name reminded me of a Samurai and of what he would have faced during a life time of combat, There can be parallels to this idea in this book but what it is in reality is a totally different beast, Trevanian creates an elaborate joke which scorns at the 'Super Assassin' genre in Shibumi,
Shibumi in simple English means Casual Elegance tells the author, A way of life which in itself sets the dudes aside from the dunderheads, The story is about a man named Nicholai Hel who the author repeatedly reminds us for aboutof the pages is the most formidable assassin ever.
A mystic, a sexually hyper charged alpha male, able to kill with bare hands, world renowned underground cave explorer, well read and a polyglot with a command of over seven languages, able to think in mathematical abstractions owing to his refined state of play in the Japanese game of Go etc.
Yes, I am talking about one man and he is not a computer, The back story fills a big chunk of the book and then for about a hundred pages we are given the details of how he discovers an underground cave.
Being an assassin, his core competency is examined in roughly aboutpages towards the end,
For a man of such fine tastes, the way he overcomes his enemies is something that made me blanch, I strongly believe that the finalpages of this book was the biggest bunch of hogwash I have ever read in recent times, There is a lot of America bashing in here, Trevanian spares nothing : food,culture,sex,western philosophy, the CIA amp even the government is all scorned at.
The conclusion : Japan has a kick ass culture amp America does not, There are culture comparisons and then there is bitching, A good part of the comments offered here fall into the second category,
For a book that was recommended as a master piece among thrillers, this one was a dud ! Less a novel than Trevanian's expansive personal shitlist of people he hates in novelform.
A partial list of said people includes: Arabs, Americans, young people, some Jews, women who aren't concubines, feminists, Texans, Russians, Prussians, merchants, Andy Warhol, modern Japanese, Arabs seriously, Italians, French, Brits, some Basques, Cowboys, War Criminals Japanese ones excluded, Christians, chess players, wine snobs, Clint Eastwood, bankers, airport security, gays this despite his seemingpenchant for the rippling thighs of young Basque lads, salespeople, Stagelovers, and Arabs.
He really, really hates Arabs, He sure seems to be down with assholes, though, Ahh, Shibumi: you're exquisite trash, Don't ever change. This book is for people who like James Bond, Jason Bourne, and all those other superninja Gary Stu action heroes fueled by atomic testosterone.
Except if you pay attention, Trevanian is laughing at you, Shibumi shamelessly exploits every single cliche in the genre and then sneers at them, Trevanian's mockery of American culture is acidly funny and not particularly affectionate, Sometimes the selfaware satire and the angry derision seem to blend together,
“It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions, The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pleasure in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals.
”
So what to make of a book where the main character is named Nicholai Hel His mother was a Russian aristocrat, he was born in Shanghai, he was raised by a Japanese go master, and in the aftermath of World War II, he becomes the most ninjaest ninja ever.
He learns Basque while spending three years in solitary confinement and so he moves to Spain to hang out in Basque country with his AfroEuroasian concubine who is lovingly described as a collection of all the best body parts from the sum of her ethnicities.
The plot is your basic revenge thriller: Hel's ties of duty and obligation bring him into conflict with the Mother Company, which is the umbrella organization representing all the world's energy interests and pretty much controls the Western world.
In between snappy dialog in which Hel shows off how he is just so refined and Shibumi and shit with derision leveled at every Western country the Brits, the French, the Italians, and the Germans all get it in the neck at some point, but no one more than Americans, there are action scenes where Hel proves he can do everything from cave diving to killing people with playing cards, equally overthetop sex scenes 'cause of course learning to kill and play go also makes Hel totally awesome at the sexing.
What elevated this book above the schlock it is pretending to be is the vicious satire and the clever writing, Trevanian could write some sophisticated literary pulp fiction, He was having fun
while poking his readers in the eye, He plays it straight all the way through: Shibumi reads like you are supposed to take it seriously, but you can kind of hear the author's snicker echoing in the main character's dialog.
