Harika bir roman.

"Όπως θα ξέρεις, το σιμπούμι αφορά την ιδιαίτερη φινέτσα που κρύβεται κάτω από το κοινότοπο και το τετριμμένο. Είναι μια αλήθεια τόσο ισχυρή που δεν χρειάζεται να διατυπωθεί με έντονο τρόπο, τόσο συγκινητική που δεν χρειάζεται να είναι όμορφη, τόσο αληθινή που δεν χρειάζεται να είναι πραγματική . Σιμπούμι σημαίνει να καταλαβαίνεις, όχι να γνωρίζεις. Είναι μια κατάσταση εύγλωττης σιωπής. Στην συμπεριφορά ενός ανθρώπου μπορούμε να το διακρίνουμε ως μετριοφροσύνη δίχως το στοιχείο της σεμνοτυφίας. Στην τέχνη, όπου το πνεύμα του σιμπούμι παίρνει τη μορφή του σάμπι, σημαίνει κομψή απλότητα • κάτι που είναι διατυπωμένο σύντομα και με απόλυτη σαφήνεια. Στη φιλοσοφία, όπου το σιμπούμι εμφανίζεται ως γουάμπι, εκφράζει μια πνευματική γαλήνη η οποία, όμως, δεν είναι παθητική • σημαίνει να είσαι χωρίς το άγχος να γίνεις. Και στην προσωπικότητα ενός ανθρώπου, είναι…. πώς να το πω; Κύρος χωρίς δεσποτικότητα; Κάτι τέτοιο." (Σελ.126)
Δυστυχώς το Σιμπούμι δεν έχει την ατμόσφαιρα της "Λεωφόρου", ούτε οι ήρωες του είναι κάτι που μπορείς να αισθανθείς οικείο, παρόλα αυτά τους συμπαθείς και τους νοιάζεσαι. Είναι ένα πυκνογραμμένο μυθιστόρημα, αρκετά αργόσυρτο χωρίς ιδιαίτερη πλοκή. Η γραφή όμως του Τρεβανιάν σε κάνει να το διαβάζεις ευχάριστα.

A nice read. It is one of those good books that you have to read at least once.

English: https://elifthereader.com/books/shibu...
Türkçe: https://kitaplikkedisi.com/kitaplar/s...

Üniversite yıllarımda okumuş ve çok etkilenmiştim, otuz beş yıl sonra okuma keyfi ise bambaşka...

Doğu felsefesine meraklı olan biri için enfes bir kitap. Kurgu ile birlikte bilgileri almanızı sağlıyor. Akıcı bir anlatımı ve olağan dışı karakterleri ile kitaba bağlanmamak mümkün değil. Kitaplığıma renk katan kitaplardan oldu.

The name reminded me of a Samurai and of what he would have faced during a life time of combat. There can be parallels to this idea in this book but what it is in reality is a totally different beast. Trevanian creates an elaborate joke which scorns at the 'Super Assassin' genre in Shibumi.

Shibumi in simple English means Casual Elegance tells the author. A way of life which in itself sets the dudes aside from the dunderheads. The story is about a man named Nicholai Hel who the author repeatedly reminds us for about 75% of the pages is the most formidable assassin ever. A mystic, a sexually hyper charged alpha male, able to kill with bare hands, world renowned underground cave explorer, well read and a polyglot with a command of over seven languages, able to think in mathematical abstractions owing to his refined state of play in the Japanese game of Go etc. Yes, I am talking about one man and he is not a computer. The back story fills a big chunk of the book and then for about a hundred pages we are given the details of how he discovers an underground cave. Being an assassin, his core competency is examined in roughly about 15 pages towards the end.

For a man of such fine tastes, the way he overcomes his enemies is something that made me blanch. I strongly believe that the final 100 pages of this book was the biggest bunch of hogwash I have ever read in recent times. There is a lot of America bashing in here, Trevanian spares nothing : food,culture,sex,western philosophy, the CIA & even the government is all scorned at. The conclusion : Japan has a kick ass culture & America does not. There are culture comparisons and then there is bitching. A good part of the comments offered here fall into the second category.

