wright's ideas on architecture were influenced by the traditional Japanese belief in simple lines and the importance of empty space and lack of clutter. Likewise, we see how Ezra Pound's admiration for the succinctness of Japanese poetry was reflected in his own work. One thing that is very interesting about the book is "the eye of the beholder" aspect: people saw what they wanted to. Some people saw the Japanese as warriors and "masculine" , while others saw only the artistic, "feminine" side of the country. Some thought the Japanese were "mere imitators" while others recognized great creativity. Ironically, while some Westerners longed to see "mystical, unspoiled" Japan, the country was busy trying to catch up to the West- but trying to do so without abandoning its traditions. If the book has one weakness, it is that it is too heavily weighted with examples of Westerners travelling East. It would have been enlightening to have learned about the experiences of some more Japanese who journeyed to America. Still, this is a brilliantly conceived and executed book, which shows how culture is spread and that not only "nature abhors a vacuum"- people do, as well. No matter how creative we are, nobody is able to make something out of nothing. We all need something to build on, and to spark our creativity.

2 out of 5 stars Informative but boring September 10, 2003
11 out of 19 found this review helpful

I had great hope for this book -- what promise! Tying together "gilded age misfits, Japanese eccentrics." The first chapter on John Manjiro and Melville has great narrative power, unfortunately the rest of the book falls into a poor mix of ties between New Englanders and the Japanese. One of my big problems with the book is that the Japanese presence is hardly felt -- instead we have long, winding chapters on Henry Adams, Percival Lowell, Mabel Todd, etc. (interesting people in their own right) but whose ties to Japan don't have the sustaining narrative power as those like Melville or Manjiro.

Mr. Benfey's book is definitely informative. I found his list of sources and quotations to be appetizing -- yet I could barely force myself to finish the book. Its focus is more on what the New Englanders, ok white Americans, came away with from Japan even if it was the boiled down crack of Okukura's "Book of Tea" or Nitobe Inazo's "Bushido." Thank god Okakura existed -- otherwise, Mr. Benfey would have not had any glue to keep his American characters in this book.

4 out of 5 stars Swept away October 28, 2003
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is an excellent book on what Japan meant for the people who visited in the early days of the Meiji period. The author concentrates on a series of vignettes to explore the significance of Japanese culture in the lives of some of the leading US citizens of the period. It was not all just collections of fans and diets of raw fish. Some of these early travlers used a trip to Japan to acquire ancient artifacts (many of which are in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts), Henry Adams went on quest for nirvana, the artist John La Farge went with him and absorbed new artistic techniques that marked his subsequent work. The cast of characters also includes Isabelle Stewart Gardner and Theodore Roosevelt.
This is a very interesting book, sure to delight the reader who really wants to know what happens when west meets east.

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