Great Mirrors Shattered: Homosexuality, Orientalism, and Japan (Ideologies of Desire)
In the fall of 1986, the full impact of AIDS struck in Japan. At that time, Treat (Asian languages and literatures, Univ. of Washington) was on sabbatical in Nakano. Superficially, this is a month-by-month memoir of a year in the life of a brilliantly observant if somewhat solipsistic gay man in an alien culture. Beneath this is one of the richest and most original examinations of Asian homosexual culture in recent memory. Treat presents an intensely detailed examination of the devastating effect of AIDSAa "foreign" virusAand cultural imperialism on conservative, insular Japanese society. He combines elements of postmodernism and journalism, deftly interlacing personal details with scholarly and pop-culture references and streaks of erotica, while shifting between layers of personal and historical time and place. Highly recommended for gay studies, human sexuality and Asian studies collections in all libraries.ARichard Violette, Special Libraries Cataloguing, Victoria, BCCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.