Pico Iyer

We cherish things, Japan has always known, precisely because they cannot last; it's their frailty that adds sweetness to their beauty. Returning to his home in Japan after his father-in-law's sudden death, Pico Iyer soon picks up the steadying patterns of his everyday rites: going to the post office in the day and engaging in spirited games of ping-pong in the evenings. But in a country whose calendar is marked with occasions honouring the dead, he soon finds himself grappling with the question we all have to live with: how to hold on to the things we love even though we know that they – and we – are dying. As the maple leaves begin to turn and the heat starts to soften, Iyer shows us a Japan we have seldom seen before through the season that reminds us to take nothing for granted.

Japan's Season of Fire and Farewells

Autumn Light

From one of our most astute observers of human nature, a far-reaching exploration of Japanese history and culture and a moving meditation on impermanence, mortality, and grief. For years, Pico Iyer has split his time between California and Nara, Japan, where he and his Japanese wife, Hiroko, have a small home. But when his father-in-law dies suddenly, calling him back to Japan earlier than expected, Iyer begins to grapple with 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. In a country whose calendar is marked with occasions honoring the dead, this question is more urgent than anywhere else. Iyer leads us through the year following his father-in-law's death, introducing us to the people who populate his days: his ailing mother-in-law, who often forgets that her husband has died; his absent brother-in-law, who severed ties with his family years ago but to whom Hiroko still writes letters; and the men and women in his ping-pong club, who, many years his senior, traverse their autumn years in different ways. And as the maple leaves begin to redden and the heat begins to soften, Iyer offers us a singular view of Japan, in the season that reminds us to take nothing for granted.

Season of Fire and Farewells

Mario Menti 

I absolutely loved this book. And I think I read it at the right time (not to mention the right age), shortly after seeing Yasujirō Ozu's Tokyo Story.

He explicitly mentions this scene at the end of the film, which is one that I genuinely will never forget:

“Life is disappointing, isn’t it?” says a young girl who’s just lost her mother, near the movie’s end. Her sister-in-law, only slightly older but a widow already, breaks into a radiant smile. “Yes,” she says, in the voice of classical Japan. “It is.”

If you're interested in Japan, and (ideally, like me) getting on a bit, I highly recommend this quite beautiful rumination on Japan, aging and death.

Gianfranco Chicco

Reflections on the Autumn of life. Maybe it was the specific moment and space in time it caught me in, this book left me with a feeling of sorrow and sadness.

Autumn Light Japan's Season of Fire and Farewells

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