Mr. Twigger's account regarding his time spent in Japan, and with the Kidotai, is both hilarious and enlightening.
The life of a foreigner in Japan must be unusual to say the least, but being a foreigner participating in the Riot Police aikido course must have been downright bizarre! His anecdotes and humour made this a book I just could not put down!
As others have noted in their reviews, "Angry White Pyjamas" is a similar story to Mark Salzman's "Iron & Silk", with the central figure being a stranger in a strange land... But I feel this is where the similarities end. Mr. Twigger writes with more wit and self-discovery with less emphasis on the martial arts than Mr. Salzman, who wrote in a more "gee-whiz" style (for lack of a better term) with more emphasis on China's people and wushu. Please don't misunderstand, I love "Iron & Silk" (I highly recommend it), but Pyjamas is a *different* kind of book.
His story almost seems too funny to be real, at times I suspect that he may have embellished certain parts, but I'm just being nit-picky... Also the fact that I used to train under the "famous aikido teacher from Toronto" reminded me that this book is based in reality; having a connection (even an indirect one) to the writer really changed my perception of Pyjamas.
The only negative thing (if you can call it that) about this book is a somewhat haphazard regard to time, in some instances we skip a number of months from one chapter to another... But in this regard, I'm being VERY picky.
This has become one of my favourite books in my limited collection of prose, "good face" Mr. Twigger! :)
