The Ronin: A Novel Based on a Zen Myth | 
| Author: William Dale Jennings
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $4.92
You Save: $8.03 (62%)
New (21) Used (17) from $1.64
Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 297230
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 160
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.2 x 0.5
ISBN: 0804834148
Dewey Decimal Number: 895
UPC: 676251834147
EAN: 9780804834148
ASIN: 0804834148
Publication Date: September 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: NEW BOOK We individually inspect and grade each book. Our books are professionally packaged and processed quickly.
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Product Description
The violence of twelfth-century Japan explodes in this half-legendary, half-true story of a violent ronin who becomes a folk hero. Told with humor and irony, The Ronin ranges from the pleasantly colloquial to the brutally satiric. This brief tale will shock, confound and ultimately inspire readers.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 "...one of those stories that that contains everything you need to know.. " December 12, 2007
The Ronin,
Based on a Zen myth, this masterpiece of story telling peels back layers of your own psyche as you read.
The Ronin is a unique blend of wonder and horror, adventure and revelation, heroism and monstrosity. (attributes sometimes displayed by the same characters).
The characters and reader alike are stripped bare in this journey, if the reader is open to it.
At the end we find that just as Jennings did upon reading the original Zen Myth "The Tunnel" , we have read all we need to know about the human condition in this brief story.
Despite the books sublime economy of keystrokes, we are left absorbing a tale Biblical in it's scale of revelations.
This book can change you, it can show you more about yourself than you may want to know.
Read it. I've done so more times than I can recall. It has answered so many questions for me I have lost count. I turn to it like an old friend, or an analyst in time of need.
 Hipster Koan, Splatter-Movie Wisdom January 8, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is a bizarre combination of overheated 1950s men's magazine pulp fiction, Tom of Finland erotica, Japanese martial arts and genuine Zen Buddhist wisdom. Chances are you've never read anything like it. Like a Zen parable, it is challenging, heartbreaking, disturbing and strangely moving. Written by William Dale Jennings, a hero of the early gay rights movement and well-known 1950s screenwriter, it is a classic of purple prose and unexpected insight. It is filled with earthy, violent and sexual images, but then again so is real life. Don't let the overwrought prose fool you - it is definitely a creature of its (chauvinist) era and a reflection of its author, but superficial it is not. It is well worth reading, even if only for the camp value. And don't stop halfway!
NOT COWBOYS AND INDIANS April 22, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a wonderful eccentric book that is not meant to be the asian version of cowboys and indians. Instead, the story reveals the path to, and meaning of, a warrior's discipline, the elusiveness of truth, and the value of non-attachment all told through a subtle and beguiling tale that (never fear) does have moments of sex and violence.
I read this book 30 years ago. It was treasured, never re-sold and never re-read until recently. Now it is even more treasured.
If your interest is merely expert swordplay or exquisite ceremony this is probably not for you. If your interest is more than historical and more than martial then this is a fantastic read.
 Very superficial book March 2, 2006
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
I didnt liked the book. I'm really a samurai's books fan and i'm intersting in Japan.
The characters in the book are very superficial and the calumny is not suit to Japan in those times and also very shellow. It looks like the author wrote the book without really study japan's culture in the time where the story takes place. It may be good book for childrens although it is very violent. Maybe i compred it to "Shogun" by James Clavell which is a better book on that time, by far.
Story we all can learn from September 8, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I first read this story back in high school and had nearly forgotten it. I came across a quote from the story in an old file and discovered the book could still be acquired. The quote: "When life is more terrible than death, then it is the truest valor to dare to live." In these times we live in it is humbling to think that mankind has struggled for thousands of years against all odds to dare to live.
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