The Art of Peace by George Ohsawa

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[Fred Little]

Translated by Wm. Gleason, one dozen volumes of NOS have popped out of a box and are now available for purchase on eBay at the following link:.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/324298938561?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Also published under the title "The Book of Judo," this volume is not a how-to introduction to either judo or aikido, or for that matter, macrobiotics, but rather, is an overview of the common principles of macrobiotics, judo, and aikido, with thumbnail biographies of Kano and Ueshiba.

This small reserve of volumes was first unearthed at the time Bond Street Dojo moved from its original location on, well, Bond Street, to the fur district, on its way up to its current location in Spanish Harlem. From there, it rested on my shelves until now. Yes, I'm keeping one. For now.

Anyway, if you're interested, see the link above.

FL

[Fred Little]

Ten units remaining.

Get em while they're hot!

FL

[Peter Goldsbury]

Ten units remaining.

Get em while they're hot!

FL

Hello Fred,

The seller has not specified a method for shipping to Japan. Hence I cannot buy the book immediately; I can only "commit" to buying the book.

Best wishes,

PAG

[Fred Little]

Hello Fred,

The seller has not specified a method for shipping to Japan. Hence I cannot buy the book immediately; I can only "commit" to buying the book.

Best wishes,

PAG

Dear Peter,

Please send your physical mail address to me as a message. Sources with awareness of the seller's thinking have advised me that he might lift that restriction for an individual known to him, so I'll see what can be done.

Best,

FL

[Fred Little]

Only five copies left!

[Peter Goldsbury]

Hello Fred,

Happy New Year!

Was the book ever written in Japanese? I know it was written in French, but Japanese? I did not know William Gleason was fluent in French...

Best wishes,

Peter G.

[Fred Little]

Hello Peter,

Happy New Year to you too!

Someone who was one of Gleason Sensei's direct students might know. I've certainly never heard him speak French. All I know is that this stack of books was left, by someone, at the original location of Bond Street Dojo, and I guessed it was from one of his seminars that I had missed.

When the dojo was moved from downtown to midtown, these were among the long-neglected treasures that were unearthed, and I grabbed them (along with a number of other considerably less portable items, like a ranma and the wooden slats that edged the mat made by Terry Dobson, another ranma constructed by my old dojo mate Fred Schumann, the canceled checks and dojo receipts up to that point, the canvas mat cover, and a few stones and bits of bamboo pole) just before someone else pitched the entire lot into a dumpster because the rental truck had to be returned by a fixed time.

My presumption was always that Bill had been paid in copies and left to his own devices to sell them, as is often the case in such groups. Indeed, he was probably lucky to be given copies of the book to sell, judging by the simliar cases more close to hand. But....do I see any evidence of a Japanese edition of the book? Nope.

Maybe someone who knows can enlighten both of us!

Best wishes for a safe New Year.

Fred

[Peter Goldsbury]

Hello Fred,

It is clear from the Publisher's Note that Gleason (plus wife) translated the book from the original Japanese. It seems that the French translation had the title of Le Livre du Judo. The change was made "because the real aim of all of the martial ways, including judo and aikido, is maintaining peace."

I think Osawa would have profited from a study of a culture dedicated to waging war, namely, the ancient Greek city of Sparta. It might have made the book less superficial and wishy-washy in structure, style and argument (or what there is of it).

A study of translation might also have helped, as was done by Mark Polizzotti in Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto.

PAG

[Fred Little]

Hello Fred,

It is clear from the Publisher's Note that Gleason (plus wife) translated the book from the original Japanese. It seems that the French translation had the title of Le Livre du Judo. The change was made "because the real aim of all of the martial ways, including judo and aikido, is maintaining peace."

I must confess that my approach to this book was less one of "reading the book" and more in line with what Bob Thurman offered as "your first lesson in the most essential skill you will have as a working academic who does not have time to read everything in your field: you must learn how to GUT the book." (Table of Contents, First and Last Paragraph of each chapter, perhaps a bit more on the first and last chapters. Endnotes, Bibliography, Finis.)

