BT Review: Shutting Out the Sun

Shutting Out the Sun - How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation, by Michael Zielenziger (2006) (Publisher: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)

What if there were people who locked themselves in their rooms and literally didn't leave for days, weeks, months or even years at a time?  What if there were hundreds of thousands of these people?  Beyond the human toll exacted on these individuals and their families, would this phenomenon say anything about the society in which such hermits (for lack of a better term) lived?  Answering that question is what impels Michael Zielenziger to explore the Japanese social disfunction known as hikikomori.

One of Zielenziger's strengths, both from an investigatory and an analytical approach, is that he is an outsider to the culture which he is trying to understand - this seems to enable his efforts to contact the hikikomori, those young Japanese men (and most appear to be men) who sequester themselves from society, and their families, since in the complex and subtle modes of Japanese interaction, there is less shame in speaking to an outsider about these matters than to a neighbour; Zielenziger's status also permits him to provide comparative examples of other Asian societies, and how they seem to have avoided the problem of hikikomori.

Shutting Out the Sun offers many intriguing insights into Japanese culture, some banal (such as the apparent unwillingness to make extensive use of computers and electronic networks in business) and some fundamental (such as the social concepts of ijime (widespread bullying which appears endemic to Japan) and tatamae (or "face"), on the way to making Zielenziger's broader point: that Japan is in the midst of a profound societal stagnation, arising from the structural rigidity of the culture and the torrents of globalization washing around it.  The hikikomori phenomenon is, on Zielenziger's account, simply a manifestation of an impulse to withdraw and self-isolate which is a reaction to the failure of the Japanese economic model.  There is an enormous amount to be learned here, and while not everything should be taken as gospel truth, it provides a fascinating starting point for anyone wishing to inquire more deeply.

For the first third of the book, I was a bit confused as to how he was going to maintain the "story" of the hikikomori for three hundred pages (once you get past the initial strangeness of "how" hikikomori function, there isn't an awful lot left to say about them, since no one seems to have anything but the vaguest ideas as to the "why") - but the book then becomes an insightful tour through Japanese history and, especially, a comparison between the divergent vectors of Japan and South Korea.  The only complaint this reader was left with was that the editing could have been tighter: certain phrases, facts and anecdotes repeat themselves throughout the text, which can end up feeling like an attempt at padding.  Other than that minor quibble, though, this book is highly recommended.

Grade: A

Recommendation: Borrow (on the Buy/Borrow/Don't Bother metric)

Comments

[Damian P.]

"What if there were people who locked themselves in their rooms and literally didn't leave for days, weeks, months or even years at a time?"

I believe these people are called "bloggers." (Thanks, folks, I'm here all night.)

[Peter Jay]

Great review. Fascinating -- I had no idea that hikikomori existed.

[Chris Taylor]

Sounds fascinating. I have long been of the opinion that the postwar structure of Japanese culture is way too rigid and headed for the dustbin. The library has many copies of this book and I'm looking forward to reading it. Thanks for the tip.