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Voice of the Fox
The Newsletter of the Martial Arts Training Service

Book Review
Autumn Lightning:
The Education of an American Samurai
by Dave Lowry
Shambhala Publications Inc., 1985
Reviewed by Ed Locke

I must admit that I did not approach this book with open-mindedness and subjectivity. Having already read (and thoroughly enjoyed) Mr. Lowry's work The Sword and the Brush, my expectations for this book ran high. With some familiarity with the author, and a keen interest in the subject matter, it is not surprising that this book found its way off the shelf and into my collection. I was not disappointed, but since it is my nature to be critical, I will cover the cons as well.

Autumn Lightning begins with a swordsman crouched in the shelter of a tree, awaiting the fall of a drop of water. As the drop falls, it is halved in flight by a single drawing and cutting motion of a samurai sword. The reader hasn't a clue as to the position in time or space of this event. It could be as recent as yesterday, or as ancient as the 16th century. It could be in the U.S. Midwest, or in the rural Japanese province of Kozuke. This sets the tone for the remainder of the book. Mr. Lowry parallels his own kenjutsu education in the St. Louis, Mo. area in the late 1960s with the development of the Yagyu Shinkage Ryu in the early 1600s.

The book is laid out in an every-other-chapter format that lends itself well to this type of presentation. The chapters dealing with the education of Mr. Lowry in the Yagyu Shinkage Ryu style of kenjutsu by Kotaro Sensei are a delight. They trace the maturation of a teenager through the application of martial training. The format is one of anecdotal prose interspersed with insightful commentary on the nature of bugei. We see a modern bugeisha grow from a 13-year-old boy into a man.

The historical chapters dealing with the initial development of the ryu are equally as interesting. They trace the events from the mid-1500s to the mid-1600s in provincial Japan that created the Yagyu Shinkage Ryu from its predecessor, the Kage style. We are introduced to the main characters involved: including Kamiizumi Nobutsuna, Yagyu Muneyoshi and Yagyu Munenori.

Both facets of this book are equally intriguing, and that is the major problem I have with the book. It is not that this was not a good but, but it could easily have been two good books! The idea of paralleling the modern development of a student of the bugei with the development of a bugeisha in the 1600s is an excellent idea. I feel the potential fell somewhat short due to the drastic time span differences in the two stories told. The development of Mr. Lowry seems to encompass a handful of years, where the development of the Yagyu Shinkage Ryu spanned a full hundred years. The comparison of the training/maturation process could have been much more interesting had Mr. Lowry manufactured a fictional counterpart in the past that followed approximately the same timeframe. I believe that 13 would have been an appropriate age for the initiation of formal instruction in the 1600s, so this comparison could have been extremely coincidental. Even if the character was fictional, the historical facts could have remained true, preserving the educational value of the book.

Likewise, the development of the Yagyu Shinkage Ryu is an interesting topic in itself and warrants the full attention of a literary work. I would be very interested in finding out more of the details surrounding its development, details that obviously would not have fit into this particular work.

So, "Bravo!," but more, please!

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