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I finished Shibumi last night and today I spent a decent bit of mental energy shuffling my list of favorite books. I have no idea how I had never heard of this 1979 novel before this year, but there's no doubt it has earned a spot on my list of favorites.
The historical fiction angle drew me to the novel. I think Amazon suggested it, based on my past purchase of Shogun, or perhaps Istanbul Passage by Joseph Cannon. For that itch, Shibumi didn't disappoint. The novel is well-researched and touches subjects, times and places where my knowledge is a bit thin or even non-existent. It had me Googling and checking Wikipedia as I read, and taught me quite a bit along the way.
At its heart, inside its historical fiction wrapper, Shibumi is a novel of international intelligence and espionage. A corporate overlord, the Mother Company, controls the world's top intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, MI-5, etc.) and arranges twisted and uncomfortable, but not unbelievable, plots to maintain its grasp on the western world's energy and information. How twisted and uncomfortable? How about a CIA mission in which it slaughters members of an Israeli cell set on foiling a PLO-backed plane hijacking? The Agency even kills, by design, some of its own agents in the process. Despite being published nearly 40 years ago, this aspect of the novel is, sadly, nowhere near being irrelevant or even dated. Indeed, it seems as believable and relevant today as, I suspect, it was in 1979.
Shibumi is a damn good satire, too. America and her people are clearly the favorite target of the author, Trevanian. Through humor and history, though, he jabs everything from the French to Volvos, and from religion to Andy Warhol. His distaste for all things American runs a bit thick in spots, which may turn some folks away. Their loss.
If history, intelligence, espionage, and satire aren't enough to interest you, Shibumi is a novel of spelunking and Go, too, neither of which is added in only passing thought. Indeed, the two adventures into the Gouffre Porte-de-Larrau cave system, which bookend the rising action of the story, were favorite parts for me - the descriptions of the cave system and the physical demands of the journey placed me directly in both.
Characters? Nicholai Hel and Le Cagot have to be two of the most memorable I've encountered. And the minor characters - Mother Company man Mr. Diamond, CIA veteran agent Starr, the Gnome, Pierre the gardner, Hana, and Hannah, to name a few - provide a colorful, thoroughly developed and memorable ensemble.
Shibumi definitely earned a spot on my list of favorites, which means I'll gladly mention it to friends and likely re-read it again someday.
The historical fiction angle drew me to the novel. I think Amazon suggested it, based on my past purchase of Shogun, or perhaps Istanbul Passage by Joseph Cannon. For that itch, Shibumi didn't disappoint. The novel is well-researched and touches subjects, times and places where my knowledge is a bit thin or even non-existent. It had me Googling and checking Wikipedia as I read, and taught me quite a bit along the way.
At its heart, inside its historical fiction wrapper, Shibumi is a novel of international intelligence and espionage. A corporate overlord, the Mother Company, controls the world's top intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, MI-5, etc.) and arranges twisted and uncomfortable, but not unbelievable, plots to maintain its grasp on the western world's energy and information. How twisted and uncomfortable? How about a CIA mission in which it slaughters members of an Israeli cell set on foiling a PLO-backed plane hijacking? The Agency even kills, by design, some of its own agents in the process. Despite being published nearly 40 years ago, this aspect of the novel is, sadly, nowhere near being irrelevant or even dated. Indeed, it seems as believable and relevant today as, I suspect, it was in 1979.
Shibumi is a damn good satire, too. America and her people are clearly the favorite target of the author, Trevanian. Through humor and history, though, he jabs everything from the French to Volvos, and from religion to Andy Warhol. His distaste for all things American runs a bit thick in spots, which may turn some folks away. Their loss.
If history, intelligence, espionage, and satire aren't enough to interest you, Shibumi is a novel of spelunking and Go, too, neither of which is added in only passing thought. Indeed, the two adventures into the Gouffre Porte-de-Larrau cave system, which bookend the rising action of the story, were favorite parts for me - the descriptions of the cave system and the physical demands of the journey placed me directly in both.
Characters? Nicholai Hel and Le Cagot have to be two of the most memorable I've encountered. And the minor characters - Mother Company man Mr. Diamond, CIA veteran agent Starr, the Gnome, Pierre the gardner, Hana, and Hannah, to name a few - provide a colorful, thoroughly developed and memorable ensemble.
Shibumi definitely earned a spot on my list of favorites, which means I'll gladly mention it to friends and likely re-read it again someday.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
The translation is REALLY stilted and uninteresting right off the bat.
over the top hilarious at points, dragged on too long at the end.
