Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
The book Musashi by Hidetsugu 'Eiji' Yoshikawa is one of the most important and influential Japanese books ever written. Edwin Reischauer, once the US ambassador for Japan (1961-1966), said that the story gives an overview of Japanese history (the social, cultural, and political conditions of Japan in that time) and an understanding towards modern Japanese people.
Written in the 30s, the story is about the saga of the greatest Japanese samurai namely Miyamoto Musashi, a man who try to find his identity through 'the way of the sword', his obsessions, efforts, and sacrifices to achieve mastery in swordsmanship. It is later in his journey that he finds that a true samurai is not all about mastering techniques to cut one's head, but more importantly it's about spirit, persistence, attitude, and consistency. He thinks that a good samurai must also possess mastery in other aspects of life, such as in governance, war strategy, and arts. This kind of attitude is pretty much what you could find on most Japanese people nowadays, and it is clearly seen on the Japanese soldiers during The World War II. Those men fought with high spirit, persistence, and loyalty for their country.
The story sets in Japan at the beginning of Tokugawa Ieyasu's dynasty on the late 16th and early 17th century. It is considered as the last period of the 'samurai golden era'. Ieyasu's success to become the shogun (a kind of military dictator/leader) has united Japan and ended many feudal wars between daimyo's (Japanese landlords) and their samurai's. The condition was relatively more peaceful at that time, the time when people start to learn about bureaucracy rather than sword-wielding.
Musashi was initially published as a story series in a famous Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, during 1935-1939. In 1981, it is published as a series of books (7 books exactly) which is later bundled as one huge book for the later publications.
Book highlights
- Book 1: Earth
The first book starts when two best friends, Shimmen Takezo and Hon'iden Matahachi, awoke from their half-dead after participating in The Battle of Sekigahara, a great war which marked Tokugawa Ieyasu's victory against the west army lead by successors of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Being the losing side, the two best friends ran for safety until they met a small family of mother and daughter, Oko and Akemi. After staying together for a while, apparently the weak-minded Matahachi, ignoring Takezo's advices, got seduced by Oko and decided to marry her leaving his fiancée Otsu in his homeland in Mimasaka. The two best friends then separated, Takezo decided to go back to his home, while Matahachi went away with Oko and Akemi.
Unfortunately, a series of misunderstandings has turned Takezo into a public enemy in his own homeland. He became Matahachi's mother, Osugi, number one enemy. Takezo defend his self in a brutish way that makes things even worse, until a Zen monk namely Takuan conquered and taught him to become a samurai. For three years Takezo was 'imprisoned' in a small room full of books, which he used to meditate and study. Three years of isolation made Takezo a better and more controlled person. He felt he was being reborn, and thus he decided to change his name into Miyamoto Musashi. Musashi is what the word 'Takezo' read as Chinese alphabet. Thus, born Miyamoto Musashi.
It's during this period that both Musashi and Otsu started to fall in love in each other (but none of them has enough courage to tell it). But Musashi has decided to wander and live as a ronin (masterless samurai), put aside his feeling towards Otsu, and leaved her for his journey.
- Book 2: Water
During the early days of Musashi's life as a ronin, he challenged anyone whom he think might improve his skill. In Kyoto there was a famous ryu (school for samurai or samurai-wannabe), and it didn't take a long time until Musashi made a conflict with them. After beating some Yoshioka's students while their leader Yoshioka Seijuro wasn't around, Musashi has successfully embarrassed the whole school, revenge was then planned by Seijuro.
In the mean while, motivated with hatred, Matahachi's mother Osugi embarked a long pursuit for Musashi to make revenge of what he did the other day. She hates both Musashi and Otsu as she thought that both have betrayed Matahachi. In the quite the same situation, motivated by her great love, Otsu also tried to find Musashi. She has fell in love with him so badly that she wants to share his burden living as a ronin, sacrificing her relatively peaceful life under Takuan's protection.
It is also in Kyoto where Musashi met Jotaro, a smart and naughty boy, for the first time and then take him as his student and his son as well.
- Book 3: Fire
Sasaki 'Ganryu' Kojiro was a young and arrogant samurai came from Echizen, a small province in the northern of Kyoto. He has every right to be arrogant, being the best student of Kanemaki Jisai, he possess almost perfect skill and technique as a samurai. He used to practice with his nodachi (a long sword, more than one meter of length) to strike a half-flying swallow. He intended to go to Osaka to join a clan and was obsessed to become the greatest samurai.
His first meeting with Musashi happened unintentionally when Kojiro saw Musashi with his long friend Akemi by his side. He felt jealous because he once saved Akemi and at that time she was under Kojiro's protection. The meeting had already full of hatred and fighting spirit rises like fire between them. By the look to the eyes, both knew that they have met a very strong man and they realize that someday they will meet again face-to-face with swords in hands.
