2 Thirds of a Classic - Henry Thompson (2022

By Henry Thompson

The Heiké Story is a unique story that I found gripping because of its historical context, characters and themes, despite issues with the ending and how the novel handles some characters. The Heiké Story is a fascinating piece of Japanese literature that retells an important novel, the Tale of the Heiké. The Tale of the Heiké retells the clashes between the Minamoto and Taira warrior clans during the Heian Period through the Heiké and Genji. The retelling of the almost 800 year old medieval classic is done with immense care and detail. This allows anyone who has spent time studying Japanese history or literature to see the parallels to real events that happened in Japan. The novel goes through the Hōgen Rebellion, a civil war regarding imperial succession. The Hōgen Rebellion led to the Minamoto and Taira going from minor warrior clans to powerful political rivals. The Heiji Rebellion was a civil war that almost destroyed the Minamoto and resulted in the Taira becoming the leading political faction in Japan. This led up to the Genpei War, where the sons of the head of the Minamoto gathered the remaining Minamoto to defeat the Taira. They formed the Kamakura Shogunate, the first Shogunate in Japanese history. The Heiké Story is a retelling of these events with slight embellishments. Unfortunately, the story is not complete. The novel only gets through two-thirds of the original story and then ends abruptly.

Due to the ending, there are a few problems in this version. The novel has many story lines that are going on simultaneously. The story masterfully makes these storylines distinguishable because of the detail of the characters. There are two warriors that end up

converting to Buddist monks because of their struggles as warriors. the struggles of their lives as warriors. On the surface this is a weirdly similar story to have been told twice. However, these characters are wildly different in their underlying characteristics that you wouldn’t be able to mix them up. That is one of the beauties of the book, it's a complex web of characters and their interactions. Unfortunately, some of the minor characters are lost in the web without a conclusion for their story or having any effect on the plot. This is made apparent by the abrupt ending of the story. The ending cuts off a lot of the characters final conclusions. Take the two monks that I mentioned earlier as examples, one of the monks becomes a sagely guide figure who gives characters advice that leads them to rework their whole plan. The monk was supposed to play an even bigger role later on. And the other monk writes poems… that’s about it. There are a handful of characters like this that the story spends a fair bit of time focusing on despite the fact that they don’t have any importance to the plot. In the grand scheme of the book this is a minor critique.

When the story focuses on the important characters, the story becomes a broad display of war, politics, religion and ambitions. Every character has their ambitions. Whether it is power, wealth, revenge, to find purpose, or a more altruistic goal, they are all constantly trying to reach their individual goals. A lot of the time this causes them to butt heads, which may cause war or political issues that need to be settled. The characters ambitions and morals are constantly being put to the test, and no character is guaranteed to succeed in either respect.

These struggles are best shown through the lens of the main character, Heiké Kiyomori, based on the real life Taira no Kiyomori. Because of his struggle for ambition and morals, Heiké Kiyomori is a great example of the book’s themes. The themes being how materialistic desire corrupts good, and how life is always changing. Kiyomori’s story is about a rise to power, similar to a hero’s journey. However, the further Kiyomori makes it into the hero’s journey, the more his morals and those around Kiyomori begin to give way to desire. This reaches the point at the end where Kiyomori manages to become the main power in Japan. But Kiyomori is a corrupted figure and the story already set the scene for his downfall. The ending in this version, while abrupt, does show the theme of impermanence as the golden age of the Heiké is going to be under threat constantly. Eventually it will fall along with Kiyomori and everything that he has worked towards. The tale is something really formulaic like the hero’s journey but altered to make it into a tragedy. It also focuses on a theme that I rarely see in western stories. I love to see stories tackle uncommon themes, as it makes the story feel special and unique. Which allows it to stand out among other stories. It's a breath of fresh air to see different themes being expressed in writing beyond what is considered common in modern literature. I mean how many times does someone have to read a coming of age story before they are even a little sick of them? Even though this is an 800 year old story and this version of the story was written in 1950, it’s nice to see something that would be considered new and different.

Even with the shortcomings such as the abrupt ending, and some pointless characters, the book was still able to produce a truly fascinating and detailed roster of characters that helped present the

story’s unique themes of corruption and impermanence beautifully and is deservant of being called a literary classic.

Citations

Cartwright, Mark. “Genpei War.” World History Encyclopedia, World History Encyclopedia, 22 Mar. 2022, https://www.worldhistory.org/Genpei_War/.

“Heiji Disturbance.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/event/Heiji-Disturbance.

“Hōgen Disturbance.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/event/Hogen-Disturbance.

“Taira Kiyomori.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Taira-Kiyomori.

“The Tale of the Heike.” Visit the Main Page, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/The_Tale_of_the _Heike.