Broadening Horizons - Reviewing Eiji Yoshikawa's "Musashi"; Book V: Sky

I must admit, I didn’t anticipate I’d be reviewing the next part of Musashi this soon, and certainly not while in the midst of what already promises to be a thoroughly busy few days where my writing is concerned. Anticipated or not, here I sit all the same, writing late into the night. My compulsion to pen this now, hot on the heels of me unexpectedly finishing Book V: Sky just a few minutes ago when I’d originally planned to do so tomorrow, brings to mind the sort of diligence Musashi shows when tilling fields and carving statues during his time in Edo.

However, I’m getting slightly ahead of myself. For those not yet aware, this is part five of my continuing review of Musashi, Eiji Yoshikawa’s novelization of the life of Japan’s Greatest Swordsman. Separated into seven distinct books which function as acts showcasing the different stages of Musashi’s life, I’ve been examining each book as I finish it, giving my first impressions and the deeper thoughts which result from my ruminations on the work. You may find the previous four reviews linked below.

Book I: Earth | Book II: Water | Book III: Fire | Book IV: Wind

So far, my reviews of the prior books in Musashi have come relatively easily. The ideas and themes Yoshikawa presented in his narrative came through with clarity and I found little difficulty in pairing them to the actions of the individual characters. From there, I found myself readily able to examine in a brief, spoiler light manner the ways in which the characters and themes tie into the greater narrative, and how their actions both affect their growth at their current stage in the story, but also how they showcase the likely trajectory they’ll follow. Past events and themes became all the clearer the further forward I moved, reinforcing some of the ideas I had and giving new context to others I wasn’t quite on the mark on.

All along the way, the book has remained solidly engaging, and that’s fully true with Book V as well. However, for the first time since picking up this hefty story, I find myself unsure of how exactly I’m going to proceed with the review. There are a few reasons for this, but the largest of them is the somewhat disconnected nature of the storytelling in this particular book. Though, having phrased it that way, I’m not sure disconnected is so much the right word. It’s more that certain elements of the greater narrative have begun to fray under the strain of how expansive the story is at this point.

Doubtless you’re wondering what I mean by this, and the best way I can exemplify it is to briefly explain what happens with the many characters surrounding Musashi and his quest. Those of you who’ve read my prior reviews, particularly the most recent one on Book IV, are already quite aware of how expansive the cast in Yoshikawa’s novel is. At this point we find ourselves following Musashi himself; his love interest Otsu; his former friend Matahachi and Matahachi’s mother Osugi, both of whom still seek vengeance against him; Musashi’s first student and ward, Jotaro; Akemi, the daughter of Oko, both of whom he met and was housed by at the start of the novel after the battle of Sekigahara; and Sasaki Kojiro, another peerless swordsman who has by now gone from a part-time rival to a full blown enemy.

These are just the characters which we already know, and it doesn’t include smaller supporting roles we’ve previously encountered or will encounter here. Such roles include Osugi’s younger brother, Uncle Gon; the monk Takuan; the old master of the Shinkage-ryu school of combat, Shekishusai Yagyu; his son, Munenori; Munenori’s nephew, Hyogonosuke; Kosuke the sword polisher, who is himself a student of Koetsu Hon’ami, whom Musashi became a fond acquaintance of in Kyoto in Book III; and the boy Iori, who becomes Musashi’s newest student and ward in Book V.

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As you can see, the cast has become considerably extensive, and I’ve barely begun scratching the surface when it comes to secondary characters. For the most part, this hasn’t been a problem. The majority of these characters have brief meetings and reunions with Musashi or those who know him, adding depth and flavor to the story which helps it to feel alive. It’s also to be expected that we’d see an extensive cast of this sort when we consider that Musashi isn’t just a great drama and romance, a sort of Gone with the Wind for the Japanese as Joe of

The Brothers Krynn

has so well described it, but also a historical fiction. The people and places of Musashi’s time, right down to their many names, are expertly used by Yoshikawa to make the Japan of Tokugawa’s early reign feel robust and alive.

So what’s the problem, then? Simply this: across the first half of Book V, the majority of the events we witness have little to do with Musashi. They affect him in that they affect the people he’s connected to, and they all share the common element of those involved making their way to Edo. All of these are well and good for the story, putting the characters in places they will need to be for reunions that we hope and expect will come again. The most notable of these is, once more, Musashi reuniting with Otsu and Jotaro. Yes, once again, Musashi finds himself separated from this important pair.