La vie et l’idiosyncrasie d’un tueur à gages genre samouraï; la singularité du pays basque français et de ses habitants; des descriptions spéléologiques ahurissantes; une intrigue qui baigne dans un anti-américanisme et une japonophilie.... ce roman culte paru en 1979 est riche, captivant, grandiose.
An absolute classic. I've read this one several times and named my daughter after one of the characters. It's dated, but a total delight.
TL:DR: Started off so good, but was ultimately deeply trite, predictable, boring, racist, sexist, and disappointing. I am utterly delighted that I borrowed it from the library, because if I'd paid actual money for this crap I would be furious. It's not worth $2, never mind $12.
I started reading this book and was instantly enchanted. A smart young man, imbued with a sense of generosity and honour. Add to this Le Cagot who was wonderful and hilarious and who, when dressed up for dinner, reminded me forcibly of Professor Tarragon from Tintin.
And then it got bad...
And then much, much worse.
I should write a detailed review, but I'm just so sick of the whole thing I want to get this over and done with and get on with my life. The disappointment...the deep deep disappointment...the promise in the beginning of this book that this was not going to be trite or predictable, but engaging and interesting...that promise shattered. I'm just so damn sad.
Ok. Good bits:
The beginning. The promise of goodness to come.
The hilarious asides.
The bad bits:
Not everyone can speak basque, ok? When authors include foreign languages that they neglect to provide translations for, it is a dead giveaway for the fact that the author has some kind of inferiority complex that pushes them to use these stupid tricks in order to prove their own superiority.
Ditto for some of the words used in this book. "Poor Faulkner, does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
It reminds me of when my kids were growing up. I'd encourage them, when writing essays, to take a couple of words in the essay, look up seldom-used synonyms, and use them instead. It's a sophomoric little trick, but it impressed the teachers and raised their grades. Reading this book felt like I was the teacher the student was trying to impress by use of arcane synonyms.
The protagonist was oh so perfect and oh so amazing with his magic abilities. Oh please. *gagging noises*. Except he was a dumb racist and sexist. So that's a bit of a problem.
And let's get to that, shall we?
At first I was willing to let it pass. I assumed referring to "the Arab" as "goatherd" was meant to be Mr. Starr's thinking? Except it popped up over and over again in the book. And then finally I realized it was the author's thinking. This was how he thought of them. "The Arab". Said over and over again. The hatred for those of middle-Eastern descent is palpable. Not once is that race referred to with any degree of neutrality, even. It's all negative.
Same with Americans. By the middle of the book I was yelling at it, "OKAY! I GET IT! The author hates Americans! Can we PLEASE move on?" But no, over and over and over and over again we are beaten over the head about how evil and stupid and dumb and pathetic and cowardly and disgusting Americans are. It got nauseating. Oh my gosh. Just SHUT UP. You are embarrassing yourself revealing your deep seated racism like this! How the author can go around without just dying of embarrassment from revealing this dirty detail about him/herself I have no idea.
And talk about revealing dirty secrets, let's move from racism to sexism, which is shockingly and disgustingly blatant. There is not one female in this story that is not either a sex toy, or dumb, or lying, or maliciously gossiping, or duplicitous. I was APPALLED when the Gnome asked Hel to sleep with his (the Gnome's) lover....as a GIFT. WHAT the ACTUAL HECK??!?! Does this author think SO LITTLE of women that s/he believes a woman who has lived with a man for 30 years, who loves him, and that man is dying...that she would sleep with someone else? And this is a GIFT? Are you freaking serious? Just...I'm just appalled. This is how deep the sexist rabbit hole goes. It got to the point that I became physically nauseated when a new female character was introduced because I knew she would be either sex mad or a liar or dumb or evil...and I was right every time.
Ok, I have to leave that there or I'll go on about it for ages. I am sickened by the racism and sexism in this book.
Alright then. So we go from a very interesting beginning...and then spend an unconscionable amount of time in the cave. Oh gosh seriously. It dragged. Yes, yes, once that damn thing was mentioned I knew he'd have to go down in there during a fight or be trapped down there blah blah blah....but the amount of time droning on about the cave! So boring.
And the ending was over in two seconds almost like an afterthought.
Also, he kills the one dude WITH NO PROOF! Only speculation. And, furthermore, that one dude was SO DAMN OBVIOUS it was boring. Wouldn't it have been better to have the traitor be someone less obvious? I mean, really.