For a book that was recommended as a master piece among thrillers, this one was a dud !

Recommended by a friend back in 1982 -- this was one novel I pickup and read again every few years.

For those that love Robert Ludlum's, "Jason Bourne" character, Nicholai Hel will captivate you for years to come.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5! Senses Working Overtime!

SEE the assassin in his youth! see him as a child in war-torn Shanghai, as a young Go-Master in Japan, as a dutiful son and as a tortured prisoner, as an expert caver in Basque Spain, as an equally expert Stage IV Lovemaker! see him enact the "Delight of the Razor" upon his lovely and loving concubine! see him destroy his enemies in an equally subtle fashion!

HEAR the clock ticking! an assassin does not live forever! shall he go to his grave as a disposable pawn to the malevolent Mother Company? or shall he go to his grave in a state of meditative bliss? shall he go to his grave at all? listen to the sound of your heartbeat as you await his decision! he hears you, hiding in that cave, blind and foolish and terminally Western in your inability to truly listen. die, deaf Westerner, die!

SMELL the sour tang of fear, the smell of sweat flowing from under your arms to soak your expensive business suit as you contemplate who exactly you have crossed! you have crossed a Master of the "Naked/Kill" technique! smell yourself, businessman! you smell like a fool. die, fool, die!

TASTE the sumptuous flavors served to you in an assassin's lair! do they remind you of the unctuous flavors of french cuisine or the brassy flavors of american bbq? you are being served the flavors of the two nations our assassin despises the most! notice the meals of the assassin and his concubine: simple brown rice and sauteed vegetables. enjoy your fatty decadence, Westerner! will it be your last?

FEEL the calm and warming presence of the sublime meadow that is the assassin's mystical meditative psychic retreat. and what shall come to those blundering dolts who dare encroach upon this special Happy Place? you have one guess! it is a word that starts with D, foolish Company Man!

you think this is a tale of a deadly assassin forced into battle with evil corporate interests; forces that are set upon his destruction in order to further their evil corporate goals of fascist world domination. YOU ARE WRONG. this is a story that is about n  stylen. style over substance. style that equals substance. style that is superior to the whinging, entitled, utterly deluded and very Western sense of "substance" - substance that actually equals grandiose self-absorption. style that equals form and form that equals meaning. if you are looking for a book that will give you a fast-paced tale of devious dark deeds and sweet revenge and justice righteously served... look elsewhere, dum-dum! but if you are looking for a novel that takes you to a place of contemplation, a place of understanding that the things we do may not amount to much but the way we do things - the meaning that is implicit in how we actually move about in the world and how that represents what is truly important - that that is what is important, that that is what is genuinely meaningful... well, this is the book for you.

n  "...To be truthful, I hadn't expected such good form from you. Most people of your age and class are so wrapped up in themselves - so concerned with what they're 'into' - that they fail to realize that style and form are everything, and substance a passing myth." He opened his eyes and smiled as he made a pallid effort to imitate the American accent: "It ain't what you do, it's how you do it."n

plus, a special bonus Sixth Sense included free of charge!

PROXIMITY AWARENESS

foolish Westerners like to imagine that the sixth sense is telepathy - or perhaps seeing dead people. ha! what use is that exactly? why waste time hearing the despairing dead in their various depressing doldrums? and what is the use of reading the tedious and predictable thoughts of your tedious and predictable fellow humans? i for one am happy to be spared the monotony of those "insights". instead, Shibumi offers a delightful and very useful sixth sense: Proximity Awareness! i would much prefer to be aware of when someone is approaching, or thinking about me, or contemplating using a camera or gun on me. all the better to avoid such monotonous interactions!

400 pages of trendy (at the time it was written), pretentious, intellectual elitism, 15 genuinely gripping pages of action, wrapped up with 30 more pages of bashing America, capitalism, globalism, democracy, Christianity, and well, pretty much the whole of Western civilization under the facade of anti-materialism.