- Book 4: Wind
It is time to make revenge, at least that's how Yoshioka Seijuro looks at the situation. The day has been arranged, when he will fight Musashi and make him pay his deeds. But sometimes things are just not happen the way you planned, Musashi could easily beat him in the fight and permanently crippled Seijuro. As you may guess, the story didn't end here as there was another revenge. And after killing Seijuro's younger brother Yoshioka Densichiro, Musashi had to fight all the rest of the ryu members at a time. Alone, he fought and gained a phenomenal victory against no less than 70 Yoshioka samurai's, intuitively using two swords in his both hands, long sword in the right and a short one in the left. This technique (called bokken) will later known as Musashi's style of wielding sword.
The night before that great clash, Otsu finally could cath Musashi up. They both meet under the moonlight, and finally letting each other knows that they were indeed fall in love. Otsu begged him to take her along in his journey, but persistently Musashi said that he has decided to choose the way of the sword as his way of life. He will not let anyone or anything distracts him to reach his dream nor put someone he loved in danger by standing beside him in his hard road. The two then separated again leaving tears from Otsu's eyes.
Musashi met some special individual who either directly or indirectly helped him to find his identy. Two of them were Koetsu and Yoshino. Koetsu was an artist and from him Musashi learnt the art of painting, carving, and the art of tradiotional tea party. All of those have opened his mind that a great samurai must also possess mastery in other fields.
Yoshino was a high class geisha who taught him to be more gently and softly. Musashi was a hard, high-tempered, and rigor person. Yoshino knew this and she told Musashi that such inflexibility and rigority were not always good. A man must be able to adapt to every condition, he must be flexible to change if the situation demands him to do so. It is also a kind of strength a samurai must have.
- Book 5: Sky
As Musashi continued his wander, the images that someday he should fight Kojiro became clearer and clearer. He kept practicing and improving his skill, as well as trained his mind and soul to be a better samurai. He helped many people with his ability, such as releasing a whole village from a gang of beggars, teaching them how to defend themself against such threats. In this village he met with an incredibly smart boy whom he took as his second student and son. The boy's name was Iori, and in the latter days he will become famous as a great swordsman with the name Miyamoto Iori.
His legendary meeting and duel with Musso Gonnosuke, has also helped him improving his skills. The two men were later became best friends.
- Book 6: Sun and Moon
Musashi's reputation slowly grew along with his skill and attitude that turned better and better. Until someday, the shogun heard about him and want to offer him a position inside the shogunate as a trainer for the shogun himself. But suddenly the offer was cancelled, probably due to bad rumors spread by people dislike him (including Kojiro and Osugi). But it didn't make him disappointed at all, instead he still showed great respect towards the governance.
In his meeting with Sakai Tadakatsu, one of the shogun's trusted man, he was asked to give something to the shogun to show his integrity. At that moment Musashi asked for a set of drawing tool and started to make a painting. He made a drawing of the land of Musashino with a huge red image of sunrise in the center which precisely depicts his confidence and high integrity. When Tadakatsu looked at the painting, he said to himself "We have released a great tiger to the jungle".
- Book 7: The Perfect Light
The big day has come, the day Musashi meets Kojiro for a duel of death and life. The duel will take place in Funashima island in the Nagato province. Musashi came late waiting for the tide to take his boat to the island. And just a moment before he jumped into the boat, someone called him from his back. His best friend Gonnosuke came to give his support, his two students Iori and Jotaro too.
With them also came Otsu, with her tears happiness and fright, afraid that it might be their last meeting. Musashi then asked her to marry him, right in that moment. They were giving their warmest hugs and telling each other that they are happy. The last words Musashi said to Otsu before he jumped into the boat were "A samurai's wife musn't cry".
Musashi sailed calmly to the island, making a wooden sword out of a broken oar he found on the boat. Using that wooden sword he fought Kojiro, and with a big blow to the head of his opponent he ended the fight. Fighting against an opponent who has better techniques and skills, he had only a sword of spirit. He fought with that and shown to the world the power of spirit.
Conclusion
In my opinion, Musashi is a must read book for everyone. So many lessons we could take from the story. It is about integrity, persistence, discipline, and idealism; values should exist inside everyone's mind and heart.
The story was well written by Eiji Yoshikawa, using a rather simple wording choices with less metaphor, makes the story can easily be understood. Eiji Yoshikawa is great at character developments (something I noticed also in his other writing, Taiko), almost every character has its own portion in the book to let the readers have sufficient background knowledges about the figure. The flow of the story is also very easy to follow, the story line simply moves forward throughout the pages. There are no confusing forward-backward-forward plots in it.
However, one thing to notice is that the pace of the story runs very slowly, it seems like Mr. Yoshikawa wanted it to be as details as possible. Personally I don't have any problem with such slow pace at all, and it's quite understandable for a historical or biography books, but it might be a bit uncomfort for impatient readers.
Finally from my perspective to conclude, this book, Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa deserves a rating of five stars.