And then the very end? Where he achieves Shibumi? Totally crap. Also, she would have known the garden wasn't there from the sound of it. It would have been patently obvious. And to end on that trite lie was just the mouldy cherry on the rotten cake.
I'm so damn sad. I wanted to like this book so much. I was so excited when I first started reading, and it delighted me....but oh man did it fail, and fail utterly.
I started reading this book and was instantly enchanted. A smart young man, imbued with a sense of generosity and honour. Add to this Le Cagot who was wonderful and hilarious and who, when dressed up for dinner, reminded me forcibly of Professor Tarragon from Tintin.
And then it got bad...
And then much, much worse.
I should write a detailed review, but I'm just so sick of the whole thing I want to get this over and done with and get on with my life. The disappointment...the deep deep disappointment...the promise in the beginning of this book that this was not going to be trite or predictable, but engaging and interesting...that promise shattered. I'm just so damn sad.
Ok. Good bits:
The beginning. The promise of goodness to come.
The hilarious asides.
The bad bits:
Not everyone can speak basque, ok? When authors include foreign languages that they neglect to provide translations for, it is a dead giveaway for the fact that the author has some kind of inferiority complex that pushes them to use these stupid tricks in order to prove their own superiority.
Ditto for some of the words used in this book. "Poor Faulkner, does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
It reminds me of when my kids were growing up. I'd encourage them, when writing essays, to take a couple of words in the essay, look up seldom-used synonyms, and use them instead. It's a sophomoric little trick, but it impressed the teachers and raised their grades. Reading this book felt like I was the teacher the student was trying to impress by use of arcane synonyms.
The protagonist was oh so perfect and oh so amazing with his magic abilities. Oh please. *gagging noises*. Except he was a dumb racist and sexist. So that's a bit of a problem.
And let's get to that, shall we?
At first I was willing to let it pass. I assumed referring to "the Arab" as "goatherd" was meant to be Mr. Starr's thinking? Except it popped up over and over again in the book. And then finally I realized it was the author's thinking. This was how he thought of them. "The Arab". Said over and over again. The hatred for those of middle-Eastern descent is palpable. Not once is that race referred to with any degree of neutrality, even. It's all negative.
Same with Americans. By the middle of the book I was yelling at it, "OKAY! I GET IT! The author hates Americans! Can we PLEASE move on?" But no, over and over and over and over again we are beaten over the head about how evil and stupid and dumb and pathetic and cowardly and disgusting Americans are. It got nauseating. Oh my gosh. Just SHUT UP. You are embarrassing yourself revealing your deep seated racism like this! How the author can go around without just dying of embarrassment from revealing this dirty detail about him/herself I have no idea.
And talk about revealing dirty secrets, let's move from racism to sexism, which is shockingly and disgustingly blatant. There is not one female in this story that is not either a sex toy, or dumb, or lying, or maliciously gossiping, or duplicitous. I was APPALLED when the Gnome asked Hel to sleep with his (the Gnome's) lover....as a GIFT. WHAT the ACTUAL HECK??!?! Does this author think SO LITTLE of women that s/he believes a woman who has lived with a man for 30 years, who loves him, and that man is dying...that she would sleep with someone else? And this is a GIFT? Are you freaking serious? Just...I'm just appalled. This is how deep the sexist rabbit hole goes. It got to the point that I became physically nauseated when a new female character was introduced because I knew she would be either sex mad or a liar or dumb or evil...and I was right every time.
Ok, I have to leave that there or I'll go on about it for ages. I am sickened by the racism and sexism in this book.
Alright then. So we go from a very interesting beginning...and then spend an unconscionable amount of time in the cave. Oh gosh seriously. It dragged. Yes, yes, once that damn thing was mentioned I knew he'd have to go down in there during a fight or be trapped down there blah blah blah....but the amount of time droning on about the cave! So boring.
And the ending was over in two seconds almost like an afterthought.
Also, he kills the one dude WITH NO PROOF! Only speculation. And, furthermore, that one dude was SO DAMN OBVIOUS it was boring. Wouldn't it have been better to have the traitor be someone less obvious? I mean, really.
And then the very end? Where he achieves Shibumi? Totally crap. Also, she would have known the garden wasn't there from the sound of it. It would have been patently obvious. And to end on that trite lie was just the mouldy cherry on the rotten cake.
I'm so damn sad. I wanted to like this book so much. I was so excited when I first started reading, and it delighted me....but oh man did it fail, and fail utterly.
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
slow-paced