I Wanna Be A Spamurai
LOLMOM: *picks up book* Who was...*sounds out name carefully* Mi-ya-mo-to Mu-sa-shi? :D
l33: *is floored* Um...how can I explain this for someone with absolutely no frame of reference whatsoever...
Despite having lived with me for, like, ever, the lolmom remains blissfully ignorant in re: the matter of samurai. I have contemplated the ethics of educating her, because nobody should go through life without exposure to the ttl kickass that is samurai.
So I'm reading Lightning in the Void: The Authentic History of Miyamoto Musashi by John Carroll right now. These would be my preliminary thoughts. I have to admit I was somewhat trepidated when I saw the author photo, largely because it gave the impression that Carroll has confused the ability to live and work in Japan with the ability to be a samurai. Anyway, never one to judge a book by its author photographs, no matter how lolarious, I jumped on in.
First off, I really don't recommend this book for the sensitive and delicate duokinneas, largely because the blood and guts come in the convenient ten-gallon drum size, and at times the violence borders on the gratuitous. I'm not arguing one of the points that Carroll is trying to make in establishing the background, which is that the decades leading up to and shortly after Sekigahara, when Ieyasu was still consolidating his power, were tough times to be alive, and I'm also not arguing that violence was embedded very firmly in society at that point. Also, I'm of the school that it's almost not worth reading a samurai story without some action and violence here and there. Nonetheless, while we all know the story of Ichikawa Goemon and his gruesome fate, I don't think we needed to know which bodily wastes floated up to the top of the cauldron of boiling oil, etc. etc. etc. (Actually, I've always found Goemon's story a bit sad.)
Second, Carroll seems to fling down and dance upon the trope "show, don't tell". Seriously. Dude. I picked up the book in part because I already know the history and I'm a sucker for anything about samurai. It's a reasonable assumption that if I'm reading a historical novel set in late Muromachi/early Tokugawa Japan, I am probably at least somewhat familiar with the history already. Even if I weren't, I would still prefer to imbibe the historical part of a historical novel without the paragraphs upon paragraphs of exposition. Seriously, there are ways to create the feel of the era without riding the T-Rex of Clunky Exposition into the Delicate Rococo Sitting Room of Historical Fiction. Read The Tokaido Road, by Lucia St. Clair Robson; I can't stand the heroine, who is a total Mary Sue, and spent most of the book wanting to pop her one, but damn, does she get Edo in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century down pat. Read Ihara Saikaku, even if he makes samurai look like motards half the time and one of his stories involves a gag with someone on the toilet. Read Fujisawa Shuhei (seriously, The Bamboo Sword is like a concentrated cube of awesome). Hell, read Musashi by Yoshikawa Eiji, which is available in English translation and is in print so you don't have an excuse. (The same is true of the excellent manga Vagabond, which is an adaptation of the novel.)
Even worse, the T-Rex of Clunky Exposition is sometimes ridden right into the middle of dialogue. Result: one character keeps going on and on and on for three pages, saying things like, "As you know, Hideyoshi's Korean campaign in 1598 was a total disaster, and...". Seriously. It reads like somebody copied out a history book right into the middle of the manuscript and nobody figured it out until after the book went to press (affectionately referred to as "Born With the Century Syndrome" at our house), and this is a real buzzkill. There are ways to work the exposition in and build the society and say what needs to be said without bludgeoning the reader over the head with the information. The thing that makes me really sad is that Musashi's very life was the stuff of legend, and there's obviously compelling material here: it deserves a more compelling narrative than it's being given.
In today's exciting news: I had a run-in with a four-pack of energy drink and my work clothes now smell like SweeTarts on crack. Oh, and by the way, y'all, Lol-Mart is a place of BUSINESS, not a SOCIAL GATHERING. Seriously, one of my co-workers and I spent like half an hour this afternoon making fun of these people who flapped their yaps and almost cordoned off one of the register whilst so doing. I resorted to pretending I had laser eyes and mentally lasering the Lol-Mart logo and the smiley face (along with "EVERYDAY LOW PRICES, BITCH") into their backs, in the worst display of imaginary workplace carnage since 2000, when I was a samurai surrounded by 105 of the enemy's men and had no choice but to cut my way out. BITCHES DON'T KNOW ABOUT MY LASER EYES. Or about my bushido, for that matter.
Also, I think I might possibly have my last wisdom tooth or two coming in the back on the left side (yes, they're all firmly ensconced in my skull, where they belong. I didn't know most of them had erupted until I was in the dentist's chair, because I didn't feel anything). H was like, "Aren't you kind of old for wisdom teeth?", which are fine words from somebody who used to have an extra canine tooth.
l33: *is floored* Um...how can I explain this for someone with absolutely no frame of reference whatsoever...
