David Kirk on his quest to find the real
Musashi Miyamoto
In Fukuoka prefecture, upon the
westernmost island of the Japanese ‘mainland’ Kyushu, stands a dojo hall where
men and women practice an art four hundred years old: that of swordfighting. In
this particular dojo they study the techniques of Ni Ten Ichi Ryu – the Way of
the Two Heavens as One – unique in that it prescribes wielding a sword in
either hand, the methods and secrets of which have been passed down through
generations, leading all the way back to its progenitor the samurai Musashi
Miyamoto.
It is an art entirely useless in the
modern world, but still they practice; because it is an art, because it is
Musashi. A kind of ancient and obstinate jazz almost, unloved and irrelevant to
most youth today but hammered out in smoky basements on ill tuned pianos
nevertheless by the devout that refuse to let it die.
Perhaps I am being too harsh (on
both samurai and jazz): reverence for and interest in their history is more
pronounced in Japan than in the west. Musashi himself has a kind of place in
the Japanese cultural pantheon similar to the one Robin Hood has in ours, both
being roguish legendary warriors. As we know of feats of archery and the
Sheriff of Nottingham, so the Japanese know of the man who walked masterless in
a time of clan and Lord, who killed sixty men in duels as he sought
enlightenment and who wrote a philosophical treatise (The Book of Five Rings) in his dying months that is still studied
to this day.
However Musashi is infinitely more
quantifiable than Robin Hood, as we have his writings, his school, his legacy. Though
it is sometimes difficult to separate definite objective truth about him from
apocryphal elements added through the embellishment/creation of stories over
the centuries, at the very least we know some of the way the man thought and
felt. Thus the author that chooses to write about him has a broad outline he
has to adhere to.
What appealed to me about Musashi was his sense of pragmatism. The
classical Japanese culture of the nobles and the samurai was one sodden with
ritual, pomp and forced adulation, castle halls ringing with the didactic
praise of Lord and Lady by thousands. Sword schools promised unrivalled ability
with the blade only through blood oaths and secret rituals. Any outsider
unlucky enough to catch sight of such rituals would be killed. Musashi, by
contrast, lived in the woods and evoked self-sufficiency as paramount. He said:
‘Here’s how I do it, try it a hundred times. It might not work for you as it
does for me. If so, tweak it.’
Yet despite these traits that I admire it is hard for me to see Musashi
as a ‘good’ man. In his supposed quest for enlightenment he likely killed much
more than ‘only’ the sixty men he formally duelled. In his old age Musashi
himself made cryptic remarks about his temperament before the age of thirty
being questionable, though states no outright regret or apology. Certainly it
seems clear he had an innate predisposition towards violence, or ‘savagery’ if
you will, but you cannot portray him as a thoughtless psychopath because that
would be patently untrue (as well as making a terrible protagonist).
The instinctive response to this, to me at least, was to assume that he
was merely a product of his times and culture. Then you dig deeper and you
start to wonder. You remember that he lived in a realm of where two lifestyles
were taught. One where monks gently brushed spiders out of their path, refusing
to harm even insects, such was the sanctity of life to them. And conversely the
samurai preached death, both of their enemies and themselves. Maybe Musashi followed
this creed, you think, but then you remember that he renounced the traditional
ways of samurai when he chose to wander masterless.
Who was at ‘fault’ here? The society, or the man? Neither? Both?
Exploring this objectively became the main challenge of Child of Vengeance, as well as the
planned subsequent novels. Where first I perhaps wanted simply to tell the
details of his swordfights, I found the scope of it growing. Examining both
internally and externally; though Child
of Vengeance remained a story largely told from Musashi’s perspective, the
sequel Hours of the Dog (hopefully
coming in 2014, 90,000 words in and still only half done...) is far more
holistic in nature.
But even so, the protagonist in both books ultimately remains ‘my’
Musashi. It is not a definite biography because there can be no such thing in
the English language; the language of the samurai and modern English are so
wildly different that the act of simple translation becomes sort of a guessing
game, so vague and full of allusions is ancient Japanese. What I know as ‘fact’
could very well be erroneous.
The realization of this is somewhat liberating, as rather than worrying
about sticking to some non-existent dogma, you take what he did and run with
it, make it work for you – maybe a
little like how Musashi taught the sword. I hope that if I do not always
present him flatteringly, I at least present him fairly on his quest for
meaning.
After all, the man still has disciples who are really, really good with
swords; these are generally not the kinds of people you want to go around
pissing off.
David Kirk explores the life and story of
Musashi in his debut novel, CHILD OF VENGEANCE, out now.
