The death of the tea master
The death of the tea master (original title: 本 覺 坊 遺 文Honkakubô ibun German: The story of Honkakubô ) is a novel by Inoue Yasushi . It first appeared in 1981.
content
It is an educational and diary novel that consists of six chapters and a post-comment. The protagonist is the monk Honkakubô from the Mii-dera temple, who lives at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. He is a student of Sen no Rikyū and would like to spread his new form of the tea path , which teaches the duty of simplicity ( wabi-cha ), lifelong mastery and an impeccable way of life, which also includes suicide by seppuku . Honkakubô is himself a guest and host of several tea ceremonies, while he closely observes the equipment of the tea houses, especially the tokonoma and the raku tea bowls, and experiences that other tea masters were also ready to die. During this time, Rikyû appears to him several times in dreams and has conversations with him. The true circumstances of Rikyu's death cleared up for him more and more, but in the end he had to realize: "[The world of the tea ceremony] is a world to which I, Honkakubô, have no access."
criticism
“Inoue's writing style follows that of Rikyu's tea style. Pure and undecorated. Cool and harmonious. A sparse, seemingly imperfect aesthetic. A prose that beguiles precisely because it supposedly does not want to beguile. "
“But Inoue doesn't write scripts. The original title sounds quiet and reserved: 'Honkakubô ibun', 'Honkakubôs legacy'. Not a historical spectacle, rather his legacy opens up the depths of a stubbornly evading history, the unfathomability of which withstands all attempts at reassurance. "
Film adaptations
The novel was filmed in 1989 by Kei Kumai under the title The Death of a Tea Master.
literature
Yasushi Inoue: The Death of the Tea Master . Novel. Translated from the Japanese by Ursula Gräfe . Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2007, ISBN 978-3-518-46025-2