Flutes, Nightingales, and a Youth's Revenge - Reviewing Eiji Yoshikawa's "Musashi"; Book II: Water
Having finally begun his quest to become Japan's greatest swordsman in earnest, a young Miyamoto Musashi learns valuable lessons on responsibility and self control.
One of the errors I find the most frustrating in fiction are characters who neither grow as individuals, nor showcase the capability of doing so. Similarly, a lesser error that I also find frustrating are characters which evolve too quickly. In the former case, the stories written tend to suffer from stagnation or an unpleasant sensation of meaninglessness throughout their course. In the latter, it often contributes to stories feeling rushed and incomplete, with such rapid growth often being the result of hand-waved details or plot conveniences. Note that these same issues can also be driving factors for the former problem, too.
Personally, whether I’m reading short or long-form fiction, and whether I’m reading something pulpy and fast paced or something slower and more involved, I want to see a degree of reasonable growth for the characters within. Character growth is key for imparting a sense of meaning to the stories we read. It does this by helping to provide readers with the sense that we’re joining the characters on their journey. This isn’t to say it needs to be the primary focus of a story, but it should be present and paced to support the story being told.
I bring this up because Eiji Yoshikawa’s Musashi is, ultimately, a story of personal growth and enlightenment. We see this in Book I: Earth with the rebirth of the wild and brutish Takezō into the young and far more enlightened Miyamoto Musashi. Now we see that journey continue in Book II: Water, with Musashi beginning to learn some of his first major lessons as a new man. Responsibility, strength, and what it means to be a warrior and a man not just in Japan’s early Edo period, but in general, are all areas in which he begins to grow and mature in his journey to become both a great samurai and a good man.
This second story picks up not too long after where Book I ends. By the by, if you’ve not yet read my review of Book I, you can do so here. Shimmen Takezō has now fully accepted his new identity as Miyamoto Musashi, and here we see him take the first big steps on his quest to become Japan’s greatest swordsman. As with any great samurai tale, those steps, and the first major feat they lead him to, begins at a dojo. In this case, it’s the Yoshioka School, which was originally founded by renown swordsman Yoshioka Kempo1, who developed the Yoshioka-ryū fighting style.
By the time Musashi arrives in Kyoto in search of the Yoshioka School, its original master has long since retired. At the time the story takes place, the school is run instead by his eldest son, Yoshioka Seijūrō, with his younger brother, Denshichirō, also representing the school.
I mentioned near the start of the previous article that shows like Netflix’s Blue Eye Samurai, as well as myriad other forms of samurai tales, be they of Japanese origin or not, draw a lot of inspiration from Musashi. This was already apparent in the previous Book2, and it becomes even more apparent here in Book II: Water. Tropes such as the bold and insistent young apprentice leaving his old life to be trained; the protagonist developing his style from years of observing and mimicking others; characters mentally playing out the results of a duel and adjusting stance and style accordingly; and, perhaps most notably, the trope of the lone warrior successfully taking on an entire school, all can trace their roots to Eiji Yoshikawa’s dramatized account of the real Musashi’s life.
Book II is where most of these tropes are introduced, beginning with Musashi’s fight against the Yoshioka School. After discovering its location and finally managing to rather boorishly barge in, he starts making requests to speak with the school’s curent master, Seijūrō. The attendants on hand, as well as the students, naturally balk at this idea. For as much as he’s changed in the three years of study that led to him taking his new name, Musashi is still very much a young man with a lot left to learn. He’s still a bit boorish, though not nearly so much as when he was younger; and he still carries some rather unrealistic expectations that he intends to see through with the black and white approach of either talking, or clashing with swords. This situation showcases both of these, as his gruff appearance paints him as a vagabond ronin rather than a proper samurai like the men in this school.
What then results is a battle between Musashi and the students of the Yoshioka School. Almost all of them. However, unlike most stories that have since picked up this trope, Musashi doesn’t show us the majority of this battle. In fact, as it’s going on, we cut to Seijūrō as a couple of his advisors and students warn him of what’s going on. I found this approach interesting because rather than give us a grand spectacle, Yoshikawa decides to go the route of hiding exactly how Musashi defeated so many students. Instead, he lets what we’ve already learned about him from Book I carry the weight of believability here.
In place of an epic action scene, what we’re given instead is a good look both into the mind of Seijūrō, as well as the priorities of his students and advisors. Through them we learn that even though he’s the master of the school, Seijūrō really isn’t very well respected. Instead, many of the students believe that his younger brother, Denshichirō, is the more skilled swordsman and therefore, the son more deserving of heading the Yoshioka School. Ultimately, we learn that neither one of them is nearly so well regarded as their father, who’s shadow looms over the both of them. These weaknesses in their characters are reflected in the students who, much to Seijūrō dismay and disgust, are hatching a plan to ambush and kill Musashi right in front of Seijūrō. Rightly, he takes this for what it is: a display of lacking faith in his abilities.
As for how this event resolves, I’m going to keep that close to the chest. Just like the last review, my goal here is to remain as spoiler-light as possible. Musashi has been holding up to its reputation as a fantastic book so far, and as such, I’m loathe to reveal too much. What I will say, though, is that this incident begins a pattern that we see repeated twice over in Book II: Water. On two other occasions - once in the middle of the Book, and then again in the final two chapters - we see Musashi interact with the students of famed masters. Through the interactions those students have with their masters, as well as other key characters, we get a strong sense of the lessons Musashi will be able to learn from his encounters in these places. Sometimes those encounters result in him meeting one of the masters. Other times, they don’t. No matter which ends up being the case, each encounter teaches him something important about himself that he hadn’t fully realized before.
