by Robert Twigger
Oxford poet Robert Twigger trains with the Tokyo Riot Police
in their year-long intensive Aikido course
Reviewed by: Guy Brandon
About Guy Brandon
"Angry White Pyjamas" is the true story of an extremely funny and unlikely
urban quest. Leading a directionless and unfulfilling existence drifting
from job to job in Japan, thirty year-old would-be writer Robert Twigger is
forced to accept that his life is slipping away from him. Inspired by
Tesshu, a 19th century Samurai and poet, and encouraged by his two flat
mates Chris and Fat Frank (an ex-tax guru and polymath, and an unemployable
Iranian with a predilection for belly-dancing and enormous underpants), he
dons his dogi - the "white pyjamas" worn for training - and begins learning
the Japanese martial art of Aikido. Quickly becoming obsessed with the
appeal of physical fitness and technical perfection, he later enrols on the
brutal, year-long intensive course that the Tokyo Riot Police are required
to undergo. The author soon has to rethink some of his old ideas about pain,
endurance and humiliation, and for five hours a day, five days a week, he is
punched, thrown and beaten by the unrelenting instructors whose method of
teaching has changed little since the days of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Alongside the formal, violent, ultra-traditional world of the Japanese
martial arts dojo, the author also introduces us to his contemporary world
of 90s Tokyo - the commercialism, glamour and nightlife, as well as the
squalor and destitution. The dojo and the outside world coexist in uneasy
tension as he lives his life divided between the two. As a foreigner who
began his martial arts training relatively late in life, Robert Twigger is
able to approach his subject from the outside and fully appreciate some of
the idiosyncrasies and madness of both modern Japan and traditional Aikido
training. Winner of two awards, the brilliantly unusual "Angry White
Pyjamas" artfully and humorously articulates his progress, aspirations,
fears and distractions over the course of the year, from the intensity of
the dojo to the urbanities of life at home. It will strike a chord with
anyone familiar with Japanese martial arts, and is in any case a wonderful
change of reading material for all - a bizarre and original concept very
capably put into writing.
Click here to buy this book, or read more about it at Amazon.com: Angry White Pyjamas
Copyright © by Guy Brandon, 2002
Reviewed by Guy Brandon:
-- Koba the Dread - by Martin Amis
-- The Eagle's Shadow
- by Mark Hertsgaard
-- Human Instinct - How our primeval impulses shape our modern lives
- by Robert Winston
-- Hannibal
- by Thomas Harris
-- Ender's Game
- by Orson Scott Card
-- A Clockwork Orange
- by Anthony Burgess
-- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- by Arthur C. Clarke
-- Color: Stories from the Paintbox
- by Victoria Finlay
-- Arcadia
- by Tom Stoppard
-- Angry White Pyjamas
- by Robert Twigger
-- Lord of the Rings
- by J. R. R. Tolkien
-- The Matrix and Philosophy
- by William Irwin
Home
-------
All the Reviews