I’ve met a few western martial arts students in my time, and invariably they’ve shown much less of the “Spellbound…” syndrome than academic types I’ve run into.
As far as Mishima goes, a former colleague who knew him quite well once told me his reputation was built on the way he juxtaposed kanji to create mood while presenting a visually intriguing image — now, this is from a conversation 25 or more years ago that I’m trying to recall, so there may be a bit more to it. When I said I found Mishima in English to be a very weak storyteller, he laughed and said nobody reads Mishima for his stories.

Pingback here::smile:

1/13/2006

Mishima’s Sword

Yukio Mishima has been the subject of several biographies by Japanese and Western writers, and now publishing sources in New York tell us that Christopher Ross is working on a new Mishima bio titled ”Mishima’s Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend”.

Ross has been interviewing hundreds of people who knew Mishima — who committed hara-kiri after a failed coup d’etat 30 years ago — way back when.

The editor of the book is John Rodzvilla at Da Capo Books, and publication is set for this coming fall in the US, [aleady out now in the UK].

Posted by Danny Bloom @ 6:00 pm Comments & Trackbacks (7) | Permalink

Learn something new every day: Mishima’s real Japanese name was Kimitake Hiraoka

mishima was a misogynistic right-wing freak.

David: You make an excellent point, but I just can’t help this comparison:

Just because Americans may not care for Jerry Lewis, does that make the French somehow foolish to do so (g)?

hey, come on, mishima’s politics were ridiculous, right, and his personal life was kinda funny, but his writing was superb. I read him in translation so don’t know about the kanji, but the novels were all top-notch. I don’t think there’s any doubting that he’s one of the best writers Japan has ever had.
and since when do salary mans sneak into people’s conversations?

I’ve read the book and really liked it. So much so that I bought the US rights for the book. The New Statesmen article seems more like a cred check from one Japanophile to another. Mishima’s Sword does a bad job at presenting a biography of Mishima because the book isn’t about Mishima, it’s about a quest. The book really isn’t about someone fascinated with the exoticism of Japan, who finds himself a stranger in a strange land. Ross is a journalist looking for a story and he does what he can to get it. His approach to Mishima’s sword is the same as any journalists search for say, Robert Johnson’s grave or Mark Twain’s birthplace. I’m sick of Western writers and reviewers giving Japan such an ethreal value that it becomes some mystical island that foreigners can never understand. The reason I brought the book to the editorial board is this is one of the first books that doesn’t fill up the pages with wide-eyed wonder of Japan’s exoticism. Yes, there’s mention of everything we expect from a foreigner’s account of Japan, but it’s all matter-of-fact and act as cultural counterpoints to the fantasy of traditional Japan that Mishima was trying to create in his novels and public persona. The book is a fresh compared to the other writers who go over to Japan because they like Kendo or manga or Hello Kitty or insert-current-Japanese-fetish-here.

Thanks, Mr Rodzvilla, for your comments above. Glad to see you joining the fray!

Note to readers: John Rodzvilla, above, is the US editor at DeCapo Books in Boston that will be publishing the US edition of the book being talked about. It’s always good to hear all sides of the story. The UK review was interesting, and the comments above have all been interesting, and Mr Rodzvilla’s note is also worth noting. I think that is what makes this site, and this kind of Internet chat room, so ……. interesting!

Now, now danny the British rag on the French far worse than Americans. I picked on the French becuase of Jerry Lewis - this has long been an American laugh at the French but not in a mean-spirited way. Sorry, I didn’t think any would would take offense at a lame French joke.

