I found this book to be sloppy, half-assed, lame and generally disappointing. Several of these essays appeared long ago on the Web for free, like on Salon, so why should we have to pay for the privilege of rereading them in print? Speed Tribes was a great book because the author spent a lot of time getting deep into his subject and presenting us with original portraits of people we'd rarely encountered before, at least at that time (1994). Standard Deviations, on the other hand, when not padded with retread essays, is padded with endless digressions about how Greenfeld has long aspired to be a Great Writer. Yawn... Why didn't he put the same effort into this book that he did with Speed Tribes? The essays about Naddy the Pimp or the two ashrams he visited in India would have been far more interesting without the confessional biographical stuff he loads (and loads) on and instead presented with the same amount of research and behind-the-scenes interviewing that underpins Speed Tribes. But I guess writing expose-type essays like that would have required too much time and cut into his quality party time. The best essay is the title piece because it presents us with a fairly wide-ranging view of the sociology of Jakarta's high society just before the economic crash, and this obviously required a lot of research; noteworthy, too, is the fact that this superior essay contains little of Greenfeld's own navel-gazing authorial presence (too bad about the title, though, a rip-off of the economics-jargon/personal-life metaphor idea that Jonathan Franzen already used in last year's The Corrections). Most of the other essays, however, are hackneyed and have already been done better elsewhere. William T. Vollmann and Alex Garland, for example, have written far superior books about Thailand's sex and expat party scenes, and the number of mediocre travel books set in Southeast Asia is already far overblown and in need of some taming; this book adds nothing new at all to the genre. Anyway, what I object to most is Greenfeld's constant posturing about how "cool" he is and how cool he thinks the people he hangs out with are, and how he wants to hang out without ever cooler people in the future. I'm sorry, mate, but how cool are stock brokers, airline travel-mag writers and Roppongi gaijin trash? There are tons of very cool people in Japan, for one, that never seem to enter Greenfeld's radar of cool, from zinesters to punks to tattoo artists to filmmakers to you name it. This book contained about a hundred references to Conde Nast but mentions not one Japan-based zine; how "cool" is that? This book mentions plenty of cheesy, sleazy Roppongi bars, and name-drops Simon Le Bon once, but where are all the cool Tokyo acts like Guitar Wolf or Cornelius? In his first essay, Greenfeld slams English teachers in Japan for being too uncool for his school, yet there are dozens of English teachers in Japan who also put out very cool zines that are far more hip and with-it than this book, from Matt Exile of Exile Osaka to Peter Hoflich of Head Cheese. All I gotta say is, if you have to worry about how "cool" you are all the time, you probably ain't. This book is hardly deviant; it is simply standard. I'm still waiting for Greenfeld's next great book; unfortunately, this sure ain't it.

Greenfeld is an accomplished writer with a terrific sense of humor. The book chronicles his career and travels as a disgruntled english teacher in Japan and a freelance journalist trotting around the Far East and India. Along the way he delivers poignant tales featuring shady characters and fellow expats who engage in Asia's riches, while inking his growing dependence on mind altering substances. Greenfeld now serves as Time magazine's Asian news editor. If you're interested in journalism, enjoy travel writing, and can appreciate an American sense of wit, you must pick up this book.

This guy set off and did many of the things that alot of us do when we first go to Asia-full moon partis down in Thai islands, patpong girls, the crazy stuff-and reading reminded me of my first trip to SE Asia a few years ago. I didn't go for the culture, I went for the good times and I found them. So did Greenfeld as he partied hard around the region. Okay, too hard as he becam addicted to the lifestyle and the drugs and finally crashed. The book is a great read, basically one night and I burned through the whole thing and thought about all the stuff I've done and could my stories be better than his? Probably not, but they're not that different. Boyz will be boyz, we love getting loaded and laid in strange lands, and that's what this book is about. Great travel stuff.

I read this book with less than a year in Japan under my belt and thought, Wow, it seems like Greenfield is living in a different Japan than I am! In retrospect, I was right. Greenfield is living in the Japan of his imagination, a Gibson-esque Japan that most people in the West willingly mistake for the real Japan.

The book is not a BAD read as it is reasonably well-paced and filled with characters that fulfill every popular stereotype of Japan. The book's problem lies in its attempt to masquerade as hard-hitting investigative journalism. Greenfield is a guy who has obviously spent alot of time in Roppongi and parlayed a few sordid tales he picked up late night in Wall Street into a cash cow (relatively speaking). In other words, this book is all anecdote and no factual substance.

The one story I felt had the ring of truth was the one about the elevator girl who takes some e and shags a gaijin. Now there's a Tokyo story for ya! Although in four-plus years in Japan I have yet to see an attractive elevator girl . . . And one more thing: bousou does not mean speed! It's more about recklessness, being out of control!

Insubstantial fluff. I wish I had written it.

This book is enjoyable to read. It presents a side of Japan that is almost unheard of, the disenfranchised. Told as a series of first-person vignettes, with each person similar but distinct. This is the raw underbelly of Japan, violent, disatisfied with life, desperately seeking for an unknown goal. A quick look at the domestic Japanese news reveals that there is a serious crisis of identity occuring, and this is one of the few books that reveals the true roots of the problem. In my time in Japan, I have known people like the characters in this book, and in general the stories ring true. The only thing which prevents me from giving this book 5 stars is that the few places that the Japanese language is used in this book, it is odd or even incorrect. Still, the stories seem to provide an accurate insight into the thinking and lifestyles of many young Japanese.

In today's literature, there seems to be two prevailing view of Japan:
1 - Japan Inc: Once monolithic, but now of lost luster.
2 - Lost Culture: The land of disappearing kimonos and bonsai trees

This book provides another slice of reality - an eerie behind the scenes look at the lost generation of young Japanese not buying in to dreams of being a salaryman. It's a Japan that is not frequently written about in the West. The angst is real amongst the young, though.

Is it truth or fiction? If it's not true, it could be. I suspect the interviews are real, or at least the stories have a basis in fact. Teenagers peddling false drugs... Motorcyclists speeding through town on noisy bikes... Office ladies more interested in gai-jin that nihon-jin... These stories all exist. It takes a good storyteller to bring them out.