Mount Fuji: Icon of Japan. By By H. Byron Earhart. University of South Carolina Press, October 15, 2011. 262 pages. ISBN-10: 1611170001 ISBN-13: 978-1611170009
摘要
Designated in 2013 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Cultural Site, Mount Fuji is, as aptly noted in this book's title, the “icon of Japan.” It is famous throughout history for its power to evoke art, poetry, and religious devotion among those who climbed it or gazed at it from afar. Mount Fuji is a perfect example of the way human beings transform nature into culture, a process that the author, a noted scholar of Japanese religions who specializes in mountain Buddhism, argues is dominated by Japanese people's perceptions of the fiery volcano as a holy peak. The book is a portrait miniature of Mount Fuji's “ambiguity and shifting identity” as a sacred mountain proving a larger point: The protean character of divinity is “more the rule than the exception in Japanese religion.” To grasp Mount Fuji's (and Japanese religions) sacred versatility, it is also essential to take courageously broad scope in your approach. Earhart does exactly this with chapters covering a wide range of topics, from Mount Fuji in early poetry, classical painting, and Shugendô asceticism to early modern woodblock prints, new religious movements, and the multitudinous ways Fuji has been used as an icon of modernity. While this book is a tour de force for persistent readers, unfortunately, it is intended for a specialist instead of general undergraduate audience.
