The fracture of meaning : Japan's synthesis of China from the eighth through the eighteenth centuries /

Pollack (University of Rochester) has a degree in Chinese literature and is fluent in Japanese. The volume owes its initial inspiration to Jacques Derrida and to Masao Miyoshi (Accomplices of Silence, CH, Oct '74). It consists of a series of essays, ranging chronologically from the Nara through the Tokugawa periods, on the dialectical process by which China and the idea of China helped shape the Japanese literary psyche. The essays vary in quality, that on the Tale of Genji being virtually devoid of content while, e.g., those dealing with medieval Zen monks and their poetry (also the subject of David Pollack's Zen Poems of the Five Mountains, CH, Sep '86) break significant new ground with skill and assurance. The overall aim of the volume is praiseworthy, and any study that pays serious attention to the neglected subject of Japanese literature in the Chinese language is to be welcomed. Among its other uses, the volume might serve as a sophisticated introduction to important issues in Japanese literature for comparatists. The publishers should be commended for including characters in the text. Index; bibliography. Suitable for university libraries, but rather too difficult for most undergraduates.-M. Ury, University of California, Davis