Shibumi

This book is for people who like James Bond, Jason Bourne, and all those other super-ninja Gary Stu action heroes fueled by atomic testosterone. Except if you pay attention, Trevanian is laughing at you. Shibumi shamelessly exploits every single cliche in the genre and then sneers at them. Trevanian's mockery of American culture is acidly funny and not particularly affectionate. Sometimes the self-aware satire and the angry derision seem to blend together.

“It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions. The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pleasure - in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals.”

So what to make of a book where the main character is named Nicholai Hel? His mother was a Russian aristocrat, he was born in Shanghai, he was raised by a Japanese go master, and in the aftermath of World War II, he becomes the most ninjaest ninja ever. He learns Basque while spending three years in solitary confinement and so he moves to Spain to hang out in Basque country with his Afro-Euroasian concubine who is lovingly described as a collection of all the best body parts from the sum total of her ethnicities.

The plot is your basic revenge thriller: Hel's ties of duty and obligation bring him into conflict with the Mother Company, which is the umbrella organization representing all the world's energy interests and pretty much controls the Western world. In between snappy dialog in which Hel shows off how he is just so refined and Shibumi and shizzle with derision leveled at every Western country (the Brits, the French, the Italians, and the Germans all get it in the neck at some point, but no one more than Americans), there are action scenes where Hel proves he can do everything from cave diving to killing people with playing cards, equally over-the-top sex scenes 'cause of course learning to kill and play go also makes Hel totally awesome at the sexing.

What elevated this book above the schlock it is pretending to be is the vicious satire and the clever writing. Trevanian could write some sophisticated literary pulp fiction. He was having fun while poking his readers in the eye. He plays it straight all the way through: Shibumi reads like you are supposed to take it seriously, but you can kind of hear his snicker echoing in the main character's dialog. I suspect the racism and sexism was part of the performance. This is a Men's Adventure novel for the cynical hipsters of the 70s, back before appropriating Japanese culture was what all the cool kids did and the idea of structuring a killer thriller around the Oriental game of go (yeah, Shibumi uses words like "Oriental" unironically, and also refers to Arabs as "goat-herds" and portrays all the Arab characters as cowardly gay terrorists) made all the literati who wanted to read something a little more masculine than J.R.R. Tolkien groove on Trevanian's way cool, like, deeep understanding of Oriental culture, man.

Sorry, I can't mock Trevanian nearly as wittily as he mocks me.

This was a fun novel, entertaining on multiple levels. It really does have the tone of a literary author slumming in a chanbara cinema.

This is, in my humble opinion, one of the all-time great thrillers, and it stands the test of time exceptionally well. It's rare to find action and thrills and blood and guts mixed so seamlessly with thought-provoking ideas and philosophy, and even more unusual for the ideas in the book to be almost as compelling and fast-reading as the thrills . . . but Shibumi delivers both without ever slowing down the pace or losing momentum. I always hoped Trevanian would investigate these characters and ideas further in other novels, but I've had to satisfy myself by reading Shibumi over and over again in book and audiobook format instead (BTW, thank you Audible for finally carrying this title!). If you like thrillers with just a little more meat on their bones (or characters with a little more character than the typical comic book hero), you're not likely to find a more enjoyable page-turner than Shibumi. They just don't make assassins -- or thrillers -- like this any more.

This is my first review, as generally I agree with previous reviews and it makes little sense to write a "me too" review. However, I found the reviews already provided to be so far away from my experience as to wonder if I'm listening to the same book. I was first caught by the simple example of the author writing, "clattered silently." While this is nit-picky, it illustrates how poorly assembled this book seems to be. Characters are cliches, long tangential passages detract from the story, and the accents used by the narrator are childish and stereotypical (the "Arab" sounds more Japanese and sometimes French). Skip this one.

If you are a fan of the "Tales of the Otori" trilogy I would highly recommend this book. I loved the Otori books, and found this work to be in the same kind of genre. The difference being that this story takes place sometime around when it was written: 1979. To tell you truth, I actually enjoyed this book more than any other listen to date.

One of the reasons I liked it so much was because about half way through the book a character is introduced who will make you wet your pants from laughing so hard. In spite of that the book keeps it's seriousness/suspense till the end.

If you are interested in Japan, martial arts, stories about assassins, and/or espionage themes, then do yourself a favor and drop your credits on this masterpiece.

How did anyone ever believe this novel was written by Robert Ludlum under a pen name? The plot plodded. The funny parts weren't. I had a very hard time paying attention and suspending disbelief. And the stuff about the protagonist being some sort of "level four" sex magician was absurd and annoying.

Do yourself a favor - pass on this in favor of one of Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels, one of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, one of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's novels featuring Agent Pendergast, or anything written by Barry Eisler, James Lee Burke, or Nelson DeMille (if Audible ever gets those back in the collection!).

It has to be 20+ years since I've read this book. I've been waiting that long to see it in audio format, and I'm happy I went through the long list of new releases and found this title.

This book rocks with action and suspense, far more than Eiger Sanction or Loo Sanction, which I had read first and loved; reading them each more than once. But SHIBUMI blew me away enough to make the other 2 books almost forgotten.

While in one sense it's a little dated, and maybe the philosophy is strained, the book is so good it's not at all hard to suspend reality and really get, well, emotionally involved in this thriller.

And to AUDIBLE: thanks for adding it to your library! And please add the Sanction books and all the other(s) in the Trevanian bibliography!! Unabridged, naturally!

Hello, I was surprised that Marius was so critical of a book I enjoyed tohoughly. An engineer, not qualified to discuss Proust, I like novels featuring Japanese philosophy couched in 'action' format. So, now an admitted philistine, I also disclose that my Audible libray includes over 500 titles; I recommend this book to those who enjoyed Across the Nightingale Floor...

A somewhat interesting story. Quite anticlimactic.

Has to be the most boring book I've heard in a long time. The description makes it sound great but the majority of the book takes place in caves.
Recommend for anyone needing aid in sleeping.

I was guided to this book during my quest to read all of Don Winslow's novels. I read SAVAGES and was hooked on Winslow's writing. He wrote a novel that was tied to this Trevenian classic as a prequel with many of the same characters. When i discovered this, I did a little research and found SHIBUMI, (on which Winslow's novel SATORI was based) to be held in high literary regard. I enjoyed it immensely. Like many of Winslow's novels it has broad historical scope with cultural and historical accuracy coupled with a plot that grabs you and won't let go!