The Lotus And The Robot

I saw a quote from Arthur Koestler's The Lotus And The Robot (1960) in a book of essays by Alan Booth, This Great Stage of Fools, coupled with the fact that I had read his Darkness At Noon earlier and the intriguing title of the book, inspired me to search out a copy. However, it was only of mild interest for me. Part One is about India and Koestler has some sort of spiritual interest in the orient coupled with New York intellectual interest in psychoanalysis that made most of it tedious for me. Especially the long quotes from translated religious texts. I found myself skipping long passages and whole sections of writing. The most interesting bits for me were those about the travel writing types of commentary about squalid conditions and problems he encountered as a traveler. Part Two takes place in Japan and again he relies too much on long passages of books written by others to explain contemporary Japan. Here he is also tediously interested in Zen Buddhism. I suppose I wanted more of a travelogue and found it very much out of date without many incisive insights into either country.