Drunk as a Lord: Samurai Stories [Hardcover]

Ryotaro Shiba (Author), Eileen Kato (Translator), Burritt Sabin (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2001

Four samurai lords are forced to confront the reality of the collapse of feudal Japan and the dawning of a new age. This evocation of 19th-century Japan includes a guide to historical characters and a glossary of historical terms used in the text.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"... makes us care about the protagonists while exploring history ... compelling and fascinating investigation into the humanity of those involved." -- Scott Gordon, The Daily Yomuri

"... a highly poetic, insightful literary collection. Highly recommended." -- Wisconsin Bookwatch

"... successfully marries history and fiction and makes the tumultuous days of Japan's entrance into the modern world ... come alive." -- Cedric Yamanaka, The Hawaii Herald

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Japanese

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 253 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha International (JPN) (October 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 4770027370
• ISBN-13: 978-4770027375
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,029,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Based on actual people and events, January 12, 2002

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drunk as a Lord: Samurai Stories (Hardcover)

Drunk As A Lord: Samurai Stories is a collection of short historical fiction stories of a feudal Japan being roughly forced to acknowledge the world around it. Based on actual people and events, yet brought to life by the vivid personal imagination of author Ryotaro Shiba, Drunk As A Lord is a highly poetic, insightful literary collection. Highly recommended to for students of Japanese literature, as well as non-specialist general readers with an interest in Japan's great history.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Japan's late Tokugawa-era historical figures come brilliantly alive in these entertaining and informative tales, July 20, 2009

By 

Goat and Dog "Some old nobody" (Tennessee, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Drunk as a Lord: Samurai Stories (Hardcover)

This is a hard book to find; Ryotaro Shiba (I'm using Western name order for this Western site) is a well-esteemed and popular author in Japan (sadly deceased now), but very few of his works have been translated into English (most notably The Last Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Yoshinobu.) Many of the samurai films you'll watch that cover the late Tokugawa era have been adapted from Shiba's works, and fans of the paramilitary end-times police group, the Shinsengumi, will especially know Shiba from adaptations including the so-called "gay samurai film" Gohatto (Taboo) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Great Britain ] from 2000 that stars "Beat" Takeshi Kitano (this story is taken from a chapter of his "Shinsengumi Shimatsuki".) I have read and enjoyed The Last Shogun, and as I mentioned, I've been searching for this one for a long time. Contained in this volume are four novelette length tales of the Bakumatsu era (that turbulent 15 year stretch from 1853-68 which encompassed the fall of the Tokugawa and the rise of the Meiji Emperor). Shiba's style focuses mostly on the personality of the players at least as much or more than the progression of events and political and military maneuverings. His storytelling style is "historical narrative." But Shiba is so well regarded a researcher of background for his stories that the meat of his "tales" may as well be taken as historical fact. There is a gripping, personal focus to Shiba's narrative that makes his protagonists come to life beyond their historical reality; his stories have proven extraordinarily hard to put down once they are begun.

1. Drunk as a Lord--a tale told of an extraordinary character, Toyoshige (Yodo) Yamauchi, the daimyo (feudal lord) of Tosa domain (on the island of Shikoku). Yodo is keen and picks up quickly on the gist of the affairs of the day, but he is also afflicted with a tendency to conduct official business over gallons and gallons of sake. This tale of his struggles within his own domain and with the other lords and nobility in Kyoto as the Shogunate wobbled and fell is compelling and full of color, exciting and bizarre, a contradiction, just as Yodo himself seemed to be. He was a magnificent figure and yet fully burdened by the prejudices of his class and day...it is a tale of a promising young man who succumbs to his own Shakespearean-level fatal flaws and to the current of the many revolutionary actors of the Bakumatsu.
2. The Fox-Horse--the story of the Satsuma not-daimyo Hisamitsu Shimazu (everyone seems to think he was the lord of Satsuma but he was but the father of the lord, and he "lorded it" over anyone he could.) He was charged by his half-brother Nariakira (one of the wisest minds of many ages) to carry on his will to build up a strong military and to modernize Satsuma so that it could face the threat of the foreign advance on equal footing. Nariakira died in 1858 (5 years after the advent of Admiral Perry's "Black Ships" from America that rocked Japan). Hisamitsu was provincial in every way and less gifted than his brother, but he gave his all so that Satsuma would stand tall among the Japanese domains in the coming era that Nariakira foresaw. However, Hisamitsu's country bumpkin style and provincial attitude make him a liability and the ministers under him (including the great Takamori Saigo) basically carry off major coups under his nose without his knowledge. So Hisamitsu is carried into the Restoration rather against his will--quite a thrilling and amusing tale. It'll also give you an idea of how unique Satsuma as a domain could be.
3. Date's Black Ship--the story of a lowly, single-named lantern repairer (and natural mechanical genius!) named Kazo who rises to become one of the most important technical men in Munenari Date's (the lord of Uwajima, also on Shikoku island) push to build his own version of Commodore Perry's "Black Ships." A keen look at the entrenched classism present in feudal Japan and how it worked absolutely counter to the practicalities of the rising industrial consciousness of Japan on the verge of modernization. The story tells as much about the daimyo of Uwajima as it does about our protagonist Kazo and gives an interesting companion picture of the modernizing influence on regular people in Japan that would stand alongside the practical mindset of a more popular figure like Ryoma Sakamoto of Tosa domain. Kazo has to work against the self-aggrandizing and mostly useless overseer samurai in order to obtain drawings and specs for making a steamship, a grand project on which Munenari has staked his reputation. A great "Cinderella" tale of ability over appearance!
4. The Ghost of Saga--the story of the secretive but able daimyo of Saga domain, Kanso Nabeshima, who rejected the messy political scene of Kyoto during the Bakumatsu, derided the shishi (the anti-bakufu factions of Choshu, Satsuma, Tosa and Mito mainly) as wasteful and useless, and used the Shogunate system basically to build up the military strength of Saga without giving a hint to the outside world. Kanso was uncannily frugal, saving all the money he could make (by somewhat shady means at times--Saga contained the window to the world for Japan--Nagasaki, which was the only place foreigners could trade for most of the Edo era) in order to buy the latest in military technology--cannons, Enfield rifles from Britain, ships, etc. Basically, Kanso eschews everything but what he considers necessary to defend and support his realm--then he suddenly applies to the nobles in Kyoto to become the city's defender, saying Saga could easily defeat the all the other domains singlehandedly with its impressive arsenal and technologies. (Saga built the first reflector furnace in Japan). But, as he hordes all and maintains strict isolation within this isolated country, he finds he doesn't know what to do with all his high-tech weapons. In effect, he makes himself a wraith, building potential without using it. On a side note, Saga domain was also the source of a controversial and popular document called the Hagakure, which is widely cited as the Bible of how to behave like a samurai. Kanso himself derided this as backward-thinking and rather useless.

Overall, this book is hard to put down. I read it in about 4-5 evenings, just for an hour or so each time. I'm sorry it's over! If you are interested at all in the turbulent Bakumatsu era of Japanese history or like a ripping good story with finely drawn, unforgettable characters, this is a great collection! Ryotaro Shiba is a master of the historical narrative, and Eileen Kato shows herself to be an able translator. I'd sure like to see more of Shiba's works on the Bakumatsu period in translation.