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Ana karakter Nicholai Hel'e hayran olmamak elde değil :) Macera, gerilim tarzını seviyorsanız tavsiye ederim. Sıradan polisiye romanlardan kendini ayırmış bir kitap.

Yazarın derin bilgeliği ve Belkıs Çorakçı'nın nefis çevirisiyle çok nadir denk gelen bir okuma keyfi yaşadım. Nicholai Hel'in Bask'lı arkadaşı Le Cagot'yla mağarada kapana kısıldıkları kısım, yaşanan ölümler doğrusu beni hüzünlendirdi. Hakeza Hel'in şatosunun enkazı üzerinde gezindiği kısımlar. Gençliğinde üvey babasıyla kiraz bahçelerinde yaptığı konuşmalar...
Şibumi, doğu ile batının, kadim olanla modern olanın karşılaştırıldığı bir roman. Amerika doğumlu yazarın tarafı belli, kendi ülkesine ve kültürüne yönelttiği acımasız görünen ama aslında hakkaniyetli eleştiriler göz kamaştırıcı. Japon ve Bask kültürüne hakimiyeti de...
Kitabın orta kısmından itibaren ister istemez sonrası için bazı tahminlere girişmiştim ama her defasında tahminim yanlış çıktı.
Şibumi nasıl bir roman? Tarif etmesi zor. Büyüleyiciliği nereden kaynaklanıyor?
Kitabın üçte ikisi geçmişle ilgili. Asıl düğüm günümüzde yaşanan hadiselerde çözülse de başkarakterin geçmişi büyük bir yer tutuyor romanda. Ama bu flashbackler romanı ilginç biçimde zayıflatmıyor, tersine güçlendiriyor. Tıkır tıkır işleyen bir kurgu tabiri bu romana hiç olmadığı kadar yakışıyor. Özellikle ilk üçte birlik kısımda kahramanın hayat hikayesi ile Amerika'daki olaylar arasında gelip giderken anlatım baş döndürücü bir hal alıyor.
Şibumi'de beni en çok etkileyen şey karakterlerin derinlikleriydi. Japon general, Go ustası, Le Cagot, hatta yan karakterlerde Hanna ve bahçıvan bile çok gerçekçi çizilmiş; hepsinin bir hikayesi, hayat felsefesi, konuşma tarzı, zaafları var. Tabii en başta da Nicholai Hel. Bazılarınca mistik sayılabilecek yetenekleriyle, Alman-Rus karışımı genleriyle, Japonya kültürüyle yoğrulan benliğiyle kimi basit romanlarda resmedilen kusursuz, yüzeysel karakterlerden biri değil o. Trevanian, Nicholai Hel gibi olağanüstü bir kişilikle basitliği, bayalığı eleştirmek istemiş bana göre. Amerika ve Amerikalılar hakkında sayfalarca eleştiri yaparken bu yoz kültürün karşısına güçlü bir rakip koyması gerekirdi. Romanın bir yerinde neden böyle bir karakter yarattığına dair ipucu da veriyor zaten.
Kısacası, okuma serüvenimi Şibumi öncesi ve sonrası diye ikiye ayırsam abartmış olmam.

another trevanian story about an assassin, nicholai hel, this time. also drawn back into a life he has tried to leave, killing folk. story looks at his life at a young age, things that happened, things that made him who he is. not your typical summer vacation story.

hel also loves language which is nice. trevanian plays w/that some. shibumi is a kind of 'effortless perfection' and that helped him out in life, that striving toward that goal

lots of interesting situations that trevanian places his characters. great story. good read.

Yıllar önce ilk okuduğumda, okuduğum en iyi kitaplardan biri olduğunu düşünmüştüm; tekrar okuduğumda bu kadar iddialı konuşamıyorum -ya zevkim değişmiş ya da çok daha iyi kitaplar okuma şansım olmuş. Fakat yine de çok keyifli, oldukça ilham verici bir kitap olduğunu söylemeliyim. Bay Hel hayran olunacak bir karakter. Tecritte kaldığı yıllarda zihnini Go oyununu düşünerek bilemesi, Zweig’ın Satranç kitabındaki Doktor B.yi hatırlattı; iç disiplinine bağlılığı, özsaygısı ise başka roman karakterlerinde nadiren gözlemlediğim kadar sağlam. Dostu LeCagot ise Nikos Kazancakis’in Zorba’sının hamurundan yapılmış gibi; aynı hayata bağlılık, aynı neşe...

Hapisten çıkmasıyla Etchebar şatosuna gelmesi arasındaki yıllarda yaşadıkları, başka bir yazar tarafından kaleme alınmış (Don Winslow - Satori). İlk baskıda detaylıca anlattığı mağaracılık tekniğini uygulayan bir dağcı hayatını kaybedince, bu ve bu gibi teknikleri bir sonraki baskıda yüzeysel anlatarak geçiştirmiş. Her anlamda çok dolu bir kitap; sadece sonu, bütün o zenginliğe kıyasla sanki aceleye getirilmiş de hakkı verilememiş gibi.

This isn't the right edition but I don't remember what it looked like. Too long ago. I found this one by searching since I'd forgotten both title and author. A fun thriller to read; pure enjoyment though pretty violent. Haven't tried the straight razor sex massage yet. Very anti-Arab/Palestinian. Date read is a guess.

I must really be missing something. A quick internet search locates many favourable reviews of both this book, and of its author, Rodney William Whitaker (aka Trevanian), who apparently positioned himself as someone who read Proust, but not much else written in the 20th century. Consider this statement from Wikipedia: Shibumi is elaborately written, using a very extended vocabulary, based on a sound knowledge in history and geopolitics, switching easily from pessimism to wry humor, Shibumi is more than a mere thriller, and may be compared to other works such as Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-four and Fahrenheit 451. And there’s much more of the same in other reviews. However, I have seldom read or listened to a more inept, poorly-written thriller, and the comparison to the three great works referred to is ludicrous. The characters in Shibumi are absurd stereotypes, the writing-style is awkward (clearly if the author indeed read Proust extensively, he absorbed little), and the plot-line is as weak as cheap coffee.

I do like a good junk-food book from time to time, but this one is just silly and contemptuous. I suspect the author was playing an elaborate joke on the reader, dressing up hollow nihilism and tired screeds against the bourgeoisie with second-hand Japanese mystic-chic cliches.

I'll have to create a new bookshelf for this one called “guilty pleasures.” I read Shibumi in English many, many years ago and picked it up in Spanish recently from the bargain bin of a great bookstore here in Valencia called Paris-Valencia. I can justify reading absolutely anything in Spanish so I don't feel like an inculte for reading this half-assed spy novel. Anything to improve my Spanish. For some reason the dust jacket has a picture of an ante-bellum southern mansion on the front cover—talk about random. They could have put a photo of just about anything you could imagine and it would have made the same amount of sense (or complete lack of it).

The actual plot is pretty weak and the author's constant racist, sexist, and bigoted commentary about the lesser races—whatever the fuck those are—is annoying, but I appreciate what he tries to say with his central character, the assassin Nicholai Hel. For as outrageously silly as the book is at times, he does get the message across that human beings are capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for if we only apply ourselves. Most people are just too lazy or too content with their own mediocrity. Unfortunately, the author doesn't seem to think that just any old homo sapiens is destined for any sort of greatness as his character is “the result of thousands of years of breeding.” Huh? All I have ever seen royalty produce are inbred goofs like Paris Hilton, Donald Trump, and Princess Di.

Then there is the Japanese minimalism which shapes the character of the protagonist. I have never particularly admired Japanese culture or values—not that I know much about them. They seem uptight and constipated to my Western way of thinking. I'd much rather look at a ratty patch of weeds than a tortuously-sculpted Japanese garden, but I can appreciate the beauty and comfort of their brand of minimalism—something the protagonist attempts to perfect in his life of Shibumi.

Shibumi, he explains, is a personal quest for “effortless perfection” in everything you do. The word is Japanese, so everything Japanese is highly superior to the lesser mongrels, like me, who wouldn't understand minimalism if it took a seat on the sofa in my front yard and started playing the banjo. The protagonist is such a damn minimalist that he lives in a remodeled chateau with not even one old sofa or junked car in his yard.

There are a couple of long sections in the book in which the author describes spelunking expeditions—a hard thing to do and keep it interesting. I think he pulled it off rather well. I learned a lot of great vocabulary in Spanish as I read through these portions which may come in handy if I do any mountaineering in Spain.

Acabado Shibumi, de Trevanian. Pse, pse, no sé qué deciros. Pintaba mucho mejor de lo que ha acabado siendo.
Va de un chaval europeo con educación oriental/japonesa entre Shangai y Tokio que se supone se acaba convirtiendo en un asesino de terroristas pero con ética mística.

Lo bueno : el planteamiento inicial y el arranque en sí de la novela.
Lo malo : es del 76 y ha envejecido mal. El protagonista vive en un castillo en el país vasco-francés y he tenido que leer descripciones romántico-ridículas sobre los libertarios de la ETA. Sin comentarios, sólo entendible porque cuando lo estaba escribiendo teníamos a Franco y ETA podía parecer otra cosa de lo que finalmente fue.

Pero es que además el autor mete mil y una expresiones en euskera (“vasco” en el libro) que no tengo claro ni que estén bien escritas. (Ver escrito “xoritzo” en vez de “chorizo” como comida típica vasca no ha tenido precio). Y en francés, y en alemán, y en más idiomas porque debía ser típico de literatura en los 70. Por cierto, que las imágenes de los vascos también son para nota a pesar de las alabanzas que se pueden leer en la Wikipedia si buscáis “shibumi”.

Y te mete unas chapas de impresión con la espeleología que me he tenido que saltar. Y el ritmo de la acción, que ya digo que empieza bien, decae en interés y en ideas.

