Day 9: starcraft commentary?

Miles: 9.x
Water 1l
Dogs: none :(

Rain, walking etc.

I finished my book last night so I figured I'd review it.

Book review:

Hagakure
(A guide on the worst ways to live your life)

Remember that Forest Whittaker movie where he was a gangster who wandered around spouting samurai sayings? That glorious movie was "ghost dog: way of the samurai" Well it turns out the book he was quoting all that stuff from is real! And hilariously awful.

It is hagakure, a 16th or 17th century text about how to live your life if you are a samurai. (No internet right now, so no fact checking) It seems to be written by a cranky old man might make sense in a time where your employers required you to enter death pacts, but when translated to a modern society seems deeply insane.

You can tell he is a cranky duffer because he constantly says things like "samurai of years past contained greater vigors than those  of today. They could fight for days and were totes amazing compared to the scrubs we have today. To avoid your natural inferiority to the people of my time, you gotta study this book."

The obsession with death in the text is pervasive. Much of the book takes the form of anecdotes. About half of these anecdotes include someone throwing their life away for no reason. "A guy looked a samurai funny, the samurai cut him down. Another samurai watched it and thought it was a righteous slaying, and promised to back him up, no matter what. The first samurai was sentenced to death by the magistrate, so he killed himself, the second samurai who promised to stand by the first guy killed himself. Then everyone involved in the trail were so ashamed they sentenced such an honorable guy to death, they all killed themselves. This is the way of the samurai"

The author is obsessed with the way of the samurai. Even though it is mostly  just lay your life down for your master. And kill anyone else or yourself for random petty Crap.

I liked the one story where a guy killed four other guys who ambushed him. But one of the ambushers cut his neck through the spine. So our super tough hero (remember old timey guys are way cooler than you kids), held his head in place, and walked to the doctor, sans spinal cord. The doctor strapped his head in place, applied some tree sap, buried the guy up to his neck in rice and left him there to heal. The samurai never complained and was better in a week.

So much fun ridiculous stuff in here, but when read for what it is, pretty chilling stuff. Ideally the author would want the reader to be indoctrinated into a bizarre arbitrary death pact.

I might share more of my favorite stories and aphorisms in future posts.

What book should I read next?

The scarlet plague, Jack London
Secret adversary, agatha christie
Use of weapons, ian m banks