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Musashi  By  cover art

Musashi

By: Eiji Yoshikawa,Charles S. Terry - translator
Narrated by: Brian Nishii
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Publisher's summary

The classic samurai novel about the real exploits of the most famous swordsman.

Miyamoto Musashi was the child of an era when Japan was emerging from decades of civil strife. Lured to the great Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 by the hope of becoming a samurai - without really knowing what it meant - he regains consciousness after the battle to find himself lying defeated, dazed, and wounded among thousands of the dead and dying. On his way home, he commits a rash act, becomes a fugitive, and brings life in his own village to a standstill - until he is captured by a weaponless Zen monk.

The lovely Otsu, seeing in Musashi her ideal of manliness, frees him from his tortuous punishment, but he is recaptured and imprisoned. During three years of solitary confinement, he delves into the classics of Japan and China. When he is set free again, he rejects the position of samurai and for the next several years pursues his goal relentlessly, looking neither to the left nor to the right.

Ever so slowly it dawns on him that following the way of the sword is not simply a matter of finding a target for his brute strength. Continually striving to perfect his technique, which leads him to a unique style of fighting with two swords simultaneously, he travels far and wide, challenging fighters of many disciplines, taking nature to be his ultimate and severest teacher and undergoing the rigorous training of those who follow the way. He is supremely successful in his encounters, but in The Art of War, he perceives the way of peaceful and prosperous governance and disciplines himself to be a real human being.

He becomes a reluctant hero to a host of people whose lives he has touched and by whom he has been touched. Inevitably, he has to pit his skill against the naked blade of his greatest rival.

Musashi is a novel in the best tradition of Japanese storytelling. It is a living story, subtle and imaginative, teeming with memorable characters, many of them historical. Interweaving themes of unrequited love, misguided revenge, filial piety, and absolute dedication to the way of the samurai, it depicts vividly a world Westerners know only vaguely. Full of gusto and humor, it has an epic quality and universal appeal.

©1971 Fumiko Yoshikawa (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good Historical Novel

Musashi is a good historical novel. It recounts in great detail the life of Miyamoto Musashi the famous samurai. The story often feels as if it were cowritten by Charles Dickens and Akira Kurosawa. That’s a good thing. There’s a huge cast of interesting characters that cross paths in surprising was over many years. The path of Musashi from a young, irresponsible hothead into the great swordsman of legend is a wonderful journey to follow.

Yet in my opinion it’s about 10 hours too long. At a certain point it seemed that storylines were being recycled and tedious, irrelevant events were being given too much time. As the story ended villainous characters suddenly had magical, positive changes of heart that seemed to have more to do with a diminishing page count than an actual moral enlightenment. And much of the cast of characters don’t have a satisfying resolution to their arcs. You just don’t really know what happened to them. After fifty some hours of prose I expect to know what their fates are in some way.

I also didn’t go for the preface that pretty much denigrates a better book, Shogun, in an effort to cast this book in a positive light. You shouldn’t knock down a peer to make yourself look better.

This book is good, but it’s got problems. I would actually recommend watching the Samurai Trilogy that stars the great Toshiro Mifune that was adapted from this novel instead of reading or listening to the book as it’s a better constructed piece as a whole.

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93 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

My all-time favorite book

surprised I didn't write a review before now. just finished my third reading and second listen to this book. It's simply a masterpiece. I really hope kodansha does an audiobook for Yoshikawa's Taiko as well someday

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82 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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A great book with a great narrator

This is one of my favorite books and was made better with the narrators performance.

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27 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Better than the Count of Monte Cristo...

I loved this book. It replaced my favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo, as my favorite piece of fiction. It starts off in a similar way to the Count, but it definitely has a much more wholesome and satisfying end to it. #epic #advetnure #wholesome #samurai #war

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24 people found this helpful

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Great story, great narrator

Such a well-written story, with so many different storylines developed and then woven together. This story provides a fascinating view into Japanese and samurai culture. 53 hours long and I was sad that it ended! The narrator is fantastic, with real feeling, seemingly authentic pronunciation of Japanese names and unique voices for nearly every character.

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24 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

My memory of it from the 80s was better...

I read this book as a youth, and really loved it, so when I saw it turn up in Audio format at Audible, I jumped at it and got it as soon as it came out.

However, my adult mind didn't quite like the story anymore. The ongoing feuds in the book, with either some crazy woman and to a lesser extent his ex best friend) and one or more sword schools were just told as a one sided tale, like the account was purely taken from an extremely exaggerated first person account. I may be wrong, and historically this might all be correct, and somehow an old poor (financially) woman was able to just leave home and live on the road pursuing her bizarre agenda for years and years and years and years... And on Musashi's side, how was just overly and ridiculously kind and magnanimous. It just felt like the story of a braggart. From his humble bragging when he came to the realization he was just too strong, and couldn't control his sheer strength and was always unintentionally killing people, even with wood. It was just no end of 50+ hours of this. It was ridiculous, and I barely finished it. I mean if certain arrogant political figures ghost wrote an autobiography, from their recollections only, this is what it'd be like. The only other explanation I can come for all of the ridiculous decade long one sided feuds was that his real life wasn't that exciting, and when padding the story out to a long book, the author was trying to make it more "interesting", weave some annoying long story lines. I mean if I wanted to make an interesting auto bio, I'd have to do similar to make it worthwhile...

Narration wise, a producer should really check a bit better. For one example, there is a difference between "wan" (as in "smile wanly") and wane (as in "as the moon wanes"). "Wan" appeared about 30 times in the book, and was always pronounced wane.

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20 people found this helpful

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Must listen ... especially if you liked Shogun.

The narrator is great and is great world in which to lose yourself for 50 hours.

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18 people found this helpful

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One of the best books I have listened to

This have to be one of the best books I have listened to. Great story and the narration. Brings the story to life for me. The life of the Japanese Samurai has always intrigued me and this takes you into the day to day life and times of a Samurai plus gives you a glimpse into that time in history. Well worth the time and money for this one. Thanks so much for the work to bring it to me. Greatly appreciated.

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10 people found this helpful

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wow

Best experience so far on audible in about a year and 30+ books. Maybe the best story of all time. The voices are done perfectly.

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10 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

I don’t know if it’s the narrator or 7 books in one

It’s a long adventure for a samurai with basically 6 characters. Weird to have an entire world and then in every city it just so happens the same 6 characters are there. I think the fact that there is no spice of life in 50 hours the narrator starts to get old since they don’t have very many voices to do.

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8 people found this helpful