However, it’s not only his encounters with the various disciples, ronin, and samurai he fights with across this Book that serve to teach him valuable lessons. If that’s all there was the book would still be very entertaining, but it would be as gripping as it’s been. This is because Musashi’s journey isn’t just one for mastery of the martial arts, but for a mastery of himself. It’s the story of a young man’s journey into maturity, and I’d argue that no other character contributes as much to this aspect of the story than the young ward Musashi takes on, the spritely young boy, Jōtarō.
The eleven-year-old apprentice to a saké brewer, Jōtarō becomes smitten with the idea of training to become a samurai under Musashi after running into him at an inn he was making a delivery to. Jōtarō, Musashi, and the old innkeeper who’s been helping to keep an eye on the boy, strike up conversation revolving around some of Musashi’s exploits. Initially, this is just an excuse to get the boy out of the old innkeeper’s hair for a while, but it doesn’t take long for the witty and persnickety boy to start trying to get into Musashi’s good graces and convince him.
Musashi doesn’t really want anything to do with the boy beyond polite conversation, though. He doesn’t see a place for Jōtarō at his side, and so he tells the boy that he’ll only take him along if his master agrees to let him go. Ecstatic, Jōtarō runs off to speak with his master that night. The next morning, before the boy can even return to the inn, Musashi sets out to leave. When the old innkeeper asks him why, he says that he’s certain the saké brewer isn’t going to let Jōtarō go and admits the promise was made just to get him to leave because he wasn’t listening to the innkeeper’s demands to go home when it got late.
Much to Musashi’s surprise, though, the spritely Jōtarō shows up, furious in that way that only children really can be. When he sees that Musashi was already starting to leave, he starts berating him for lying and steadfastly holds him to his promise, all while blubbering his words out between his tears. Like I said, furious in the way only a child really can be. Recognizing the error in what he did, Musashi apologizes to the boy and, after a short talk to help calm him down, ultimately does take Jōtarō under his wing.
One of the notable differences between Book I: Earth and Book II: Water, is the increase in action. Though Musashi’s duels against the students of the Yoshioka School aren’t shown, we do get to witness a couple very impressive combat sequences in this part of the story. Engaging, memorable, and sufficiently brutal, Eiji Yoshikawa writes his action in a way that simultaneously dramatizes just how bloody that sort of combat is, while also selling the genuine brutality of killing with swords and spears. It makes for a good balance between the sensational and the subdued, which I argue is at its peak during a battle against a group of unscrupulous ronin near the middle of Book II.
Yet for as well written as these scenes are, they’re really just an element of spice added to the proverbial meal presented to us. The real meat of the dish, the substance, comes through the interactions of the characters and the ways we see them grow. Of course, Musashi himself is the primary source of this. Lesser stories of this type would have him changing very little after his three years of study under Takuan in Book I. Note that this isn’t to say that approach is necessarily bad. It depends on the type of story being written. Musashi might seem at first like it’s meant to be an action adventure story, what with it dramatizing the life of a man historically renown for his quest to become Japan’s greatest samurai. However, reading it shows that the action and adventure are facets, albeit important ones, of the greater whole.
What Musashi is really presenting us with is a story of growth and maturity, and not just through Musashi. We see signs of it with Jōtarō throughout Book II, and we see it through some recurring characters as well. In this case, we primarily revisit two characters from the Book I, albeit fairly briefly: Matahachi, the friend of Musashi who went to war with him and ran off with the lascivious and bitter Oko; and Otsu, Matahachi’s former fiancée who helped Musashi escape from their village and came to fall in love with him. Here we get to see the different ways in which their lives have changed, too. We see the small ways Otsu has grown since the end of Book I, as well as the ways Matahachi hasn’t changed, but determines to.
On the whole, there’s not a whole lot else that needs to be said here. The strong pacing and character work established in the first part of the novel has continued through Book II. The action scenes were written well and the interactions between the characters kept me highly engaged. What’s more, where the first part did have the minor flaw of Takuan’s moment of uncharacteristic behavior near the end, Book II didn’t feature any such issues that I noticed. Indeed this entire portion of the story was one that sucked me in fully, and were it not for the fact I’ve got a number of projects across my personal life that needed to be taken care of starting on the very same day I finished Book II - including the ongoing formatting of my own book, In the Giant’s Shadow - I’d have had this review written and released when I finished it on Wednesday.
From here, it’s onward to Book III: Fire, which I’m sure will keep me well entertained as I start repainting part of my house this weekend.
There’s apparently a bit of debate on the proper way to spell his given name in English text. The version of the book I’m reading spells it Kempo, but other texts spell his name Kenpo or Kenbo. I’m not sure if this discrepancy extends to different versions of the Musashi novel.
As a reminder, these books aren’t actually separate books compiled into a single story, but rather serve a function akin to the acts of a play. While the novel was originally written in serialized format, as best as I can tell it was never separated into its seven Books once the story was compiled and put into novel format. However, it was separated into at least two books at one point.