Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

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This was originally written in serial form, and that’s a good thing early. We get a narrative payoff with enjoyable frequency throughout the first half or two-thirds. You can feel a conflict build up and then climax. There’s an episodic quality, almost as if this is a TV show.

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Here, Yoshikawa is doing something comparable. In the face of a moment all too “Modern” – Japan’s militarization leading up to World War II – he turned to the stuff of a distant past to imagine a way of recovering and celebrating lost values. If Tolkien looked to a vision of Norse mythology and a theological sense of good vs. evil, Yoshikawa looked to the way of the Samurai as a means of imagining a reinvigorated Japan. Character Development: The Novel. This may have some basis in Real Life. Although he probably never became the samurai ideal he was presented as in the book, at least not until the last years of his life, it is known that Musashi stopped fighting fatal duels after the events of the novel, prefering to beat enemies without hurting them. He also became something of a Renaissance Man, becoming an expert in woodcarving, metalcrafting, and painting. Very Loosely Based on a True Story. The story is almost entirely a work of fiction, woven around records and legends of the historical Musashi's exploits. Most of the main cast are invented, and even the historical figures who appear are more characters based on or inspired by those people. Having finished this, it feels like I've been on an epic journey. It was an intimidatingly long book, but after six months or so I'm finally done.It's not just Musashi, either. Matahachi, Osugi, Akemi, and even Kojirō all manage to become somewhat more respectable people by the end of the novel. There are elements that feel quite alien to me, although since this takes place in early 17th century Japan, that is not surprising. For the most part it was fun diving into this whole new world. But enough with comparing the manga with the novel; each one is a masterpiece for its own reasons. Let's delve a little further into the book and why it's such a profound piece of art. In effetti mi mnancava qualche mattone classico fuori dal continente europeo, e il Giappone mi ha sempre affascinata.

Musashi - Archive.org Musashi - Archive.org

As I have already mentioned, the story's unspoken reliance on extraordinary coincidences is probably my biggest problem with Musashi as a whole. With an entire country to explore, the way our protagonist bumps into the same 4 or 5 characters dozens of times throughout the story just led to such a stale overarching sense of progress and development.

The void is an outlier from the rest, describing consciousness, the greatest weapon a warrior can wield; present mind in the moment of battle. Musashi knew that being grounded was fundamental to being a warrior. We know this today. Una novela de aventuras que nos habla sobre la autosuperación un joven samurái que busca convertirse en el mejor de los guerreros. Una premisa trillada pero que es ejecutada de una buena manera, teniendo en su haber personajes secundarios carismáticos y queribles, y un prometedor desarrollo de Musashi como protagonista quien no solamente tiene que mejorar su técnica con la espada sino confrontar sus demonios internos y mejorar como persona, saliendo victorioso en algunas batalla y humillado en otras, explorando el lado filosófico de la espada a través de los mentores que va conociendo. La batalla contra Hozoin es una de la mas tensas y climáticas de la novela al mostrar el domino de musashi con la espada como su dominio.

Miyamoto Musashi Quotes (Author of A Book of Five Rings) Miyamoto Musashi Quotes (Author of A Book of Five Rings)

Beh, non da sempre: da quando ho scoperto manga e anime, come molti della mia generazione (e non solo). Ma Musashi, di Eiji Yoshikawa, trascende questa passione nata durante l'infanzia: scritto negli anni '30, questo volumone che conta più di 800 pagine scritte piccolissimo, è la versione romanzata della vita di Miyamoto Musashi, figura storica e riconosciuto come uno dei più grandi samurai della storia giapponese. I am a huge fan of the old Criterion Collection samurai movies and I loved Toshiro Mifune's portrayal of Musashi, so I thought I'd give this a read. I found it VERY slow at the beginning, but I powered through. It took me as long to read this as it did to read Don Quixote….coincidentally, Musashi lived at the same time as Cervantes, so it was interesting to compare what was going on in Japan in the time of Shakespeare and Cervantes. One of the best classic fiction series that I have read. There is plenty of action, and adventure, however what surprised me the most was how witty and humorous the book is throughout. Also, the book ends in a way to make you immediately open book 2. The book has an ongoing theme of Musashi and his journeys, as he walks the path of the warrior, following The Way, taming the mind. Musashi Quotes:

Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Kojirō, in spades. He's a boastful, condescending snob and a self-proclaimed genius. Unfortunately for his opponents, he's not wrong. Unfortunately, to me it feels as though the characters are mostly two-dimensional (at best), and the plot is sort of repetitive in places which resulted in tedious bits. And I never really emotionally connected with the characters or the story. TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

read Vagabond or Musashi (the novel) first? Should I read Vagabond or Musashi (the novel) first?

He becomes a reluctant hero to a host of people whose lives he has touched and been touched by. And, inevitably, he has to pit his skill against the naked blade of his greatest rival. It was originally released as a serial in the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, between 1935 and 1939. It has been re-released in book format (first fully-compiled publication by Fumiko Yoshikawa in 1971), most of which are collections of several volumes, which compile the many newspaper strips. With an estimated 120 million copies sold, [1] it is one of the best-selling book series in history. Tutto portandoci con lui in un viaggio nel tempo e nello spazio di filosofie, combattimenti, personaggi pittoreschi, e un Giappone che ormai non esiste più, e valori tanto più affascinanti perché diversi dai nostri.God, he's so good. In my list of knights without fear and reproach, which every girl creates by stringing a garland of book and film characters on a virtual thread (even if she has not been a girl for a long time, and the heroes are not quite knights): Ivanhoe. Robin Hood, Alan from "Kidnapped", de Bussy and Athos, Mr. Rochester, Mr. Darcy, Heathcliff, Gatsby - my list of additions. Ever so slowly it dawns on him that following the Way of the Sword is not simply a matter of finding a target for his brute strength. Continually striving to perfect his technique, which leads him to a unique style of fighting with two swords simultaneously, he travels far and wide, challenging fighters of many disciplines, taking nature to be his ultimate and severest teacher and undergoing the rigorous training of those who follow the Way. He is supremely successful in his encounters, but in the Art of War he perceives the way of peaceful and prosperous governance and disciplines himself to be a real human being. Apart from Musashi himself, all the other characters in the book are fairly one-dimensional and as a consequence, the story does not really seem to progress or unravel after the first few chapters (the meetings with Sasaki Kojirō are probably an exception to this). An expert on samurai history paints a vivid, multi-faceted portrait of feudal Japan and Miyamoto Musashi—the legendary swordsman who wrote the classic martial arts treatise, The Book of Five Rings Musashi ( Japanese: 宮本武蔵, Hepburn: Miyamoto Musashi ), also listed as " Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era" is a Japanese epic novel written by Eiji Yoshikawa, about the life and deeds of legendary Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi.