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.

In essence, this is a spy book, but it contains some gems which will stick with you, including spelunking scenes, and the art of understated excellence which compels you to cut all of the rose blossoms from your garden save that one perfect one, so as not to offend your visitors' eyes. Also references the Basque ethnic group, and the board game, Go. What else do you need?

Hoş ve boş

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).

Fuck. I have to retract two stars and my rave review. I mean, clearly it was a rave. I'd say this book loses the plot about half way through, but to be fair, there isn't really a plot. Once the book leaves Japan and finds its home in Basque land, it rapidly becomes close to unbearable. I am afraid that whilst I savoured the first half, the second I ended up just skimming. I have way too many good books on the shelf to be spending precious time on this one.

I am leaving my half-cocked first discussion of this as it, testimony to my idiocy. It follows.


I’m only half way through, but my opinion will not change. This is a clear-as-day 5-star book and that’s from a fussy star attributor.

After having to read – or start, at least – popular best sellers of late which are so badly written: Harry P., the third volume (and the others?) of Northern Lights, the Dragon Tattoo trilogy – it is a vast relief to be reminded that a book can be both finely written and unputdownable fun, thrilling and thoughtful. It can even be propagandist, if it is done the right way.

Now that I think of it, is this a pattern: HP, NL, DT are all volumes produced ad infinitum. Shibumi could easily be like that, dragged out for ever, but instead it is one, standalone book. And boy, does it stand alone. Class of its own.

This, quoted from Trevanian’s own site:

Q: Americans are reading lots of books, but at least anecdotally it appears they are reading blockbusters and that smaller, literary titles are being pushed to the margins. Do you see a similar trend in Europe, and what impact will this have?

A: Alas, yes, it’s coming to Europe as well and it’s a great pity. A lot of excellent new writers will never get read. This is hardest on the story-tellers of America, because writers of attractively-packaged fact and history are still doing fairly well, although even these readerships are dwindling, captured by the internet and by the electronic games that consume so much of the time of the kinds of kids who used to read history and science.

The shadow of ‘literary globalization’ is falling across all of western Europe, and will hit the English-writing countries first, as English is the language of commerce, and therefore it’s the foreign language of preference for the teeming populations whose five hundred word vocabularies limit them to language on a comic book level. Hence Barbara Cartland is still the most popular English language writer in India. And I’ve heard there is a similar dumbing-down impulse at home, where a series of children’s books by a very canny English writer is the most popular read on American campuses.

Does this mean that HP, NL and DT had to be badly written? That although Shibumi was a best seller in its day, late seventies, now it would not survive, it is too intelligent and well written? The point is not that they are reading blockbusters, but that once upon a time these blockbusters were well crafted things, at least if this book is any guide. In fact, Shibumi has been an eye-opener for me. I have been sticking up for some of these books lately when clearly I should not have been. But if Manny is correct in suggesting, as Trevanian is also observing, that English is going through a period of simplification and that this is the consequence, badly written tripe being lapped up by the reading public, what a tragedy. I can’t imagine a world in which we have lost the capacity to say interesting things, because we have had the linguistic skills necessary to do so taken away by generations of illiterate facebookers and smsers.

I expect there will be more to come here after I have finished the book, but for now, I thought it was interesting to read what the author had to say later about his opinion on Israel and its neighbours:

Q:Since I first read Shibumi and then reread it twenty years later, my opinion of the Israeli-Palestinian situation has changed entirely, as a result of becoming much better informed...Has your opinion in this regard at all changed since Shibumi has been published?

A:I hope there are many Americans who can remain flexible through the fog of prejudice and fear about this issue.

Things have changed almost entirely in Israel/Palestine over the nearly thirty years since I wrote Shibumi: the underdogs have become the bullies, and intractable fundamentalists call the shots in Israel; what in Shibumi we called the Mother Company (the Petro-chemical Mafia) have inserted their creature into the White House; and the greatest potential for ecological disaster is no longer man's lazy thirst for oil, but rather his soaring over-population.

