Autumn Light

February 1, 2019
The acclaimed travel writer and journalist meditates on the impermanence of life.Like many others, Iyer (The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere, 2014, etc.) reveres the beauty and portent of autumn. Japan, he writes, wants the world to think of it as the land of cherry blossoms, "but it's the reddening of the maple leaves under a blaze of ceramic-blue skies that is the place's secret heart." Iyer--who divides his time between California, where he cares for his mother, and Japan with his wife, Hiroko, and her two adult children from a previous marriage--writes that autumn "poses the question we all have to live with: How to hold on to the things we love even though we know that we and they are dying." The author chronicles how Hiroko's nonagenarian father had recently died. Her mother, whose memory was failing, complained, "I have two children...and I have to live in a nursing home. Until I die." The second child is Masahiro, who severed all contact with his family. Throughout the narrative, the author mixes musings on the ephemerality of existence with scenes of quotidian life, most notably his visits to the local ping-pong club for "maverick games on Saturday afternoons" with elderly club patrons with vivid memories of the war. Some readers may be put off by Iyer's decision to render Hiroko's English dialogue in fragments--e.g., "you remember last week, I go parent house little check my father thing?" Late in the book, he refers to her "homemade, ideogrammatic English," but the rendering will still strike some as insensitive. Otherwise, this is a thoughtful work with many poignant moments, as when Iyer and Hiroko take her mother on a drive past Kyoto's temples and, in a moment of clarity, she starts crying when she remembers visiting them with her husband."Bright though they are in color, blossoms fall," Iyer hears schoolchildren singing. "Which of us escapes the world of change?" This moving work reinforces the importance of finding beauty before disaster strikes.

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Starred review from March 15, 2019
In The Art of Stillness (2014), Iyer urged readers to find contentment by slowing down. This wisdom is reflected in the beloved travel writer and journalist's wistful and conscious memoir filled with musings about home, culture, family, and death. After the passing of his father-in-law, Iyer leaves his second home in California for Japan to comfort his wife, Hiroko. Returning to his two-room apartment in a Eurocentric neighborhood outside Kyoto, Iyer sees the familiar land of serenity and superstition as though through new eyes. He marvels at the mystical rituals his wife practices to ensure a happy afterlife for her father and explores why Hiroko's intellectual brother cut ties with the family. He recounts his daughter's battle with Hodgkin's disease and makes his case that Japan's reddening maple leaves are more iconic than the cherry blossoms. As in his previous work, the British-born Indian American also examines the role of the globalist. The funniest and most illuminating thread traces Iyer's blossoming ping-pong skills, as he competes against spry septuagenarians and witnesses the more passionate side of traditionally stoical Japanese men. With his trademark blend of amiability, lighthearted humor, and profound observations, Iyer celebrates emotional connection and personal expression, and he upholds death as an affirmation of life and all its seasons.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

November 15, 2018

Noteworthy essayist/novelist Iyer is perhaps best appreciated for travel writing that goes beyond travelog, as he does here. For years, Iyer divided his time between California and Japan, where he and his Japanese wife have a home. But his father-in-law's recent death called them back to Japan earlier than expected, prompting meditations on how we hold on to what we love and how we learn to let go, framed by the culture of a people who honor their dead and regard the autumn light differently than we do. A sequel of sorts to 1991's The Lady and the Monk, with good review attention for a beloved writer's writer.

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