Issues > November/December 2005 (#111) > Holiday Reading

Holiday Reading

Relax and lie in bed this holiday season with favorite reads picked by Green Guide staffers. And all books purchased here help support The Green Guide through our affiliation with Powell's Books.

The Zen of Imperfection

The Wabi-Sabi House: The Japanese Art of Imperfect Beauty by Robyn Griggs Lawrence (Clarkson Potter, 2004, $25)
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For me, Real Simple and Vogue are fantasy reads: I'm never going to achieve either epitome of chic. But suddenly, thanks to Robyn Griggs Lawrence's captivating The Wabi-Sabi House, I've actually started letting go of clutter. Light and air are flooding our prewar apartment, whose bones are beginning to show as if it's been on a healthy diet. First to go were the his-and-her terry bedroom scuffs in handwoven raffia envelopes, complimentary souvenirs from a romantic Mexican getaway last spring and perfect dust-gatherers in New York City. Once I realized that I wasn't tossing the romance with the slippers, letting go of other stuff was easy, especially since our building superintendent is happy to take old clothes, books, toys and CDs to his church's second-hand store.

Okay, you might say, but it's comparatively easy to get rid of stuff. What about putting together a coherent, comfortable, even beautiful home? The answer is that furnishing, decoration and home maintenance can also be done in a wabi-sabi way, and you don't have to be an interior designer to take creative inspiration from the many ideas presented in this sage lifestyle book.

First, what is wabi-sabi?

Wabi's multiple meanings range from humble (even shabby) to unmaterialistic and in touch with nature, "the joy of the little monk in his wind-torn robe." Sabi literally translates as "the bloom of time." The combination of the two makes for a philosophy that is highly eclectic, intuitive and personal. "Make things yourself instead of buying those spit out by a machine, and smile when your work is flawed," advises Lawrence, the editor of Natural Home and Garden magazine, who is also a staunch proponent of "buying used whenever possible."

Wabi sabi's legacy can be observed in contemporary Japan, where, Lawerence writes,"Rather than tossing purchases into a bag, store clerks wrap them in paper, transforming them into a small moment of celebration," and village courtesies, such as walking lost travelers to their destinations, endure. While Japanese shoppers, most recently the trend-setting Harajuku Girls, have a worldwide reputation for being logo-mad, this is also a country where nostalgia for nature runs so deep that one "can even 'rent' grandparents who live in prototypical country houses and spend the weekend there." The film Lost in Translation makes much the same point, contrasting a high-tech, neon and depersonalizing Tokyo with the Kyoto shrine where the American heroine observes a traditional wedding that moves her to tears.

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