Comment by D.Weber

David,
I know, I know, now now Danny, and of course I know you were just joking. We all are. But look at it this way: it it’s okay to rag on the French, then it’s okay to rag on the Germans, and also the British, and also the Japanese and also the Chinese and also the Americans, and then don’t forget the Italians and the Jews and the cripples and the lesbians, and if we always rag on people we don’t quite understand, because we are somehow BETTER than they are, then what are we? We’re not much better than slime.:smile:

I know you were joshing, but in a way, I thought you would have been above all that. Well travelled and all that. And a damn good writer and phtographer and thinker. The American laugh at the French, as you say, re Jerry Lewis is not MY laugh at the French or Jerry Lewis, those lame Jerry Lewis jokes and AntiFrench jokes are part of what makes America a sad, sick place, and I just hope that we here at Japundit are above all that. The Jerry Lewis joke may not seem meanspirited to you, but it’s a short distance to the Surrender Cheese Monkey anti-French jokes of the late night talk shows and if it’s a short distance to those things, from a seemingly innocent Jerry Lewis lame joke (and why make fun of Lewis, he is in fact a comic genius!) — the people who make fun of him in the USA are the Americans who don’t like the French for some reason, and I have never understood that antiFrench stuff in Americana these days, and it’s very close to being anti-Japanese or anti-Jewish or anti-black or any kind of FEAR OF OTHERS, FEAR OF OTHERNESS, FEAR OF DIFFERNCES stuff. I know I am going on here, but it’s important David.

I do take offense, myself, at any anti-SOMEONE ELSE joke, from those old Polish jokes to JAP jokes to all kinds of anti-OTHERS jokes. There is just no need for it, among people of a certain intelligence.

Those below that level of intelligence and awareness, sure, they will continue that way. C’est la vie and always will be.

I know your throw away joke at the French was just kidding, I know you were just kidding. It’s just that I feel we should all stand up for all people all the time and not sink to the level of a culture that gets its jollies by belittling others.

The French are a great people. As our the Japanese, the Germans, etc. There is no need to partake in a culture that belittles others.

It’s easy to give in to these jokes about the French and Jerry Lewis and Cheese Surrender Monkeys, but it’s also easy to stand up and say enough’s enough and it’s a new world out there, and we represent that new world of respect for other cultures, even if we don’t understand them all. I don’t.

Email me offline if you want to respond more, so we don’t take up too much space here.

Just my two cents. And you don’t have to buy anything. But I think that we probably do agree on all this. And yes, I know you were just trying to be humorous, and it was funny. In a way. One time.

“as those of us who live in asia…”

well, glad we’re not being grouped together in one huge stereotype.

FWIW, Danny, I can’t say anything about the Chinese, Koreans, et al, but I can tell you that the Japanese do plenty of national stereotype humor, some of it mean-spirited, some of it not.
If you don’t like ethnic-based humor, ignore it (but you’ll be missing a lot of good laughs). The best Polish jokes I’ve heard came from Poles; ditto Irish, Italian, Lawyer, Dentist, Catholic, etc. etc.
The great Chicago columnist once got a letter from a reader that was quite similar to your notes (tho, much shorter) in spirit. He responded that one of his parent was Polish, the other Ukranian, so the Polish half of him loved jokes about dumb Ukranians, and vice-versa. Great attitude, I’d say.

Mr Pink,
I heartily agree with you, and you can say anything you want about anyone you want. I do like ethnic-based humor when it is told by those specific ethnic grups, really, that kind of stuff is good and funny and I can laugh because they are telling jokes about themselves, as you mentioned the Polish-Ukranian jokes above.

I love French jokes by French people. There must be a few good ones out there.

And you’re right, I should not have grouped us all into one group — “those of us who live in Asia” — that was one big generalization and let me take it back.

Good note, Mr Pink. Believe it or not, I love humor, I love jokes. I can understand most ethnic jokes (well, the funny ones, at any rate) and I like them. But the anti-French jokes by Americans is just something that I never got, because those aren’t ethnic French jokes aimed at fellow Americans, i.e., ethnic French-Americans, but national French jokes aimed at the French as a nation.

Someone told me a few days ago that during the Cold War, Americans got off on Russian jokes, as a way to deal with their fear of Russians, and now that the Russians are not scary anymore, the anti-French jokes have come to the fore.

I am not French. But having lived in France, and studied French in high school and college, I have come to like the French people and French culture. So the American penchant for dissing the French for strange reasons of cowardice in war and liking Jerry Lewis movies and having smelly underarms and generally not bathing and the women not shaving their legs, well, those “jokes” just seem juvenile to me.