I think Osawa would have profited from a study of a culture dedicated to waging war, namely, the ancient Greek city of Sparta. It might have made the book less superficial and wishy-washy in structure, style and argument (or what there is of it).

A study of translation might also have helped, as was done by Mark Polizzotti in Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto.

PAG

To be sure, Osawa's ideas in domains outside macrobiotic theory seem very well grounded in his macrobiotic theory and might benefit from some additional perspective such as you suggest.

Polizzotti's book looks quite interesting. From 1980 till 1984 I existed on the periphery of the Monterey Institute of International Studies (now the Middlebury Institute of International Studies) and almost everyone I hung with during that period was engaged in the study and practice of translation and interpretation (woe betide anyone who used the wrong term for the wrong professional specialty). Is a felicitous translation of this ms possible? I wonder. In the example at hand, the addition of a "private language" problem complicated matters enormously, so much so that I wonder how the work was received by Ohsawa's devotees, or who was the intended audience for this translation.

In any case, thanks for the pointer to Polizzotti, that is a string worth following!

Best,

Fred

[Peter Goldsbury]

[QUOTE=Fred Little;355109]I must confess that my approach to this book was less one of "reading the book" and more in line with what Bob Thurman offered as "your first lesson in the most essential skill you will have as a working academic who does not have time to read everything in your field: you must learn how to GUT the book." (Table of Contents, First and Last Paragraph of each chapter, perhaps a bit more on the first and last chapters. Endnotes, Bibliography, Finis.)

To be sure, Osawa's ideas in domains outside macrobiotic theory seem very well grounded in his macrobiotic theory and might benefit from some additional perspective such as you suggest.

PAG: The book stands at a halfway point between serious scholarly stuff, replete with footnotes, endnotes and a large bibliography, and much more lightweight works, which have none of these pointers to a serious intellectual journey. Of course, Osawa's book records another kind of journey, but the problem here is whether his work is a sufficiently robust record. Another issue is that the work is a monologue, not a dialogue, so there is no engagement with the reader.

Polizzotti's book looks quite interesting. From 1980 till 1984 I existed on the periphery of the Monterey Institute of International Studies (now the Middlebury Institute of International Studies) and almost everyone I hung with during that period was engaged in the study and practice of translation and interpretation (woe betide anyone who used the wrong term for the wrong professional specialty). Is a felicitous translation of this ms possible? I wonder. In the example at hand, the addition of a "private language" problem complicated matters enormously, so much so that I wonder how the work was received by Ohsawa's devotees, or who was the intended audience for this translation.

PAG: The book is very similar to another work, though Osawa's book is much shorter. I mean Reiki Monogatari, by Onisaburo Deguchi. This work was dictated by Deguchi and is 81 volumes in length. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido, was a friend of Osawa and regarded Deguchi as his spiritual master. Reading Deguchi is like wading through thick soup. Deguchi's Omoto religion was suppressed twice, but still survives. He worshipped The Great Universal Deity and occasionally earnest Japanese come to my door attempting to persuade me that Omoto outmatches any religion that I care to pursue.

In any case, thanks for the pointer to Polizzotti, that is a string worth following!

PAG: Polozzotti is published by the MIT Press and for me this is a good sign. Another book, from the same publisher, that you might like to look at is Impossible Languages by Andrea Moro. This book appears to be a shortened form of his The Boundaries of Babel: The Brain and the Enigma of Impossible Languages. Presumably, impossible languages are also private!

Best,

PAG

[Peter Goldsbury]

Incidentally, I forgot to mention another book recently published. The title is Woke: A Guide to Social Justice and the author is Titania McGrath.

PAG

[tlk52]

off subject, but as long as we're talking books I thought that "flashpoints" and "the storm before the calm" by George Friedman (a geopolitical forecaster) were really interesting re causes of reoccurring conflicts