Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Mister Timeless Blyth: A Biographical Novel: R.H. Blyth's Life of Zen and Haiku, Bridging East and West

Mister Timeless Blyth: A Biographical Novel: R.H. Blyth's Life of Zen and Haiku, Bridging East and West

Spence, Alan

Hardcover

General Fiction

Publisher Price: $22.99

ISBN10: 0804856354
ISBN13: 9780804856355
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Published: Mar 28 2023
Pages: 384
Weight: 1.15
Height: 1.40 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.20
Language: English
*Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2024 Longlist*

Lovers of Haiku, Zen and Japan will find this novel truly inspiring!

An extraordinary man at a crucial time and place.

In Mister Timeless Blyth, writer Alan Spence has created a fascinating (auto) biography, convincingly in R.H. Blyth's own voice. In it, he has conveyed the haiku scholar's love of music, eastern and western literature, Zen Buddhism, and sly contradictions. Blyth's profound understanding of haiku and his self-deprecating humor permeate every page. Throughout this work, Mr. Spence has included an interesting constellation of characters who influenced Blyth on what he considered his own karmic path, giving us an entirely new perspective of his life and personal development. I could not put the book down. -- William Scott Wilson, author of The Life and Zen Haiku Poetry of Santoka Taneda

Imprisoned during World War I as a conscientious objector and interned during World War II as an enemy alien, Reginald Horace Blyth was a poet, a scholar, a musician, a linguist and a student of Zen who ultimately became teacher to an emperor. His pivotal works were published in Japan even during his internment.

Blyth ultimately became the key link and mediator between the Imperial Household and the occupying American forces, whom many credit with saving Japan from chaos after the war. His fingerprints are everywhere today in the study of Zen, Haiku and Japanese culture, and his work has influenced some of the most important writers of the 20th century-- including Huxley, Oshi, Aiken, Watts, Salinger, Kerouac, Ginsberg and others. He was, in many ways, a man who changed the world!

Mister Timeless Blyth is his story.

Written in the form of an autobiographical novel filled with Zen and poetry, this book recounts a life of hard work, books and music, of spiritual questing, and of learning to be at peace with one's self and one's choices. It celebrates a man who built bridge between East and West for the greater part of his lifetime. Through it, we understand someone who moved with a sense of purpose, warmth and humor and left a mark that was very distinct indeed.

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