Instead the author promotes the Eastern idealism of Shibumi, a philosophy created, espoused, and maintained by the Japanese landed-aristocracy. Not that anything in this book is even remotely close to "understated beauty" or "an effortless state of perfection". Instead, Nicholai Hel is much more like a vision of the Marquis de Sade, acquiring all the wealth and power he needs to achieve freedom unrestrained by morality, religion or law; to be free of all concerns or doubts or hesitations, so free that society itself adapts to service him as he lives his idealized medieval aristocratic lifestyle.

"Thelema" would have been a much more appropriate title than "Shibumi".

Shibumi is, without question, the stupidest book I have ever read. Period. Full stop. It's not close. Shibumi is the 1927 Yankees of stupid books. John Grisham and Dan Brown, working together, operating at the peak of their vaguely misogynist, airport-novel spewing powers, could never hope to approach the mind-exploding stupidity of this book.

The protagonist of Shibumi, Nikolai Hel, is best described as an amalgam of James Bond, Bruce Lee, Robert Mitchum and Jesus Christ. He is the least plausible, most ridiculous character in all of western fiction. He can kill any opponent, bed any woman, and presumably bed any opponent...but only if it was a girl opponent.

Hel is a master of an unnamed (and undescribed) martial art referred to as "Naked/Kill" which allows him to use household objects as deadly weapons, and much as made of the fact that it is completely impossible to defend yourself against him. Riiiiiight.

As the book jacket states, Hel is the ultimate assassin, but he cares not for such things, preferring instead to meditate on eastern philosophy in his enormous Basque castle and go spelunking (yes, seriously) emerging only to collect new female acolytes for sex training. I believe the term "Stage IV Lovemaking ability" is used w/r/t to our hero at one point.

About half the book is devoted to Nikolai's childhood (raised by Japanese prostitutes, of course) and coming of age as master assassin/sex deity, before finally getting to the "plot" in which the "Mother Corporation" tries to hire him, then kill him when he refuses. I will leave it to you bright sparks to figure out who triumphs in the end.

In my research for Shibumi quotes, I came across a wiki on bookshelved.org where the authors refer to Shibumi as a sardonic sendup of the spy novel genre. They express incredulity that Amazon reviews the book as a straight thriller. One refers to the book as"pure camp" and "one long piss take" from cover to cover.

This is food for thought. If Shibumi was written as satire, my rating would immediately go from 1 star to four or 5. There is no denying that this book is funny. If it was MEANT to be funny, I would have to take back most of the bad things I have ever said about it. The Wiki on Trevanian (nee Robert Whitaker, university professor) could be interpreted as evidence. Surely an educated man would not have created this thinly veiled masturbatory fantasy for ineffectual 12 year old boys in earnest? He must be joking...right?

I don't know. I just don't know. Suffice to say, Shibumi stands alone. It is, to borrow from my main man Neal Stephenson, fractally stupid; meaning that if you were to examine any minute aspect of it, that aspect would be as stupid as the book in its entirety.

This was a sentimental reread. I will tell why in a minute.

Travanian is the pen name of Rodney William Whitaker; a writer more reclusive than J D Salinger and Thomas Pynchon. He wrote six novels under that name though Shibumi is the only one I have read, so far. My husband and I read it in the early 1980s and besides both of us loving it, it improved our sex life!

Shibumi is a Japanese word that connotes complete harmony, tranquility and balance. Nicholai Hel, the book’s hero, was able to achieve this state until his career as an assassin caused a spiritual banishment from what for him was mystical. He also was an accomplished player of the Japanese board game known as Go.

The novel is one of the most exciting I have ever read and is a fast read as well. Nicholai Hel has another special feature he called “proximity sense.” It enabled him to be aware of any movement 360 degrees around him. Of course, that comes in handy for an assassin.

He had a hard and hellacious life as a child and young man in Japan between the World Wars. He overcame it all but when he attracts the attention of the Mother Company, a super group of international espionage, he faces a set of circumstances that could bar him permanently from shibumi.

When I began my reading in publication order of Don Winslow’s books, my husband decided to take the journey with me. Don Winslow, with the permission of Travanian’s daughter, wrote a prequel to Shimumi, called Satori and it all led to our sentimental reread of the Travanian novel and a plan to read the rest of his work.

This might be the reading slump breaking novel of all time!