But yes, good French jokes that rise above the juvenile level, I’d love to hear them.

I have no idea why I wrote that long rant this morning. I think I woke up on the wrong side of the futon. Go figure.

Thanks, Mr. Pink.

Danny, just two quick points:
1. I’d say the current spate of very barbed “French jokes” in the U.S. is aimed at the government of France rather than its people, culture, whatever. And it’s no better/worse than the “American jokes” aimed at U.S. governments, present & past.
2. A good stereotype joke told in fun about a different ethnic group, nationality, religion, what have you isn’t offensive to anyone with a sense of humor, as d.weber pointed out above.
in fact, I recently heard a great one about two Afghans vying to assimilate in the U.S., sent to me by an Indian colleague, who heard it from a Pakistani. It’s hillarious, but you’re gonna have to ask nice if you want to hear it.

in fact, I recently heard a great one about two Afghans vying to assimilate in the U.S., sent to me by an Indian colleague, who heard it from a Pakistani. It’s hillarious, but you’re gonna have to ask nice if you want to hear it…

asking nice. dish!:smile:

I agree with
1.
and
2.

humor makes the world go laff. we need it. every day. here too.

now tell me that joke you heard….

FWIW, Danny, I can’t say anything about the Chinese, Koreans, et al, but I can tell you that the Japanese do plenty of national stereotype humor, some of it mean-spirited, some of it not.

I have to agree with this — you definitely do run into this kind of behavior.

However, I will lightly step out onto a limb and say that, having spent lots of time in the UK now, in addition to the US (and Japan), it is a lot more common to hear irony and cynicism employed in everyday conversation, pub banter and even journalism than in Japan, which has a different “style” of conversation.

Yes, I realize that the above is a gross generalization. But there is such a thing as culture and cultural differences.

I’m sick of Western writers and reviewers giving Japan such an ethreal value that it becomes some mystical island that foreigners can never understand.

You know, the Japanese do this too — we’ve had lots of debates in the comments section of numerous posts on the “specialness” of Japan. I ran into an academic on a train to Akita — long story — but, after he’d had a few bottles of sake, I asked him what he thought of John Dower’s “The Great Defeat.” After several excruciating seconds, the academic said to me: “You know, you Westerners can never truly understand Japan.” And I sort of rolled my inner-eyes and thought, “Oh, here we go again.”

back to French jokes (sorry!)- I agree with Mr. Pink but I always feel that the English-speaking world’s somewhat playful animosity towards the French goes way further back and reflects the tension between the slobs and the snobs in English society that has continued into her colonies. In a way bashing the French is a way of bashing the upperclass snobs who adore them.

fyi to all yu peeple wid no sense of humour:

France’s politically incorrect fascination with Jerry Lewis, 80, reached new heights last week when the USA comedian was inducted into the prestigious Legion of Honor in a Paris ceremony. The event was straight out of a Lewis flick: The comedian, who attended in slippers, tried to steal Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres’ written remarks off the podium, then pretended to fall asleep during the minister’s speech.

A cultural blogger wrote this:

Why did Mishima Yukio commit seppuku? And happened to the sword he used for the deed? Questions Christopher Ross sets out to answer in Mishima’s Sword, Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend. The book is a pleasant read. It nicely hobbles along on its short paragraphs, like an extended but at the same time well laid out mosaic. But it is not easy to answer the many questions surrounding Japanese author Yukio Mishima’s gruesome and anachronistic death by seppuku, ritual suicide during what would now be called an act of terrorism. On November 25, 1970, with a few members of his private army Mishima entered the Ichigaya headquarters of the Self Defense Forces, hijacked a general and tried to incite the soldiers to insurrection. He was only met with scorn and jeers and then carried out what he had in fact come to do: die a glorious death. A pity for him that his way of dying would then and now only be seen as the “pathetic act of a very gifted buffoon” – the last stage appearance of a “suicidal dandy” (as Ian Buruma calls it in The Missionary and the Libertine).

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