by Karl Taro Greenfeld
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Product Description
“I was twenty-three and I had set off for Asia to become a writer, intrigued by lurid tales of booms, busts, drugs, sex, violence, magic. There was a wicked sorcery in Asia, in the economic profligacy of the early nineties, in the way financiers and businessmen took a rapidly wiring and developing continent and looted billions, like a titanic parlor trick converting all that wealth into abandoned office complexes and half-completed shopping malls. . . . I wanted it all—the money, the sex, the drugs. And to this day I believe that if I am honest with myself, despite all I have learned the hard way over the past decade, I would still want it all again, the fucking and the getting loaded and the scheming to get enough money to pay for that life.”
In the late 1980s, not long out of college, Karl Taro Greenfeld found himself stranded in New York, a failed writer before his career had even begun. His Jewish-American father angrily cut off support; his Japanese mother suggested he go to Japan to teach English. He did, accepting a job with no more promise than he’d had before. But he stayed in Asia for the next several years, working his way through a series of journalistic posts, watching a culture erupt before his eyes and facing his own demons. Through a series of vividly imagistic stories that range from the rigidly journalistic to the deeply intimate, Standard Deviations recounts Greenfeld’s experiences—both professional and personal—during Asia’s wild ride at the end of the twentieth century. Whether drinking Japanese cough syrup to get high with other Western expatriates, visiting a free-sex ashram in Bombay, or watching a former high school pal self-destruct as an equity analyst in Jakarta, Greenfeld evokes the spirit of a continent in flux at an explosive “bubble” economy’s end—and a man confronting his own identity and aspirations.
Raunchy, insightful, eloquent and moving, Standard Deviations is an uncompromising work of cultural observation and self-exploration.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Average Customer Review:
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 An at times fascinating and at times frustrating look at some of Asia, 2008-09-01
"Standard Deviations" consists of eight largely unconnected true stories (not quite essays, I think). The one common element to most of these stories is the narrator himself, but after forty pages or so of coming to know and care about someone other than the narrator, we are asked to begin again with a new set of people.
My biggest complaint about the book is that it too frequently lapses into self-aggrandizement and graphic sexual descriptions. This complaint is not to be prudish, but there is a certain sense of taint in reading about the intimate lives of people who probably would have wanted to keep those elements of their lives private. That the author reveals his own failings at times (including drug addiction) or chooses to air his sexual escapades is one thing. To make public the private doings of others is another.
Still, there is an unmistakable sense of authenticity to these tales, beginning with the author's apparently brief tenure as an English teacher in Japan and parading through much of Asia, and a picture of a self-obsessed generation of mostly non-Asians comes through clear. This is not, I think, a book to read if you are interested in people who are achieving great things, but there is something fascinating, at least to me, about a candid assessment of people who proceed through life motivated only by drugs, sex, and, sometimes, money.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Fantastic look into the dark side of Asia, 2007-05-27
This is the first review I have written, and I am doing so only after reading the other horrible reviews for this book. I first read Standard Deviations several years ago while living in California and I could not wait to get to Asia and experience it for myself. Nearly seven years later and living in Japan for the past 3 years, along with visiting several SE Asian countries, I can assure you that this book still rings true in the underbelly of Asian society. The writing style and stories are attention grabbing and fast-paced, yet leave you thinking about how you might react in the same situation. This is easily one of my favorite books of all time, if not the best non-fiction I have ever read.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Interesting and detestable characters in the world's most exotic settings, 2006-06-27
Karl Taro Greenfeld is a class A writer. While I'm too much of a straightlaced geek to have hung out with the same folks Greenfeld did, I can attest that they do exist. But just having interesting characters is not enough. Greenfeld weaves them into some very interesting plotlines, with quite a few wonderful surprises. You may not ever want to live like these people do, but there is a voyeuristic pleasure that comes from reading about their joys and failures. This novel gives an excellent account of foreign young adults who live in modern Asia. It's not simply temples and water buffalo. It is a vibrant, thriving economic region that has all the attractions, distractions, diversion and perversions of the rest of the world in its own unique mix. Warning: reading this book may cause you to move to Southeast Asia and engage in a truly wild lifestyle.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
totally surprised me, 2006-05-23
I found this book in bangkok on khaosan road--it had a different cover than this but I am pretty sure it's the same book. The stories are about traveling in asia--thailand, india, japan, indo--on the hippy scene-circuit. I think I knew some of the characters from teaching english in Tokyo, and I definitely went to a few of the pubs he writes about. (The same writer wrote a book about Japanese youth culture and the whole Roppongi hostess bar scene called Speed Tribes, a good read about boomtime Japan. That's why I picked up this book when I saw it.) This was a good adventure book, a little uneven but the only book I've read that tries to capture life wandering through ex-pat Asia. My only complaint was that the book definitely tails off as it goes along. The first few stories are really good, the title story is great, and then the last few feels like he is just writing more of the same stuff. Still, if you've traveled and partied while living/working the Far East, this is a book well worth reading.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
 The lamento of an expat, 2006-05-16
K.T. Greenfeld's human mission is 'to get loaded, go to nightclubs and f* models'.
This book contains a few impressions of Asian politics (the Suharto regime in Indonesia) and of the Asian economic meltdown at te end of last century, 'a full-scale economic cataclysm ... locals saw their average income drop from $ 23 a week to $ 4.' The countries involved could't repay their foreign loans and had to turn to the IMF (see J. Stiglitz).
The reason for this catastrophy was 'sentiment' among speculators, who attacked ferociously and greedily local currencies (the Thai baht dropped by 50 % overnight).
But apart from these impressions, this book is mainly the story of the would-be (s)exploits of somebody who runs through Asia after his eleventh finger.
I cannot recommend this book.
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