of interest to GR and Vineland readers: new book: Kamikaze Diaries

[Dave Monroe]

Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko.  Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms,
   and Nationalisms: The Militarization of Aesthetics
   in Japanese History.  Chicago: U of C P, 2002.

In this fascinating study of the role of symbolism and
aesthetics in totalitarian ideology, Emiko
Ohnuki-Tierney shows how the state manipulated the
time-honored Japanese symbol of the cherry blossom to
convince people that it was their honor to "die like
beautiful falling cherry petals" for the emperor.
Drawing on diaries never before published in English,
Ohnuki-Tierney describes these young men's agonies and
even defiance against the imperial ideology.
Passionately devoted to cosmopolitan intellectual
traditions, the pilots saw the cherry blossom not in
militaristic terms, but as a symbol of the painful
beauty and unresolved ambiguities of their tragically
brief lives.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/15259.ctl

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0312&msg=87480

--- pynchonoid <pynchonoid at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Title: Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko: Kamikaze Diaries
> Publisher: University of Chicago Press
> http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/177833

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