| Title | : | Musashi Book One: The Way of the Samurai (Musashi, #1 of 5) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0671734830 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780671734831 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 304 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1935 |
Musashi Book One: The Way of the Samurai (Musashi, #1 of 5) Reviews
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Muy buena novela, me ha sumergido en los mangas que ya había leído de Musashi llamados "vagabond". Si bien es cierto que en el libro los combates están muy descafeinados respecto al manga, su fácil lectura no aburre y se pasan rápido las paginas. Seguiremos a por el 2º. 9/10
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Las historias de samuráis me flipan, y esta es muy buena, lo único es que la tercera parte se ha hecho un tanto pesada, con tantos cambios de perspectiva, daba la impresión de que había capítulos irrelevantes, pero ha terminado muy bien, y quiero el segundo.
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Mi reseña completa en IG librosydestinos
https://www.instagram.com/p/ClBxieSuc...
🇯🇵En nuestro último y presencial encuentro del "Corvooks Club" viajamos a Japón de la mano de Eiji Yoshikawa y su relato basado en el famoso Musashi.
🇯🇵El libro nos cuenta acerca de Takezo, un joven matón del siglo XVII con aspiraciones de samurai, quien se ve obligado por circunstancias de la vida a madurar y convertirse en una mejor versión de sí mismo.
🇯🇵Este es sólo el primer volumen de una saga de aventuras que describe las costumbres, creencias y formas de vida de este Japón de guerreros y monjes.
🇯🇵Lo recomiendo para quien guste de este tipo de lecturas ya que además de la información provista por el autor, dan ganas de seguir investigando acerca de un tema, por lo menos para mí, desconocido -
I picked up this seemingly out-of-print part one of five Pocket Books edition in order to work through the larger novel incrementally. Way of the Samurai is an excellent introduction to what I anticipate to be one of the great works of historical fiction (and an introduction to the historical Musashi himself).
I enjoyed the window into Japanese history and culture, as well as reading what I suspect is the inspiration for much of modern martial arts fiction and popular culture (Usagi Yojimbo is a favorite comic of mine). The character Musashi's transformation is inspiring and a humbling call to self-mastery and discipline. I'm extremely eager to continue the saga. -
Excelente narrativa, muchos detalles de la historia de Japón, no puedo esperar por el 2do tomo. Solamente me pareció perderme entre tantos diferentes nombres citados al rededor de los personajes principales. Por todo lo demás es lo que esperaba y bastante más, un acercamiento a la cultura japonesa.
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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 translator Charles S. Terry did a wonderful job of translating the book, as well as adding color and depth to every page. That is a gift that not very many translators possess. I would highly recommend this series as study material for any would-be translator, as well as anyone interested in a good read.
If you are interested in reading the series, make sure you get a version translated by Charles S. Terry. -
4/5
Entretenido primer volumen de una de las clásicas novelas niponas de samurais. Algunas partes enganchan más que otras, pero por lo general mi visión del libro es muy positiva. Estoy ansioso por leer el resto de volúmenes.
En cuanto a la edición de Quaterni, que es la que tengo, aunque el acabado exterior es muy bonito, el interior no lo es tanto. Contiene numerosos errores tipográficos y de maquetación, que dejan en el lector, o al menos a mí, un amargo sabor de boca. Me ha decepcionado un poco este aspecto teniendo en cuenta los 20 euros que cuesta cada ejemplar. -
Written for a Japanese audience who would be steeped in the ethos of Musashi. From a European eye there are a lot of strange things going on, but they give fascinating insight into Musashi's culture.
After reading this it is easy to treat with contempt the authors who try to find in Musashi's book The Five Rings> clues to success in business. -
Una novela de aventuras muy adictiva, fácil de leer y entretenida. Además, al ser una cultura tan diferente a la nuestra, me resulta aún más interesante y es bastante diferente a lo que estoy acostumbrado.
Deseando seguir con la trilogía. Lo recomiendo. -
Recomendado indirectamente por el gran Inoue y regalado directamente por la grandiosa Bucletina, hay pocas chances de que esto salga mal.
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" You may read as much as you want. A famous priest of ancient times once said, 'I become immersed in the sacred scriptures and read thousands of volumes. When i come away, I find that heart sees more than before'.
" Think of this room as your mother's womb and prepare to be born anew. If you look at it only with your eyes, you will see nothing more than an unlit, closed cell. But look again, more closely. Look with your mind and think. This room can be the wellspring of enlightenment, the same fountain of knowledge found and enriched by sages in the past. It is up to you to decide whether this is to be a chamber of darkness or one of light." (p. 184)
yes, you crows,
Once in a while
There's a need for housecleaning,
But not only in Nara.
it's nature's way
To make everything new again.
So spring can rise from the ground,
We burn leaves,
We burn fields.
Sometimes we want snow to fall,
Sometimes we want a housecleaning.
Oh, you crows!
Feast away! What a spread!
Soup straight from the eye sockets,
And thick red sake.
But don't have too much
Or you'll surely get drunk. (p.339) -
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.
Completamente recomendable. -
Not knowing what to expect, I came away from each sitting contemplating the chapter(s) I had just read, feeling there were lessons to learn.
Musashi's path along the Way was captivating, and made me appreciate the pursuit of knowledge and mastery that came with it.
This was not a book I could fly through like I do so many others. But I feel like I took more away from it than I have any dozen of books I've read before it. -
La edición deja bastante que desear, además al parecer es una traducción de una traducción y hay frases hechas en inglés y expresiones traducidas toscamente al castellano. Pese a eso la historia me ha gustado, no creo que una mala edición desmerezca al autor, aunque me hubiera gustado leer una mejor traducción, creo que lo podría haber disfrutado más.
