First Published: Crown Publishers, 1979
Edition Read: Three Rivers Press, 2005
ISBN: 1-4000-9803-3
Truly a strange spy novel. Almost beautiful, highly aesthetic moments in an otherwise almost obnoxiously masculine book. No good people. No desperate, driving plot. No major intrigue. But it works. Once Trevanian decided to write a spy novel modelled on the ancient Japanese board game, Go, I guess the result was always going to be unpredictable.
I want to start this with a quotation from one of surprising moments in the book. One character is trying to explain how he is using the word “shibumi.”
Oh, vaguely. And incorrectly, I suppose, I suspect. A blundering attempt to describe an ineffable quality. As you know, shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant that it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming. And in the personality of man, it is . . . how does one say it? Authority without domination? Something like that. (p. 77)
Some of this is over the top, no doubt, though I really like “eloquent silence” and “authority without domination.” What makes this surprising, is that it comes in a book in which every woman (with one small exception) is a sex object. A book which is such an adolescent male fantasy that, at one point, the author breaks the fourth wall (so to speak) and adds the book’s single footnote in which he boasts about the power of his writing and the fact that he is initiated into such deadly methods of using household objects and such dangerous and advanced sexual techniques that he dares not share them with the reader for fear of causing us poor, lesser mortals injury (p. 167). A book, indeed, that is willing to defeat its own search for shibumi by showing complete disdain and scorn for almost everyone else. Though, I admit that the scorn can be amusing:
Americans are constantly described as culture-less, barbarian celebrators of mediocrity, and the main character comes “to think of Britons as incompetent Americans and Australians as Americans-in-training.” (p. 136) That one stung a little, though I forgave Trevanian because he remembered, unlike everyone else, that Australia was part of WW2. (p. 91) Another example – upon learning that one (female) character majored in sociology, the main character thinks: “He might have guessed it. Sociology, that descriptive pseudo-science that disguises its uncertainty in statistical mists as it battens on the narrow gap of information between psychology and anthropology. The kind of nonmajor that so many Americans use to justify their four-year intellectual vacations designed to prolong adolescence.” (p. 307)
However, despite the teenage voyeurism and lonely fantasy that gives this book its impetus, it’s actually pretty enjoyable. The main character is intriguing, even while being a little ridiculous (I mean, honestly, taking revenge by having sex with someone so well that none of their future sexual experiences will seem even vaguely satisfying by comparison? Come on. (pun intended (sorry))). The plot is ridiculous – the Mother Company controls the world’s governments through oil and land purchases and secretly manipulates all the world’s interest groups through such pawns as the CIA and, as a result …. honestly, it’s too silly to even explain. Suffice to say that the official plot revolves around a minor incident of no real importance whereas the real plot is the main character’s story.
Apart from enjoying the book for its ridiculousness, the real reason to read it is for the grace notes in the patterns that the book draws. Patterns, mainly, in the lives of the main character. Moments of grace. Few and far between, perhaps, but there and gentle when you reach them. Which is, I admit, a bit like Go.
jjlibling
merrychace
so i have to say this book is painfully post-modern. the description you quoted above almost made me fall off my chair, it is so obviously derivative of shit really popular in the 70s (and not dead even now) in philosophical and political philosophical circles. the being/becoming/angst is pure heidegger; all of his followers liked to talk about that sort of nonsense a lot (obviously much of this started in plato, as you know). and the sentence you liked on authority without domination? domination is the big catch-phrase for critical theorists of all stripes. this is one of the reasons i want to poke my eyes out in the political theory workshop- former marxists still get all itchy about domination (actually the comment on sociology also sounds like something a lot of these people would say). anyway this guy sounds like a mixture of stereotypical “eastern” ideas and stuff that makes me throw up in my mouth a little. sounds like you at least found it entertaining- i can see why some of the silliness could be fun (and i must say the sexism is very very interesting- i admit to some curiosity as to how that particular theme works with all of the others).
and the typo of the post: pudency. should be prudency, i’m assuming.
THis is possibly the best book I have ever read. It certainly isnt perfect. there are several plot holes, and it is overwhelmingly mysoginistic. but i love it.
I love it because it is one long poem. Because it isnt supposed to be taken seriously, but it still manages to be beautiful. because everything that shouldnt work, does.