Chushingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers): A Puppet Play
by Takeda Izumo, Miyoshi Shoraku
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Book Summary Information
Author: Miyoshi Shoraku, Takeda IzumoTranslator: Donald Keene
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1997-04-15
ISBN: 0231035314
Number of pages: 183
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Book Reviews of Chushingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers): A Puppet Play
Book Review: The virtue of blind loyalty
Summary: 5 Stars
"Chushingura" is Japan's "Romeo and Juliet". Not literally, of course, as the stories are very different, but in the way that it is a story that every Japanese person knows. Based on an actual incident, the story has been glorified and told and re-told for every generation, and still reverberates in hearts today. It is also, traditionally, a very hard story for Westerners to come to grips with, because the morals on display are not what we would consider to be admirable.
Loyalty is something we can admire, of course, but this is unearned loyalty. The 47 Ronin do not avenge their lord because he was a good man, because he is worthy of their loyalty. They avenge him because he is their Master, and because he was born to be their master. The samurai also did not earn their position, they were born samurai, as an inherited class. Their job, rank and income was all decided the moment they drew their first breath, along with whom they would owe their loyalty to. The very word "samurai" translates as "servant", and without someone to serve they have no purpose. They uphold an inherently unfair system, as shown by their unwillingness to include a merchant in their vendetta, not because his courage is less but because his birth-determined class is lower than theirs.
Donald Keene has performed a minor miracle with his translation of "Chushingura: The Treasury of Loyal Retainers". First off, his introduction deals with the inherent difficulties in the work. Even in Japan, since the inception of the work their has been debate on who are the heroes and who are the villains. A hotheaded lord sacrifices his life, family, home and the lives of the hundreds who depend on him simply because he could not swallow an insult. His personal pride was more important to him than all of these people's lives, all of whom paid his price. Keene shows the various points of view, the commentary given by Japanese authors over the years, and the way the story has been interpreted to support the various viewpoints of society.
On top of that, he has created a thrilling translation, one that can be read as a novel and is hard to put down once started. Think what you may of the moral lesson, the story itself is pure adrenalin, and it is hard not to cheer for the sword-hard loyalty that drives the 47 Ronin. In this translation, there is no dispute as to who the heroes are, even as they sell their wives into prostitution in order to raise funds for the vendetta, or willing slit the throats of their own children in order to prove their earnestness. Keene also provides annotations for some of the more obscure references and translations, especially the references to famous Chinese poems and allegories which are abundant.
I picked up this book thinking it was going to be a study guide for Japan's most famous story, hoping to glean some insight into a tale I have seen dozens of times in different interpretations. I got that, but what I also got was a great book, fun and exciting to read. I wasn't expecting that at all.
Summary of Chushingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers): A Puppet Play
-- The New Yorker
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