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A lot like Rurouni Kenshin— Musashi isn’t quite as charming or humble, and he doesn’t share as tragic of a past as Kenshin’s, but his story is an entertaining and compulsive read. I’m looking forward to Book II.
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El mejor samurái dando lecciones de combate. Para mí fue un libro de texto, mucho más que cualquier otra cosa. La batalla en la isla contra Kojiro fue inusual, diría yo. Me gustaron mucho las partes donde se narran los logros de Musashi y los lugares por los que pasó.
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It feels like a lot is lost in translation. Like watching a foreign dubbed movie and while the words may be a good translation, if it were written in your original tongue different words that fit better would have been chosen. Interesting enough to continue the series. Easy read.
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Cuando alguien sabe contar una historia se nota, y hasta los más mínimos detalles son indispensables de leer.
Continuaré lo antes posible la saga, ésta primera parte me entuasiasmó. -
The "Gone With the Wind of 2oth Century Japanese literature" reads much more like a violent Marx Brother film (in samurai drag) on paper
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8.7/10
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(This review covers the entirety of the Musashi series, as it's actually one thousand page book.)
Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa is a historical fiction novel about the early life of Musashi Miyamoto, Japan’s most famous swordsman who wrote The Book of Five Rings.
This book was a fun, swashbuckling adventure with swordfights and samurai and sake and courtesans and everything Japanese that you could imagine. I only really had one problem with it, but let’s talk about the fun stuff first.
I’m amused at how the book’s publisher takes great pains to compare it to Shogun — on the front cover, the back cover, the interior cover, the introduction — and yet the books’ only shared traits are that they both take place at the end of the Sengoku Jidai and they’re both 98% fiction (don’t read either book looking for historical fact, is what I’m saying). In style, tone, themes, plot, and characters they are extremely different. Shogun is an epic political struggle through the eyes of a Western outsider; Musashi is a roving adventure about one man’s personal journey to spiritual transcendence via martial perfection. Shogun is pretty grim and gritty; Musashi is fun and optimistic. Musashi is, naturally, more authentically Japanese, having been written by a Japanese person for a Japanese audience.
The book is highly entertaining. Occasionally funny, often gruesome and violent, always moving on to fresh locations and new, colorful characters like the formidable old dowager Osugi, the eccentric monk Takuan, the sad sack childhood friend Matahachi, the canny courtesan Yoshino, and tons more. By around 80% in there are perhaps too many characters involved and I stopped trying to pay attention to which samurai served which lord and had a grudge against so-and-so and learned swordsmanship from who even cares. By the time this becomes a problem, though, the book is hurtling towards its final, satisfying confrontation so it doesn’t really matter.
The book is admittedly quite long — about a thousand pages. Despite its great (and in my opinion excessive) length, I rarely got bogged down while reading it because it bounces from place to place and character to character. You can’t read two sentences without falling over a coincidental meeting of some sort; Japan feels like a tiny country when the hero manages to meet the same ten people over and over again no matter how far he travels. But that’s not a real complaint, it’s actually kind of charming how contrived the coincidences get.
I loved how Musashi himself grows and changes over the course of the book. He starts out as a violent, impulsive punk but eventually becomes a disciplined, spiritual seeker. It’s a gradual process of education and experience, meeting all kinds of people and learning all kinds of skills and enduring all kinds of trials. I like that kind of thing. I wish that his love interest, Otsu, and his great rival, Kojiro, got the same deep treatment. Not bad characters, but the foreshadowing that Otsu will go crazy due to her obsession with Musashi comes to nothing, disappointingly, and Kojiro is simply smug and cruel, a one dimensional villain.
I do have one serious problem with the book, and that’s the treatment of the character Akemi. This necessitates some light spoilers, but I have to talk about it. It seems like the only reason Akemi is in this book is to get raped. It’s clear from pretty early on that Otsu is the preferred love interest for Musashi, and Akemi is a tragic rival who hasn’t got a chance. So while Otsu remains pure and maidenly, protected by authorial fiat despite wandering un-chaperoned all over Japan, when Akemi tries to head out on her own to seek her own fortune she just gets raped, and raped, and raped again, and the author has the audacity to imply that it’s her own fault when it’s clear that she’s trapped by circumstances. He insinuates that because Akemi’s mother was a slut, Akemi is destined to be one too, that she’s trash and not good enough for our hero. I know that this book was written back in the 1930s, but my god it is still gross to read.
It’s still an enjoyable book — if you can ignore the Akemi parts, which isn’t impossible since they are few and far between. It’s hard to say whether I should recommend a book with such a huge problem — I guess my final take on it is that you should probably avoid it if you’re squeamish about rape. This book is a window into Japan of the past, “the Japanese as they see themselves” as the introduction puts it, and that window shows you some awesome things, like ninjas and samurai and shit, and some awful things, like rape culture. I’m rating it at 3 stars. -
This novel is much different than any western literature I have read, with every thing from ethics, honor, love, and all other ideals being different from what us modern westerners would believe it to be. Honor is the biggest deal it seems, even over Life, Happiness, or Love, and throughout the story you have characters hunting each other, either to find a famous teacher in hopes of regaining lost honor, or hunting someone down to punish and kill them because they caused dishonor to the family name. Family is also huge deal, whatever name you have practically alienates you to a certain class. There is no way around it, even if they have skill or money, their name is the ONLY thing that determines their status in society, it seems. Love is conducted in such a different way in this period of Japan; the melodramatic, gushing romance moments we read all the time in Western Novels if completely absent. Any PDA is hugely dishonorable, and love seems almost emotionless compared to the way westerns express it nowadays.
Overall, a pretty enjoyable book. Now I have to go read the next one in the series...
