In the spring of 1689, Basho set off from Tokyo on a now-famous pilgrimage: this epic walk, spanning about 1500 miles, took him to the deep north of Honshu, and then back along the island’s western coast and finally down to Lake Biwa. Along his route he encountered friends and fellow travelers, the changing seasons and terrains, renowned sites (temples, waterfalls, landmarks), a few perils, and many enthralling moments of total peace, delight, beauty, and introspection.
Basho—Zen Buddhist, ardent walker, master of the haiku—follows the call of the road, finding incredible joy in his freedom and drinking in brief glimmers of transient perfection.
Basho’s artistic sensibility was of an order so original and self-renewing as to make him more modern than the modern.
— Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Basho thought of his walks as a spiritual discipline. In making his climactic journey along what he called The Narrow Road, he was visiting not just a remote part of his country but the neglected corners of himself, otherwise obscured by society and routine.
— Pico Iyer, The New York Times
The greatest haiku poet of the seventeenth century.
— E. E. Cummings
When we read Basho, we’re struck by how the cycle of seasons, so attentively studied, are experienced through the inconveniences and discomforts they bring as much as in the ecstatic beauty they bestow upon our eyes and minds.