Speaking of that, I suppose I ought to get into some of the events of the story itself. Interestingly, after ending on the rather high note of their romantic reunion in the previous book, we learn within the first few pages of Book V that Musashi’s liaison with Otsu after his battle with the Yoshioka School went far more poorly than we’d expect. After spending time together in a pristine pool fed by a pair of waterfalls, Musashi, being a young man who’s been separated from the lovely Otsu for so long, naturally starts feeling rather… amorous. Unfortunately, it turns out that Otsu isn’t receptive to this. She gets nervous and scared, and it results in the two of them bickering. Eventually they stop talking to one another, even as they’re ostensibly traveling together.

I say ostensibly because while Jotaro and Otsu are technically traveling to Edo with Musashi, he constantly leaves before them, keeping ahead of them on their trail. It’s honestly a refreshing reminder that for all the progress he’s made, and for as much as Otsu herself has grown also, the both of them are still young and very inexperienced in the ways of love and intimacy. Moments like this serve as reminders for us that Musashi is not perfect, nor is Otsu. While each of them has a considerably more flawed character who mirrors them - Matahachi in the case of Musashi, and Akemi in the case of Otsu - both are still human, and thus still prone to mistakes and misunderstandings. However, this does lead to Otsu and Jotaro being ambushed by none other than Matahachi himself, who knocks Jotaro out and steals Otsu away, fleeing to Edo.

In the first couple chapters, the same expert storytelling displayed in Book IV remains in full effect with Book V. We see how far Matahachi has fallen, how desperate and weak a man he’s become to act as a common bandit by kidnapping Otsu. We also follow Musashi as he tries to figure out what happened to Jotaro and Otsu, including who it was that waylaid and captured them. He begins to search the roads leading to Edo in hopes of finding them. Along the way, he meets with a farmer just a few years older than himself who also aspires to be a samurai, as well as his mother, whom Musashi first mistakes as something of a harridan like Osugi.

These early portions of Book V which follow Musashi’s search and the near misses he has in finding Otsu and Jotaro, as well as the eventual duel he has at the request of the farmer’s mother and the important lessons he learns from it, present a strong introduction for this segment of the story. The same is true of the latter half, where we revisit Musashi after his arrival in Edo and the surrounding regions. Basically, everything to do with Musashi himself in Book V is handled masterfully. The same can largely be said of Sasaki Kojiro, too. Though he gets considerably less screen time, we can see how his own progress is paralleled against Musashi’s. We also get to see how his view of the titular character has changed over time, from budding rivalry to outright disdain on the part of Kojiro, something which was helped along by the stories Osugi keeps spinning about the dishonor Musashi supposedly laid upon the House of Hon’iden. By this point in the story, we readers are all well aware of how wholly misguided Osugi’s view of that situation is, but it’s also clear the stubborn old woman is never going to change.

Where Book V starts to struggle for me is with most of the other characters. Unlike the previous four books, Book V was the first time I felt that Matahachi, Jotaro, Osugi, Akemi, and even Otsu to a degree, weren’t contributing to the story so much as they were bloating it. Mind you, this isn’t me saying that the sections of the story which focused on them were poorly written, boring, or uninteresting in any way. In spite of how it may seem, I quite enjoyed reading all of their passages in the middle portions of the book. However, their passages do also have the problem of feeling more like filler than they did in the previous four books. This is especially true of Jotaro and Akemi, who last make an appearance shortly after they first reach Edo near the middle of Book V, only to never be seen in this act again. Now this in and of itself wouldn’t be the biggest of issues, but the problem is that once we return to Musashi, we end up covering two-to-three years of his life in Edo. Two-to-three years of Jotaro and Otsu being fully absent. Two-to-three years in which Akemi has no involvement whatsoever in his life, none in Matahachi’s, and not even any in Kojiro’s beyond her attempting to avoid being noticed by him when she’s in the city.

This same two-to-three year absence also applies to Matahachi, too. In fact, we really don’t see him again, either, save for a flashback which only briefly summarizes what he’d done with Otsu after arriving in Edo with her in tow. I have to say, this was by far the most frustrating moment I’ve encountered in the story. To have Otsu’s hardships as Matahachi’s captive relegated to a couple paragraphs of summary felt to me like Yoshikawa had entirely skipped what could and should have been one of the most interesting aspects of this act that didn’t directly involve either Musashi or Sasaki Kojiro. Osugi is the one character here who’s something of an exception to this, as her stay in Edo results in her both meeting with Sasaki Kojiro again and fully resuming her own quest to see Musashi slain in an effort to regain the supposedly tarnished honor of her family name. Yet I’m still forced to say that it’s only something of an exception because, as stated, her part in the story does end up directly involving Musashi and Kojiro.

