musashi the way of the samurai eiji yoshikawa

To achieve this he studies calligraphy, painting, sculprture, agriculture, and music, all in the the pursuit of perfection as a swordsman. To do this Musashi does more than practice drawing and swinging a sword.

Musashi is offered a position as reatiner to the Tokugawa governor, but instead decides to journey across Japan to hone his swordsmanship. From this incarceration he emerged a new man. He is locked in a room of the Lord's castle for three years straight with only treatises on war, religion, and the classics of both Japan and China. However, through the intervention of an old friend he is brought to justice and given a second chance and a new name. He escapes the carnage of the battle to his home province and emerges from this ordeal not as the noble warrior he intended, but rather as a savage bandit. The young son of a country samurai, Shinmen Takezo, goes to fight for the Toyotomi at Sekigahara and opens the book prostrate on the ground with two bullets in his thigh. In the end to Tokugawa emerged victorious and the 150 year period of civil war came to an end. The book opens in the year 1600 at the end of the infamous battle of Sekigahara, where the armies of east and western Japan met to decide who would govern: Toyotomi or Tokugawa. Yoshikawa takes us on a mezmorizing voyage to a crossroads in Japanese history that changed all the rules and gave birth to a legend. He is cited as one of the best historical novelists in Japan.Ī breathtaking fictionalization of the life of one of the world's greatest warriors and renaissance men. He was awarded the Cultural Order of Merit in 1960 (the highest award for a man of letters in Japan), the Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Mainichi Art Award just before his death from cancer in 1962. His other books also serve similar purposes and, although most of his novels are not original works, he created a huge amount of work and a renewed interest in the past. As an example, the original manuscript of Taiko is 15 volumes Yoshikawa took up to retell it in a more accessible tone, and reduced it to only two volumes. He was mainly influenced by classics such as The Tale of the Heike, Tale of Genji, Outlaws of the Marsh, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, many of which he retold in his own style. Among his best-known novels, most are revisions of older classics.

In 1960, he received the Order of Cultural Merit.Įiji Yoshikawa ( 吉川英治, Aug– September 7, 1962) was a Japanese historical novelist. Yoshikawa is well-known for his work as a Japanese historical fiction novelist, and a number of re-makes have been spawned off his work.

Musashi the way of the samurai eiji yoshikawa