Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

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Artistic License – History: The novel plays this trope quite a lot, but one of the most egregious is at the very end. During the final duel between Musashi and Kojirō it's implied that Kojirō survived, whereas in history he did not. 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.

Musashi : An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era - Google Books

All told, then, this is a big, ambitious book that works throughout to entertain. It’s fun, almost relentlessly fun, but it also pushes its underlying faith: in a confusing, Modern world, we have something to learn from the best of the generations before us. I still enjoyed the book overall, especially the first half. I feel like the novel hung together really well up until The Spreading Pine chapter. Musashi's early journeys and battles are very entertaining. And The Spreading Pine chapter is, in some ways, the first of the book's two major climaxes. Although I'm glad I read this novel and still think it's worth reading, I feel it would have been better if:

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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.

Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa | Goodreads

Writing a review of this work seems a fool's errand somewhat equivalent to reviewing Gone With the Wind, so I will not attempt to do so. Musashi becomes famous during the course of the novel as he searches for both perfection in swordsmanship and in consciousness. Innovating Japanese swordsmanship, he invents the style of simultaneously wielding both the katana and the wakizashi, something unheard of at that time in Japanese history.He declines and turns her away multiple times, not because he doesn't love her in return, rather simply because he doesn't wish for their relationship to get between him and his personal goal of mastering the sword. Otsu, a childhood friend of Mushashi (who is then known as Takezo), follows him across the country, trying to find him, win him over and convince him to show her love.

Books by Miyamoto Musashi (Author of A Book of Five Rings) Books by Miyamoto Musashi (Author of A Book of Five Rings)

I'm Standing Right Here: After Musashi's last fight with the Yoshiokas, Kojirō denounces him to a crowd of people. He accuses Musashi of depravity for killing Genjirō and of cowardice for running away. Sure, Musashi was able fend off and kill dozens of Yoshioka swordsman while escaping, Kojirō says to the crowd, but a real swordsman can fight several times his own number, especially when they are as weak as the Yoshioka School. After he finishes making his speech, noted to be a slight exaggeration of what he sincerely believes, he makes to leave and is chilled to notice Musashi smiling at him. Musashi kindly thanks him for his critique and tells him that he won't forget his words. Kojirō, catching the drift, politely tells Musashi that he wouldn't want him to.

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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. 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.