Ron Beaubien
28th March 2006, 14:29
Hello,
Although the life of Miyamoto Musashi was certainly interesting the first time I read about him, after reading over ten books on the subject of his life or his writings over the years, his life and writings don't interest me much any more. Although he was apparently a great swordsman, it is very difficult to separate fact from fiction, and Eiji Yoshikawa's famous novel has only made the facts more obscure. Not to mention, books in English usually just rehash the same misinformation from the novel again and again, stating it as if it were fact.
I saw "Lightning in the Void; The Authentic History of Miyamoto Musashi" by John Carroll on the bookstore shelf the other day, took one look at the title and picture of the author dressed in a cowboy hat and holding a rifle, and set the book back on the shelf. I had serious questions about a book that claims to be an "authentic history" when the book appeared to lack any citations and be nothing more than another novel.
Then, the other day, I ran across the following review in the Japan Times. I did like the fact that although another novel, the author apparently did not portray Miyamoto Musashi as some kind of over-romanticized, Edo Period boy scout, complete with modern day morality and dressed in fine silk clothes. Instead, the author attempted to show the dirty, harsh reality of the times and the blood and gore that comes with the territory of regularly killing people, which I applaud.
Still, the image of a Musashi that after an early kill "savagely ripped off his fundoshi and began masturbating" does not sit entirely well with me either...
Thoughts?
Regards,
Ron Beaubien
--------------
A new 'hero' for olden times
By DONALD RICHIE
LIGHTNING IN THE VOID: The Authentic History of Miyamoto Musashi, by John Carroll. Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2006, 520 pp., 2,500 yen (paper).
Any history calling itself "authentic" posits one that is inauthentic. Here the target is apparent. It is the "Miyamoto Musashi" of Eiji Yoshikawa, published 1935-39 and translated into English as "Musashi" in 1981.
Still in print and going strong, Yoshikawa's best-seller achieved its popularity by cleaning up its hero, giving him an idealistic education and assuring that he was the poster-boy bushido-type warrior Japan needed in 1935 at the beginning of its final military adventure.
This new and "authentic" Musashi, however, is quite dissimilar. He is reported to be a "stinking wretch who actually boasts that he never takes a bath," who practices an "inelegant, meat-chopping style" of swordsmanship, and would seem to believe that "nothing can beat the look on a man's face when he sees his cock and balls go flying into space."
To be sure, we are here listening to Sasaki Kojiro, the opponent in Musashi's most famous duel, but our hero in action is not much different. He wears a "filthy kimono," and a leather vest that has "become quite ripe." His wild head of hair is louse-infested and in repose our hero is said to resemble "a mound of cow dung in the hot sun."
In action, he is even more dissimilar to the idealized hero. After an early kill, Musashi "savagely ripped off his fundoshi and began masturbating." Later, beset by boys, he breaks their bones then goes to one of his victims "whose faced resembled a blood stew, and calmly spit in his face." Still later, in one of the many fully detailed duels, Musashi knees his antagonist in the groin, rams his short sword deep into the stomach, then twists the blade and watches as his opponent's "guts spilled out like warm streamers of blood pudding."
Yoshikawa's cleaned-up hero is nowhere in sight. Toshiro Mifune, who played Musashi in the best-known of the several film adaptations, would have experienced some difficulties rendering this "authentic" version -- among which would have been his sexual candor.
Musashi is very up front about his preferences. He remembers "the men he had killed, the boys he had loved." He also says that his only incurable weakness "is love for pretty boys . . . but with beautiful creatures like this on the face of the earth, what man in his right mind would waste his time on women."
And indeed this Musashi is misogynistic to a degree, though perhaps not much more so than other bushido-inflamed warriors of his period. However, he is wrong about this being his only "incurable weakness." He has others as well.
These are outlined by the author at the end of his saga. Musashi was a man "whose time had passed, or more precisely had never really come." He dedicated himself to killing others who had done him no harm, simply to advance his career. His Zen-related claims were to ingratiate himself with potential patrons. "Musashi ever remained the complete materialist." As such, he is quite different from Yoshikawa's popular hero with his bushido and his boy-scout ways.
This is quite reason enough to write a counter version such as this, since it is needed in order to square the person with his times. These were bloody times and they made bloody people. The author of this new version of the life gives great swaths of history (including a richly detailed account of the boiling alive of Ishikawa Goemon and his son), and while this usually stops the action, it does give a textured backdrop to this "age of hyenas."
Structured into five long sections (and modeled after Musashi's famous "Five Ring" treatise) John Carroll's version of the hero's career may be welcomed as a more likely rendering of a life of which all too little is actually known -- a version that removes the nationalistic sub-text of most other adaptations, and ignores the poster-boy implications of Yoshikawa.
A result is what the popular press calls "a terrific read," one in which the naked story (that element of narrative that E.M. Forester calls "unfortunate") completely takes over and rivets reader to page. It is a retro reading and speaks not only of Musashi's time but also our own.
