龍馬行 六

竜馬がゆく #6

by Ryōtarō Shiba, 司馬遼太郎, 李美惠 (Translator)

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Ryōtarō Shiba (司馬 遼太郎) born Teiichi Fukuda (福田 定一 Fukuda Teiichi, August 7, 1923 – February 12, 1996) in Osaka, Japan, was a Japanese author best known for his novels about historical events in Japan and on the Northeast Asian sub-continent, as well as his historical and cultural essays pertaining to Japan and its relationship to the rest of the world.

Shiba studied Mongolian at the Osaka School of Foreign Languages (now the School of Foreign Studies at Osaka University) and began his career as a journalist with the Sankei Shimbun, one of Japan's major newspapers. After World War II Shiba began writing historical novels. The magazine Shukan Asahi printed Shiba's articles about his travels within Japan in a series that ran for 1,146 installments. Shiba received the Naoki Prize for the 1959 novel Fukuro no Shiro ("The Castle of an Owl"). In 1993 Shiba received the Government's Order of Cultural Merit. Shiba was a prolific author who frequently wrote about the dramatic change Japan went through during the late Edo and early Meiji periods. His most monumental works include Kunitori Monogatari (国盗り物語), Ryoma ga Yuku (竜馬がゆく; see below), Moeyo Ken, and Saka no ue no kumo (坂の上の雲), all of which have spawned dramatizations, most notably Taiga dramas aired in hour-long segments over a full year on NHK television. He also wrote numerous essays that were published in collections, one of which—Kaidō wo Yuku—is a multi-volume journal-like work covering his travels across Japan and around the world. Shiba is widely appreciated for the originality of his analyses of historical events, and many people in Japan have read at least one of his works.

Several of Shiba's works have been translated into English, including his fictionalized biographies of Kukai (Kukai the Universal: Scenes from His Life, 2003) and Tokugawa Yoshinobu (The Last Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, 2004), as well as The Tatar Whirlwind: A Novel of Seventeenth-Century East Asia (2007).

(from Wikipedia)

Alternative Names:

Fukuda, Teiichi
Ryotaro, Shiba
Shiba, Ryoutarou
Ryoutarou, Shiba
Sima, Liaotailang
司馬遼太郎
司马辽太郎
Shiba, Rëotaro
Шиба, Рёотаро
司马辽太郎
司馬, 遼太郎
司馬遼太郎
司場遼太郎

Reviews

[TG Lin · Rating 3 out of 5]

這一集的故事，是龍馬搞出了「龜山社中」之後，四處奔走，促成薩長同盟，然後在寺田屋差點被幕吏殺掉，終至於第二次幕長戰爭的結束。令我這位臭老九特別注意到的有二︰

1. 關於龍馬在長崎建立的「龜山社中」，向來在受到黨國洗腦的正統史觀上，都說這是日本近代第一次的「現代化股份有限公司」，其實我一向對這種溢美抱持著懷疑的態度（歐亞大航海貿易至此都已經兩百年了，共同籌資入股所建立的民間公司，在當時早不算什麼新鮮事。中文的「公司」這個詞就是源自於此……）。要作個現代化的比擬而言，「龜山社中」，與其說是一家具有現代意義的股份有限公司，不如說這是一個新設立的「黑幫團夥」，幫忙官方進行走私的勾當罷了。

小說裡提到，長崎人當時有「龜山的白褲」一詞，便源自於社中的這群小混混成天在街上暴力鬧事打架。更明白顯示出來的，則是組織內的那位「賣饅頭的長次郎／近藤長次郎／上杉宋次郎」悲劇︰由於他想脫離組織赴英留學，便被迫切腹；因為要加入龜山社中時，成員必須立誓不准為了自己的理由而私自脫離，所以長次郎被發現的「背叛」，必須以死加以制裁。——喵的，這不是黑道，什麼才算黑道？這種缺乏人身自由的團夥，跟他們敵對的新選組有何區別？

2. 當時的照相館名曰「舍密館」，我猜應該是來自於荷語的「Chimie（化學）」一詞。

[Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

8.5/10

[Toshinori Maiya · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can't read Ryotaro in the age of Meiji Restoration of these novels, the history of Japan from the Meiji Restoration.