This was a fun quick read from an author skilled in depicting intense Asian themed combat.
The plot is fairly simply, the two survivors of a trio of blood brothers assemble to take the body of their fallen third on a hazardous journey to be cremated in a mountain top temple as the only way he can bypass judgement for his crimes and get into heaven.
The reference to blood brothers is not so much about the excellent Willy Russell musical, but about the phrase “blood is thicker than water” or – to quote it more fully “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” which actually inverts its contemporary colloquial meaning. That is to say, it’s not about family (blood) being the stronger connection, but that the bonds formed between comrades in the adversity of combat – the brothers in arms – are stronger than ties to genetic siblings.
So the katana wielding Ichiro meets up with the spear hurling Daijiro and (somewhat appropriately given the season) a little donkey, as they prepare to carry the swaddled corpse of their comrade Subaru on his final journey.
The book is full of fine lines, for example, when Ichiro views the wrapped corpse
It smelled of herbs to stave off the stench of death and looked too small to contain an entire life. Especially one as big as Subaru’s.
Or describing the mountain town plagued by bandits
Taking a lesson from the broad-leafed, stubborn trees that infested the place, the town clung to the rocks wherever it could, as the water from the Thousand Falls rushed and crashed around it.
The narrative delivers a pleasing mix of action and contemplation. Ichiro and Daijiro face a variety of foes and not all their enemies are solved with a katana, sometimes it takes a bit of thought and a bit of faith to circumnavigate those enemies that might be too hard to kill. But it’s not all 3-dimensional psychological chess, there’s a good dose of intensely focused violence as well.
The nature of the trip naturally leads to consideration of how the three brothers worked together in the past and the circumstances that have left them estranged for so long, with the death of Subaru finally closing the door on any reconciliation – except through the atonement of this pilgrimage.
As it happens the examination of the past provides as many twists as the winding hazardous trail of the present. Ichiro has to come to terms not just with his decision to abandon their partnership, but with the truths that were hidden from him, or perhaps he was just blind to. The twin strands of understanding the past and surviving the present are braided together well.
There is also a nice vein of humour running through the story – Ichiro’s suspicion of the donkey, the mid-combat banter, the descriptions of some extreme sensory experiences.
However, the afterword adds an extra poignancy to the tale as Hayes reveals it was inspired by, and in some ways written as a cathartic exploration of his own experience in suddenly losing a brother. Grief and loss are an inalienable aspect of being human. Fiction, in this as other themes, serves a useful purpose in probing that reality – like a tongue testing the gap left by a missing tooth. After all as Albert Camus said
Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.
And Hayes puts one such truth in the lips of Daichiro
“He’s not gone, brother,” Daihiro said in a shaky voice. “Not really. He’ll always be there in our memories. But more than that, he’s here in us. In who we are. Neither of is would be who we are today, without him.”
However, lest you think that I, or Hayes, are going all soft and philosophical I will leave you with one final quote, the last word in the book.
“Arsehole”
Julia Kitvaria Sarene