This book can be ordered from www.printedmatterpress.com
Although the life of Miyamoto Musashi was certainly interesting the first time I read about him, after reading over ten books on the subject of his life or his writings over the years, his life and writings don't interest me much any more. Although he was apparently a great swordsman, it is very difficult to separate fact from fiction, and Eiji Yoshikawa's famous novel has only made the facts more obscure. Not to mention, books in English usually just rehash the same misinformation from the novel again and again, stating it as if it were fact.
I saw "Lightning in the Void; The Authentic History of Miyamoto Musashi" by John Carroll on the bookstore shelf the other day, took one look at the title and picture of the author dressed in a cowboy hat and holding a rifle, and set the book back on the shelf. I had serious questions about a book that claims to be an "authentic history" when the book appeared to lack any citations and be nothing more than another novel.
Then, the other day, I ran across the following review in the Japan Times. I did like the fact that although another novel, the author apparently did not portray Miyamoto Musashi as some kind of over-romanticized, Edo Period boy scout, complete with modern day morality and dressed in fine silk clothes. Instead, the author attempted to show the dirty, harsh reality of the times and the blood and gore that comes with the territory of regularly killing people, which I applaud.
Still, the image of a Musashi that after an early kill "savagely ripped off his fundoshi and began masturbating" does not sit entirely well with me either...
Thoughts?
Regards,
Ron Beaubien
--------------
A new 'hero' for olden times
By DONALD RICHIE
LIGHTNING IN THE VOID: The Authentic History of Miyamoto Musashi, by John Carroll. Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2006, 520 pp., 2,500 yen (paper).
Any history calling itself "authentic" posits one that is inauthentic. Here the target is apparent. It is the "Miyamoto Musashi" of Eiji Yoshikawa, published 1935-39 and translated into English as "Musashi" in 1981.
Still in print and going strong, Yoshikawa's best-seller achieved its popularity by cleaning up its hero, giving him an idealistic education and assuring that he was the poster-boy bushido-type warrior Japan needed in 1935 at the beginning of its final military adventure.
This new and "authentic" Musashi, however, is quite dissimilar. He is reported to be a "stinking wretch who actually boasts that he never takes a bath," who practices an "inelegant, meat-chopping style" of swordsmanship, and would seem to believe that "nothing can beat the look on a man's face when he sees his cock and balls go flying into space."
To be sure, we are here listening to Sasaki Kojiro, the opponent in Musashi's most famous duel, but our hero in action is not much different. He wears a "filthy kimono," and a leather vest that has "become quite ripe." His wild head of hair is louse-infested and in repose our hero is said to resemble "a mound of cow dung in the hot sun."
In action, he is even more dissimilar to the idealized hero. After an early kill, Musashi "savagely ripped off his fundoshi and began masturbating." Later, beset by boys, he breaks their bones then goes to one of his victims "whose faced resembled a blood stew, and calmly spit in his face." Still later, in one of the many fully detailed duels, Musashi knees his antagonist in the groin, rams his short sword deep into the stomach, then twists the blade and watches as his opponent's "guts spilled out like warm streamers of blood pudding."
Yoshikawa's cleaned-up hero is nowhere in sight. Toshiro Mifune, who played Musashi in the best-known of the several film adaptations, would have experienced some difficulties rendering this "authentic" version -- among which would have been his sexual candor.
Musashi is very up front about his preferences. He remembers "the men he had killed, the boys he had loved." He also says that his only incurable weakness "is love for pretty boys . . . but with beautiful creatures like this on the face of the earth, what man in his right mind would waste his time on women."
And indeed this Musashi is misogynistic to a degree, though perhaps not much more so than other bushido-inflamed warriors of his period. However, he is wrong about this being his only "incurable weakness." He has others as well.
These are outlined by the author at the end of his saga. Musashi was a man "whose time had passed, or more precisely had never really come." He dedicated himself to killing others who had done him no harm, simply to advance his career. His Zen-related claims were to ingratiate himself with potential patrons. "Musashi ever remained the complete materialist." As such, he is quite different from Yoshikawa's popular hero with his bushido and his boy-scout ways.
This is quite reason enough to write a counter version such as this, since it is needed in order to square the person with his times. These were bloody times and they made bloody people. The author of this new version of the life gives great swaths of history (including a richly detailed account of the boiling alive of Ishikawa Goemon and his son), and while this usually stops the action, it does give a textured backdrop to this "age of hyenas."
Structured into five long sections (and modeled after Musashi's famous "Five Ring" treatise) John Carroll's version of the hero's career may be welcomed as a more likely rendering of a life of which all too little is actually known -- a version that removes the nationalistic sub-text of most other adaptations, and ignores the poster-boy implications of Yoshikawa.
A result is what the popular press calls "a terrific read," one in which the naked story (that element of narrative that E.M. Forester calls "unfortunate") completely takes over and rivets reader to page. It is a retro reading and speaks not only of Musashi's time but also our own.
This book can be ordered from www.printedmatterpress.com