The Other Face of the Moon by Claude Lévi-Strauss, and: Anthropology Confronts the Problems of the Modern World by Claude Lévi-Strauss (review)

The publication of these lovely little volumes is a cause for celebration. Those interested in what one of the world’s most learned anthropologists thought about the study of human cultures, and about Japan in particular, will rejoice at the release of this pair of books comprising numerous talks and papers and one interview from the 1970s and 1980s. With these pocket-size collections, written in a style much more accessible than his scholarly works usually were, readers are now in a position to understand a side of Claude Lévi-Strauss with which we had hitherto been unacquainted. Until now we have been accustomed to the austere insights of a genius surveying rich fields of data and establishing order where chaos had previously reigned, but in these volumes we meet the scholar more personally, in more relaxed moments, as a guest speaking in Japan. Warmly welcomed by his hosts, Lévi-Strauss generously praises them while revealing a thorough acquaintance and deep involvement with Japanese culture. The resulting commentary on matters of Japanese aesthetics is as fascinating and edifying as the other erudite thoughts on high culture expressed in some of his later works such as Look, Listen, Read (Basic Books, 1985).

We learn, for example, that Lévi-Strauss’s ear was too classically trained to allow him much enjoyment listening to world music; however, he makes Japanese music an exception and explains very carefully, and convincingly (in The Other Face of the Moon), why he does so. He extends his analysis to the cuisines of various cultures and shows why the musical and cooking traditions of each place share common cultural orientations.

Throughout the author’s monumental analyses of New World mythology are indications that he wanted to connect his findings with myths and practices in China and Japan. It has long been known that his deep interest in early China came through the influence of the brilliant Marcel Granet. In these volumes we further learn that from a very young age Lévi-Strauss loved Japanese things, and we are treated to real japonisme interpreted by a master anthropologist. More importantly, we see him develop connections between regional myth systems on a global scale. The tone of this treatment contrasts with that of his earlier published works, thus giving us a somewhat different perspective on his thought.

The Other Face of the Moon poses “the fundamental problem of Japanese culture: how are we to explain how this culture, placed at the far end of a vast continent, occupying a marginal position there, and having experienced long periods of isolation, could at the same time offer in its most ancient texts a perfectly elaborated synthesis of elements found elsewhere in dispersed order?” (pp. 11–12). Though in his conclusion to The Story of Lynx (University of Chicago Press, 1995) Lévi-Strauss makes a somewhat resigned statement about the vast difficulties and unprecedented intellectual challenges of cross-cultural comparisons, in these volumes he vigorously undertakes such comparisons. He also provides a clear justification for structural analysis in such cases, one that avoids explanations based on historical diffusion, but finds the notion of independent origin too confusing to be a useful tool here. Aptly likening Japan to an alembic, he probes the links between Japan and Indonesia, and between these two countries and far-off places such as the New World. The papers in The Other Face of the Moon on the white hare of Inaba, and on the shameless dance of the Shinto goddess Ame-no-Uzume (which has a parallel in ancient Egyptian mythology), are not long enough to do justice to the problems discussed, but nevertheless they are extremely interesting, suggestive, and of great significance...