Customer Reviews

Lightning in the Void: The Authentic History of Miyamoto Musashi

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This is a very interesting book, but very little of it is about Musashi - perhaps a third. The author's knowledge of Japan of this period is truly encyclopedic, but at times you feel like you are reading a Lonely Planet guidebook to 17th century Japan, not a novel about one man. There are long sections on the invasion of Korea (in which Musashi did not participate), sections on Shingon and other types of esoteric buddhism which he did not practice, the personalities of Hideyoshi's lieutenants and rivals (who we never meet). The further you get into the book, the more infrequently we find Musashi, or where Musashi is present in a scene merely to ask a question or listen to a monologue about some unrelated aspect of Japanese history - such as pages 421 - 445 where we learn that Lord Fukushima Masanori of Hiroshima really hated Ishida Mitsunari - and Ishida is presented as being a very very unpleasant person. This is presented in the form of a drunken monologue that Musashi sits through, but has no other relevance to the book. For those who have spent time in Japan and had to sit and listen to drunken monologues by superiors, this will enable you to vividly re-live those awful experiences.

For example, starting at page 95, the following sections are background, context, or irrelevant: 95-101; 125-130; 137-163; 179-200. That's ~58 pages out of 105, and as the book progresses it gets worse.

The book is 518 pages, were it cut down to about 250-300 pages it would be a terrific read. Its all well written, but much is too little relevant. Frankly, when the two reviewers say its a page turner, I have to assume that they meant that they were turning pages to skip them, I can't imagine that people who are not at least amateur scholars of Japanese history could read the whole book.

For the reader who is not familiar with Musashi, the historical Musashi is a man about whom very little is known. The author presents what seems to me to be quite a likely portrait of Musashi - as a man with absolutely no scruples whatsoever, and raises the completely valid question of why Musashi lived in Edo but never challenged the most famous martial artists of the day - even those who lived and taught in Edo - such as Yagyu Muneyori and his senior students. Compared with other fiction and biographies, the author does put less emphasis on Musashi's accomplishments as an artist / artisan - sumie drawings, forging tsuba, etc.