I go back and forth on this one. It is supposed to be a classic of western takes on japan and there are parts I liked a lot, but it took 5-6 months to finish it and I read a dozen or so other books in the meantime, which speaks to how much I enjoyed it.

A memoir/travelog of a gaijin resident of Japan who travels to its more remote areas looking for the traditional Japan. He goes to some interesting places and makes lots of compelling observations but he's not someone I'd want as a traveling companion, which made the book difficult to finish. I respect his choice to show himself warts and all. I can even theoretically get behind it in a literary/brechtian/antihero sort of way. I can see how it makes the parallels between the geographic and personal "inland seas" more meaningful (after all who wants to read about the searchings of someone who has their shiznit together?). However in practice, well, I kept putting it down to read other things.