Shibumi by Trevanian: thoughts and impressions

 What happens when you mix one part James Bond and the other part kill bill. You get shibumi.

Ostensibly, I thought the best super spy media was the television show the prisoner. Though the truth of the matter is that Shibumi with its pulp leanings and potboiler structure is a bit more traditional… it is also radical in a subtler way.

Nicholas Hel is a buckaroo banzai like polymathic philosopher looking for perfection through everything he comes into contact with as a means for enlightenment.

Though the book is paced as a thriller. The absurd comic book inspired world (I don’t mean this to be derogatory) has philosophical ambitions.

Not with a pithy aphorism that dismisses wisdom while seaking to posses it through wordplay. No, but more of a contemplative meditation that is as much about how you do something as much as what you do.    

The style meets and serves the form of the book. Taking lessons from the subtle to the point of distraction Japanese board game called Go the etiquette of play is a central theme. 

As all stories to some extent it is a love story one part tragedy the other part memory. All pointing out the failings of the United States (which the book argues is not a culture but a posture towards aggression and greed).

The book was the inspiration for john wick and has a spin off book (satori) that is written by Don Winslow (the best of thriller writers).

I am trying to avoid spoilers while giving some useful information for both those intrigued and those familiar with the book.

I hate arbitrary grades but if I had to give one it would be an A, though that is not an A+ this is more to do with the expectations of the sublime. While being expertly crafted the book strangely has a guilty pleasure vibe to I normally associate with cinema. The idea is that the stories thrive on the rule of cool while framing and reinterpreting all of this as if playing an abstract strategy game with any who attempts to reduce or critique the nature of the game.