Vamos, que no diría yo que es recomendable.

I don't even know where to start with this book. There is so much in its covers. VERY highly recommended.

I had vaguely heard of Shibumi by reputation, but never actually having had read it, I decided to take the dive. And quite the dive it was with spies and assassinations, sex, and vengeance. After a few hundred pages of backstory, it blisters through the plot at breakneck speed.

The protagonist is the deadly Nicholai Hel, assassin of terrorists and aspirer to the Japanese state of perfect consciousness, or shibumi. We learn of his birth to a Russian/Aryan/German mother and unknown German father in pre-war Shanghai, the effect of the Japanese invasion on China, his surrogate Japanese father...in fact the book covers a lot of ground between Chinese, Japanese, and Basque culture and history.

Nicholai's adoptive Japanese father ultimately is drawn into the war and sends the boy to Japan to study the Japanese game of Go with Otake-san, a Dan seven legend. Otake-san teaches the boy many things, not the least of which about the knowledge of older people: "never resent the advantage of experience your elders have. Recall that they have paid for this experience in the coins of life and have emptied a purse that cannot be refilled." (p. 117). It is interesting to note that most of Hel's make companions from then on are his age or older. I also appreciated this twist on a common maxim: "Many Japanese seemed not to realize that the propaganda of the victor becomes the history of the vanquished." (p. 141).

Arrayed against our hero is the Mother Company, one of those Hydra-like supra-governmental organizations representing the power of oil and telecommunications forcing various militaristic organizations such as the CIA and both MI-5 and MI-6 under their heel. Sort of like Crown Prince Bonesaw allied with Zuch and Huawei with Pompeo and Mom all working for him. Except he's a she. Well, anyway, these baddies are willing to kill nine people in the elimination of just two and, of course, miss the one that will be able to lure Hel out of retirement to fight for her cause. In a nutshell, that is the core of the plot. One interesting sidenote is how, as far back as 1980, Trevanian was insightful and visionary enough to see the evil potential of a supercomputer - like Facebook and Google today - that studies minute actions of all of the world's citizens called Fat Boy (interesting choice of name also given the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima and Hel's first love interest). So, you can think of Hel as a sort of Ed Snowden that can kill you with a playing card or drinking straw. Did that get your attention?

Needless to say, there are high moments and low moments in this epic struggle including a long cave sequence (too long?) that becomes critical to one of the key moments late in the plot (No Spoilers, I promise). Along the way, we learn of Hel's few friends:
- Hana - his concubine with whom he has level IV sex (!) - this sex is never described because as the author points out in a footnote, detailed descriptions performed incorrectly could produce permanent harm in the practioners - see the footnote on page 179
- Le Cagot - his boisterous Basque caving friend who is a Zorba the Greek kind of larger than life Dionysian giant
- The Gnome/De Llandes - who is is intellectual counterpart providing him with a backdoor into Fat Boy and thus leverage against the big boys

We only meet the Gnome briefly, but we are able to see a true bromance having formed. I liked how De Llandes telescopes their friendship into twelve hours:"We have know each other for more than twenty years, but...we have shared perhaps a total of twelve hours of intimate conversation, of honest inquiry into one another's minds and emotions...Actually, that's not bad. Most good friends and married couples (these are seldom the same thing) could not boast twelve hours of honest interest after a lifetime of shared space and irritations, of territorial assertions and squabbles." (p. 405). I found that rings true because my best, deepest friendships are with those I spend the least time with to some degree.

As for the book, the style is very late 70s with loads of sexism (braless boobs, carelessly exposed pubic hair and James Bond-like sex) and loads of clichés (the tired ones about Arabs, but also about Americans and French (see the diatribe by Le Cagot in the cave). Perhaps, it was partly as satire of Bond literature, and there were strong female characters such as Hana (albeit that her position was due to her expertise in sex) and Mrs Perkins, but most of the female characters were relatively superficial (like ill-fated Hannah). So, don't expect the multi-cultural positivity of Leigh Bardugo or Suzanne Collins here.

As for Hel, he is a fascinating anti-hero:There was a time in the comedy of human development when salvation seemed to lie in the direction of order and organization, and all the great Western heroes organized and directed their followers against the enemy: chaos. Now we are learning that the final enemy is not chaos, but organization; not divergence, but similarity; not primitivism, but progress. And the new hero - the antihero - is the one who makes a virtue of attacking the organization, of destroying the systems. We realize now that the salvation of the race lies in that nihilist direction, but we still don't know how far." (p. 407). I would add that even now, 40 years later, we still have not decided on this. We have both kinds of heros - Superman representing the former and Batman representing the latter (or if we take Marvel characers, Iron Man vs Captain American in Avengers: Civil War), so I found that particularly insightful.

Overall, a fun and interesting read. Exciting and with a positive message overall despite the hundred and eight corpses that litter the pages - mostly bad guys or avenged good guys. A worthy read that entertains to a great degree and educates to a minor one (again when one filters out the sexism and racism).