I suspect the racism and sexism was part of the performance, This is a Men's Adventure novel for the cynical hipsters of thes, back before appropriating Japanese culture was what all the cool kids did and the idea of structuring a killer thriller around the Oriental game of go yeah, Shibumi uses words like "Oriental" unironically, and also refers to Arabs as "goatherds" and portrays all the Arab characters as cowardly gay terrorists made all the literati who wanted to read something a little more masculine than J.
R. R. Tolkien groove on Trevanian's way cool, like, deeep understanding of Oriental culture, man,
Alas, I can't mock Trevanian nearly as wittily as he mocks me,
This was a fun novel, entertaining on multiple levels, It really does have the tone of a literary author slumming in a chanbara cinema, I picked this up because it's been selected by a group I'm in as a group read, I doubt I'll do much in that conversation as I am MAJORLY disappointed in this book,
You know, since the lates or so the CIA has become the favored "whipping boy" I apologize for the cliche given my complaints about the book.
If the CIA really had as many traitorous, evil, inept and/or downright stupid agents as I've seen in movies, books and on TV there would be no good agents.
I was tempted to put in a link to the CIA Memorial Wall, That's the wall where nameless are inset in a wall for agents killed in the line of duty,
Need I say that I realize the CIA has some "asses" and that I know some operations were quite probably far from kosher.
Then again there are bad cops, soldiers who run or turn traitor and so on, The Army, Marines, Air Force and Navy could never function treated the way the CIA is, I know, I was in the army in the early 's discharged in ', I was once cursed by a teen for wearing my Class A uniform,
Here we open going right down the line with so many clichés I figure they must have come from somewhere like "plots and characters are us".
We meet CIA types who are plotting with an Islamic radical against Israel, We are also covering up global warming because we are obviously slaves of the "Military Industrial Complex", To make matters worse one of the CIA types has a southern/country accent, Obviously he's not only evil he's stupid, . . as all people from anywhere but a coastal city are, We watch as the CIA pulls off an assassination and then kills their own men the assassins, Just to be sure, you know,
Standard operating procedure,
I mean maybe back in thes and thes the first,or so times this idea/plot was done it might have been original.
. . but no more.
I find the book derivative, predictable and cliché ridden, Enjoy this if it's what you like, I'm happy for you. I can't recommend it. It was one of the best books I've ever read !!!
Hayatında seni en çok etkileyen kitaplarhangisi/hangileri sorusuna vereceğim cevaplardan bir tanesidir.
I might have given itor,if I was absolutely sure all of it was satire, My favorite parts were the conversations on GO, his time in prison, spelunking, and the various Basque characters, It was fun more than it was important, Other reasons I didn't give itstarsThe weird fixation on sex that seems today to really date the novel,The reliance on ethnic stereotypes,
Again, this all really pivots on whether or not Trevanian was coming at this as a farce or playing it straight, if this really was more of a Tropic Thunder satire, I get it, But I'm afraid a lot of those who love it view it more in the James Bond which I think also sinks into a satire soup model.
Not that are some cosmically important or useful measure, Formidable! Opinions arrêtées et critiques, Cynique et irrévérencieux, Philosophique et quantique. La convergence de la puissance de la méditation, de la politique internationale, du page turner et de lérudition au confluent de loriginalité et de limprévisible.
I must really be missing something, A quick internet search locates many favourable reviews of both this book, and of its author, Rodney William Whitaker aka Trevanian, who apparently positioned himself as someone who read Proust, but not much else written in theth century.
Consider this statement from Wikipedia: Shibumi is elaborately written, using a very extended vocabulary, based on a sound knowledge in history and geopolitics, switching easily from pessimism to wry humor, Shibumi is more than a mere thriller, and may be compared to other works such as Brave New World, Nineteen Eightyfour and Fahrenheit.
And theres much more of the same in other reviews, However, I have seldom read or listened to a more inept, poorlywritten thriller, and the comparison to the three great works referred to is ludicrous.
The characters in Shibumi are absurd stereotypes, the writingstyle is awkward clearly if the author indeed read Proust extensively, he absorbed little, and the plotline is as weak as cheap coffee.