I want to stress once more that while I did find the ultimate way in which many of the cast were handled in Book V to be frustrating, that’s not to say that their segments were poorly written or uninteresting. I was fully engaged with them. By this point, we’ve spent an extensive amount of time with all the characters I listed above. We’ve been given enough time to care about their stories and want to see how they progress. The problem isn’t that what’s been presented isn’t engaging, it’s that what’s been presented feels like it lacks in real consequence for this part of the story. When it comes to Akemi, Jotaro, and Matahachi in particular, I can’t help but wonder if we’re actually going to see any of them again or not, and that’s entirely because of the way in which their parts in Book V come to rather abrupt ends.

I hope that my concerns in this regard are unfounded. In fact, I’m fairly confident they will be if only because of the level of care and quality that Yoshikawa has maintained up to this point. A care and quality that is still wholly present in Musashi’s part of this act.

Speaking of Musashi’s part, it’s primarily though him that we get the clearest idea of the central theme of Book V: Sky. Apart from the light fraying of the narrative which I already discussed above, one of the other challenges I had in reviewing Book V was relaying the theme of it to its title. In all four of the prior books, there was a core message within the narrative which tied into how that book was named. Book V: Sky continues this trend, but in a way that wasn’t very clear until we really started focusing in on Musashi’s time in Edo.

I’ll admit, I wracked my brain for some time trying to figure out how the concept of sky tied into what Yoshikawa wanted to say in Book V. Unlike earth, water, fire, and wind, sky isn’t something which had an immediately clear philosophical aspect to me. As I read, I began to wonder if there was perhaps a more distinctly Japanese meaning to its use that I was missing. Had Yoshikawa taken the title of Sky because it represents something that’s fully understandable within the confines of his own culture, but doesn’t effectively relate or translate to a Western minded man like myself?

While it’s entirely possible there is a deeper, more distinctly Japanese meaning to that title choice which I missed, I think the overarching theme is once again something that’s more universal. The thing is, it took more than me just reading up to and through Musashi’s exploits in the latter half of Book V to get it. I had to consider what the sky might represent in the confines of what we were being shown, and as I pondered that, I thought of Mrs.

R. H. Snow

and her frequent “Wide as the Texas Sky” posts, wherein she shares photographs of the Texas sky outside of her home.

Across our history as a species, the sky has always seemed like something vast and limitless to us humans. Even nowadays with things like air travel and our still budding efforts at space exploration, whether it’s day or night, it’s still very easy to look up at the sky and marvel at the sheer vastness and scope of it all. It feels almost like there’s no real end to it, and it makes it easy to not only think about how far one can go beneath that sky, but how much others are doing beneath it as well. There are many viewpoints we can learn from, many new skills we can develop, many new ways in which we can understand both the world around us and ourselves.

Musashi shows us this in the second half of Book V. For those first couple years that he’s in Edo, he puts away his sword. After meeting with and choosing to train Iori to be a samurai, he does so not by showing him swordsmanship techniques, but by teaching him discipline. How does he do this? By attempting to farm land that’s known for being swept away by floods every single year. By struggling to make the land work for him, only to realize he needs to work with the land, the rains, and the river waters in order for that seemingly impossible plot to become arable.

He shows us this again in his many attempts to carve a statue for the sword polisher Kosuke. Attempts which end in repeated failures, which force him to stop, think, and meditate on what he’s done wrong, why he failed this time. All across the second half of Book V we watch Musashi grow, watch him broaden his horizons and help young Iori do the same, all without ever once relying on his sword to do so. This isn’t to say he doesn’t fight at all in this act, because he does. He helps the farmers in the area around his own struggling field to fend off a group of bandits who seek to pillage their homes and steal their women away. He does this not by fighting them all on his own, as he did with the over seventy men of the Yoshioka School after his bout with Denshichiro. Instead, he opts to teach the farmers of their own strength, to instill in them the knowledge of how to protect themselves, while also imparting the lesson that their truest strength lies in their ability to grow things and sustain themselves from the land. Just as he broadens his horizons, he begins to help others broaden theirs.

It’s safe to say that Book V: Sky was a little bit of a mixed bag for me. While Eiji Yoshikawa’s writing remains most excellent, his novelization of Musashi’s life still consistently urging me to keep on reading, this was also the first time I found myself with some fairly critical feelings about his approach. Whether those feelings end up being fully warranted or not, I’ll soon find out as I read through the final two books in the story. That will come in due time. It’s nearing midnight for me as I finish penning this review, so I’ll be wrapping things up and getting some sleep soon. Until then, and until I pick up the story again to continue into Book VI: Sun and Moon, I’m going to continue ruminating on the ideas touched on with Musashi’s change in approach in his quest to understand the Way of the Samurai.

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