Nicholas Hel would not have lent his support to the current leaders of Israel. He would have wished the current rational leaders of Palestine all good fortune in negotiating towards peace with justice, now that Arafat is no longer in the way. (Footnote: Arafat's end has all the marks of an inside job, almost surely with the assistance of the second bureau. Israel, of course, knew what was going on, and it's likely that they informed the United States, but that's not sure. It's hard to put limits on the incompetence of American intelligence services. Each time we find a lower value, they prove they can fail even that; so Israel might not have informed us early enough for us to get our clumsy hands into things and mess them up.)

What should America do now? Using such tatters of even-handedness as we still possess, we should guide (drag, if necessary) the Israelis into as fair and honest a sharing of land and water as is possible. Then we must open our hands and carefully step back, out of Middle East affairs, turning them over to the United Nations.

I wonder when this was written, it shows an unlikely trust in the United Nations, which in my opinion, is shamefully bereft of moral purpose.

Oh, and this: I must take issue with all my friends who have reviewed this. It is not just a fun book, or a thriller. It is a very strongly felt position about how we are living and how we should live. This book manages to hammer and hammer and hammer this message home, whilst making you feel like you are 'just reading a best seller'. That he has managed to write something so entirely enjoyable whilst doing this is such a feat, I am completely in awe of it.

Seldom does a book come along that is completely riveting from the first page until the very last.
This book is story within story within story, unfolding so quickly that you might find yourself gasping for air ... right after giggling like a 4 year old.
Complex and subtle, raunchy and humorous, unputdownable and yet, one must often pause to simply savor a beautiful display of master word craftmanship, the many nuances hidden between the lines.
I admit it, I've fallen in love with this book and highly recommend it to adventure fans.

Kayıtsız güzelliğin solgun imajı.

Nicolai (Nikko) Hel is a one of a kind man caught in uncommon circumstances. When he and his mother are trapped in China during the Japanese invasion, they are accepted into the home of a Japanese general of administration who takes a liking to Nikko (known more commonly as Hel). He teaches the boy many languages, including the art of Shibumi, which is more than simply the knowledge of things, but rather the 'understanding' of things.

Over the course of the war and Japan's eventual surrender, Hel finds himself without a country. Being half-Russian, he is suspect among conquering Americans, who learn to accept him because of his multi-linguistic capabilities. His knowledge of martial arts helps him during meditation periods after he spends a time in prison. Upon his eventual release, Americans use his skills to infiltrate enemy organizations, and Hel soon becomes an efficient killer. But Hel takes revenge on those who have thrust him into this life of murder-for-hire. And when a man seeking revenge for the loss of his brother by Hel's hands, Nikko Hel's quiet, dignified life in the Spanish Basque mountains is suddenly turned upside down. It will take all of his skills to survive and possible seek to 'quiet' those who would dare challenge him.

This book was recommended to me by my son, who has this copy in his collection. It's the sort of story one keeps for another read. The reader is transported to pre-WWII China, Japan during and after the war, and eventually Europe where Hel has made his life. The characters are colorful and illuminating. I was left to wonder if this sort of person actually existed, and would not be all surprised if there are. Written in 1979, this book like so many proves a story is timeless.

This book can be read as action and/or farce. Reminds me of the Matt Helm stories. The protagonist is shaped through a series of events that leave deep furrows along his path toward maturity: a multicultural childhood, the brutality of war, the development of an artistic desire via a board game called "Go" and the garden in which he finds first love, the strong discipline of a Japanese general officer and guidance of a Go master, brutal treatment at the hands of CIA agents, years of solitary confinement....all combining to shape a future "gardener/warrior." He is not unstoppable, he can be beaten, he can make mistakes, his best friend dies as a result of his decisions, he is human.
Some parts are obviously done for humor, some less obvious but are still humorous, but with a delay-action fuse.
Read the book with a pinch of salt handy. There is happiness to be found in the melancholy beauty of unattainable perfection.

excellent thriller. Hel can kill you with anything, Trevanian is in top form with this one. dare not miss it. from the cherry blossoms of Japan to dark caves to the mists for the final showdown... I go back and re read this evry once and a while and always come away loving it.

"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.

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