Despite having lived with me for, like, ever, the lolmom remains blissfully ignorant in re: the matter of samurai. I have contemplated the ethics of educating her, because nobody should go through life without exposure to the ttl kickass that is samurai.
So I'm reading Lightning in the Void: The Authentic History of Miyamoto Musashi by John Carroll right now. These would be my preliminary thoughts. I have to admit I was somewhat trepidated when I saw the author photo, largely because it gave the impression that Carroll has confused the ability to live and work in Japan with the ability to be a samurai. Anyway, never one to judge a book by its author photographs, no matter how lolarious, I jumped on in.
First off, I really don't recommend this book for the sensitive and delicate duokinneas, largely because the blood and guts come in the convenient ten-gallon drum size, and at times the violence borders on the gratuitous. I'm not arguing one of the points that Carroll is trying to make in establishing the background, which is that the decades leading up to and shortly after Sekigahara, when Ieyasu was still consolidating his power, were tough times to be alive, and I'm also not arguing that violence was embedded very firmly in society at that point. Also, I'm of the school that it's almost not worth reading a samurai story without some action and violence here and there. Nonetheless, while we all know the story of Ichikawa Goemon and his gruesome fate, I don't think we needed to know which bodily wastes floated up to the top of the cauldron of boiling oil, etc. etc. etc. (Actually, I've always found Goemon's story a bit sad.)
Second, Carroll seems to fling down and dance upon the trope "show, don't tell". Seriously. Dude. I picked up the book in part because I already know the history and I'm a sucker for anything about samurai. It's a reasonable assumption that if I'm reading a historical novel set in late Muromachi/early Tokugawa Japan, I am probably at least somewhat familiar with the history already. Even if I weren't, I would still prefer to imbibe the historical part of a historical novel without the paragraphs upon paragraphs of exposition. Seriously, there are ways to create the feel of the era without riding the T-Rex of Clunky Exposition into the Delicate Rococo Sitting Room of Historical Fiction. Read The Tokaido Road, by Lucia St. Clair Robson; I can't stand the heroine, who is a total Mary Sue, and spent most of the book wanting to pop her one, but damn, does she get Edo in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century down pat. Read Ihara Saikaku, even if he makes samurai look like motards half the time and one of his stories involves a gag with someone on the toilet. Read Fujisawa Shuhei (seriously, The Bamboo Sword is like a concentrated cube of awesome). Hell, read Musashi by Yoshikawa Eiji, which is available in English translation and is in print so you don't have an excuse. (The same is true of the excellent manga Vagabond, which is an adaptation of the novel.)
Even worse, the T-Rex of Clunky Exposition is sometimes ridden right into the middle of dialogue. Result: one character keeps going on and on and on for three pages, saying things like, "As you know, Hideyoshi's Korean campaign in 1598 was a total disaster, and...". Seriously. It reads like somebody copied out a history book right into the middle of the manuscript and nobody figured it out until after the book went to press (affectionately referred to as "Born With the Century Syndrome" at our house), and this is a real buzzkill. There are ways to work the exposition in and build the society and say what needs to be said without bludgeoning the reader over the head with the information. The thing that makes me really sad is that Musashi's very life was the stuff of legend, and there's obviously compelling material here: it deserves a more compelling narrative than it's being given.
In today's exciting news: I had a run-in with a four-pack of energy drink and my work clothes now smell like SweeTarts on crack. Oh, and by the way, y'all, Lol-Mart is a place of BUSINESS, not a SOCIAL GATHERING. Seriously, one of my co-workers and I spent like half an hour this afternoon making fun of these people who flapped their yaps and almost cordoned off one of the register whilst so doing. I resorted to pretending I had laser eyes and mentally lasering the Lol-Mart logo and the smiley face (along with "EVERYDAY LOW PRICES, BITCH") into their backs, in the worst display of imaginary workplace carnage since 2000, when I was a samurai surrounded by 105 of the enemy's men and had no choice but to cut my way out. BITCHES DON'T KNOW ABOUT MY LASER EYES. Or about my bushido, for that matter.
Also, I think I might possibly have my last wisdom tooth or two coming in the back on the left side (yes, they're all firmly ensconced in my skull, where they belong. I didn't know most of them had erupted until I was in the dentist's chair, because I didn't feel anything). H was like, "Aren't you kind of old for wisdom teeth?", which are fine words from somebody who used to have an extra canine tooth.