YouTube kitap kanalımda Şibumi kitabını önerdim : sitelink be/MDrPGqR
Şibumi öyle garip bir kitap ki zamanın kitapta kullanımı olarak "Her Şey Aydınlandı" romanına benziyor.
Karakterler ve siyasi olayların düzenlenmesi olarak "Yüzyıllık Yalnızlık" ve "" gibi romanları hissettiğiniz yerler var, Fakat garip olan şu ki kitap bir film gibi, Yani kime sorsam ya da nerede görsem filminin çekilmediğine şaşırıyor, Ben kitapta bir "Old Man" filmi de gördüm, Lafı uzatmadan artı ve eksi yönlerine geçiyorum :
Artı yönleri :
Romanda çok sayıda kültürle iç içe olabiliyorsunuz bunun içinde Amerikan kültüründen Japon kültürüne, Bask kültüründen Fransız kültürüne ya da Kosta Rika kültürüne kadar çok sayıda kültür bulunmakta.
Bunun nedeni kitabın ana karakteri Nicholai Hel'in bu kültürlerin hepsinden birer parçası olması, Özellikle de Japon kültürüne ait "Go" oyunuyla beraber hayatını da buna göre düzenleyip hareketlerini buna göre belirleyebilmesi, algılarını buna göre geliştirebilmesi kitabın ana konularından biri.
Kitabın adı aslında aşırı bilgelikten basitliği yakalamaya yönelim anlamı taşısa da kitabın vermek istediği mesajlar başka konularda ve çok fazla bulunuyor.
Roman bilgilerden geçip basitliğe varmak dışında Amerikan kültürü eleştirisi, modernizmin getirdiği kahramanların klişe özelliklerine eleştiriler, CIA ve FBI gibi örgütlerin Arap kültürlerine bakış açıları, Rusların, Japonların, Amerikalıların, Çinlilerin birbirleriyle olan ilişkilerinde birbirlerine karşı bakış açıları gibi çok geniş bir yelpaze var.
Yani esas konu dışında kendinizi bazen Pearl Harbor saldırısında da bulabiliyorsunuz Hiroşima'da da bulabiliyorsunuz, Ama dediğim gibi bunlar romanın konusuna o kadar ince serpiştirilmiş ki bu saldırılar salt siyaset olarak verilmemiş, Kitap daha çok bir Batı kültürü eleştirisi ve genel yargı olarak çoğu kitabın hep Batı'ya yönelmiş olması.
Romanda çoğu zaman Doğu kültürü ve onun kenara atılan spiritüel özellikleri irdelenmiş,
Artı yön olarak vermek doğru mu bilmiyorum fakat kitabın son baskılarında ilk baskılarında verilmiş olan Hel'in saldırı taktikleri konuları çıkartılmış.
Bunun nedeni olarak bu kitabı okuyan insanların bu taktiklerden etkilenip de cinayetlere sebebiyet olmalarından dolayıymış, Bu kitabın bir yerinde dipnot olarak geçiyor,
Romanın bende bıraktığı etki olarak uyuduktan sonra diğer günün hemen gelmesini istedim çünkü bu kadar interaktif bir karakteri okumak gerçekten çok zevkli.
İçinde mağaracılık hobisi bulunan bir adamın meditasyon anılarından savaş zamanlarındaki düşüncelerine, Go oyununu hayatına yayışına kadar bir çok deneyimleme bulunuyor.
Eksi yönleri :
Kitabın E Yayınları ile çıkan basımında ufak tefek de olsa imla hataları var, Okumanızı etkilemiyor.
Romanın bazı yerlerinde abartıya kaçılmış gibi hissettim, Bunda Hel'in yakınlık duygusunun etkisi var, Bu duyguyu bir insana koyunca çevresindeki insanların nerede olduklarını ve nereye gitmek istediklerini anlayan bir adam haline dönüşmüş, Fakat aslında bunun nedeni Hel'in Allah vergisi dil öğrenme ve düşünme yetenekleri ayrıca Go oyununu düşündüğü sırada kendini çok başka yerlerde hissedebilmesinin de etkisi var.
.