essay by FRANÇOIS SIMON French writer and food critic François Simon published ‘Le Silence de l’Amour (The Silence of Love)’, a novel describing one of his trips to Japan, where he patiently waits for the Japanese woman he loves. He experiences solitude in the countryside and follows in the footsteps of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who spent a lot of time in Japan, far from the media. He imagines how buddhism deeply transformed Lennon’s artistic sensibility. In Karuizawa, Yoko Ono introduced John Lennon to everyday Japan. Biking through the resort town, they’d stop wherever the wind took them, sometimes parting the noren — curtains at an inn’s entrance — for a moment of comfort. Often, Yoko reminded him, one is struck by the need to bow to enter, feeling a slight unease as one draws aside the fabric panels. It would be so simple to clear the…