Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater, with Some Thoughts on Muses (Especially Helga Testorf), [Hardcover]

It's difficult, perhaps impossible, to trace the development of Vollmann's style. It's almost certainly a bad idea. How do you, for example, weigh the prose in his fiction compared to his non-fiction? The threads don't just intertwine: they interpenetrate, in everything from "The Rainbow Stories" to "Europe Central." To unravel them is to destroy the pattern. Yet to mesh them together is to deny their separate nature. As tempting as it is for the reader to lump Vollman the novelist, Vollman the journalist, Vollman the critic, the historian, the memoirist, into one big fat Vollmann, say Vollmann the chronicler, Vollman the writer is constantly conscious of genre and adapts his writing to the material. He is not Thomas Wolfe, mailing mountains of prose to an editor to sift through and sculpt into a book or two. He is Dostoyevsky, systematically, methodically, professionally finishing one masterpiece after another, while vigilantly keeping straight the difference between, say, "Notes from the Underground" and "From the House of the Dead," even if the reader can't quite.

Another problem with tracing Vollmann's development as a writer is the long gestation of so many of his books, and his penchant for simultaneously pursuing several colossal projects. The seven volume treatise on violence "Rising Up, Rising Down" was almost certainly begun at the same time as the brief memoir "An Afghanistan Picture Show," though they appeared more than a decade apart. The multi-volume sequence "Seven American Dreams" still unfinished, is being published out of chronological order. The National Book Award winning "Europe Central" was first contemplated by Vollman as a teenager, though in a completely different form. His current book grew out of notes, observations, interviews, and writings over at least a decade.

So how can it be said to be new? Why read this Vollman book now, as opposed to another? (Whether you have read him before or not.) How can the writing in this book be different?

Well, for one, it isn't loud. Let me say it emphatically: it is quiet. It is soft. Without losing any of its precision or complexity, it is gentle. It is friendly. It is, in fact, charming (appropriately, the highest aesthetic quality attributed to what it is about.)

And what is it about? To some extent, that doesn't matter: like all Vollman books, this one is about everything, or a large hunk of it. But also like all of them, it is not undisciplined, and has a subject. Let me just say that to this reader, that subject, the depiction of femininity in Noh (a form of Japanese theater even more refined and incomprehensible than Kabuki), could not be more remote, fantastical or abstruse. It reads like science fiction, an exploration of the art, philosophy and psychology of dwellers of an alien planet, or a faery realm.

Paradoxically, perhaps because the topic is so alien, Vollmann's writing is the opposite of alienating. In this book more than any other a sense comes through of what I imagine (and have evidence to believe) the author is like as a person: warm, infinitely patient and profoundly curious, deeply caring, a friend. Granted, all these qualities are present in his other works. But they have never been this predominant. And Vollmann's writing has never been this approachable, this open, this appealing or (here's a word I never thought I'd use to describe it) delightful.

How odd that it would happen now, with this subject, this book, this title and subtitle and cover. But maybe not. According to Vollmann, Noh is about balance, selflessness, truth and charm, and Vollmann teaches it in perhaps the only way possible: by example. This book is a revelation and a treasure for readers familiar with his work, as well as those who've never heard of him.

Okay, the full title of the book is:

Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater With Some Thoughts on Muses (especially Helga Testorf), Transgender Women, Kabuki Goddesses, Porn Queens, Poets, Housewives, Makeup Artists, Geishas, Valkyries and Venus Figurines.

Though it's a 34 word title, the 528 page book is quite short for Vollmann. Usually I'd talk about the author's previous work, especially given the diverse fiction and non-fiction that we have from Mr. William T. But not today. After reading "Kissing the mask" (and it took a long time to really get into the book, though I blame my distracted and traveling self rather than the author) it seems as though the book should stand by itself. Ignore the author's pedigree and just take the book as an example of an obsessive analysis on an interesting topic (there have been great books in the last few years on typewriter designers, the history of the pencil, moonshiners in Kentucky, and particle astrophysicists, so taking a look at Japanese Noh Theater and related topics is perfectly reasonable).

And we get more than just the obsessive analysis of porn stars, transgendered actors, and Norse culture, we also get Vollmann illustrations and photographs (including one of the author in drag that sits on me like a festering sore), traditional auteur topics such as prostitutes, the fundamental oddness of Japan, and elliptic digressions on any and all topics related to feminine beauty. So, there's more here than just "femininity in Japanese Noh theater."

It's a masterful piece of writing, and perhaps the most accessible introduction to Vollmann's writing. It's not easy exactly, but it is rewarding.

Ultimately a very frustrating read. The author is clearly an extremely talented writer, and the first third of the book, in which he delves into Noh theatre, is indeed fascinating. But he never ultimately answers his question of what it means to be feminine (as opposed to female, which is purely biological) and he winds up ignoring so many interesting approaches (William Hurt in 'Kiss of the Spider Woman', Western female impersonators, ala Charles Busch or La Cage au Folles, even female role playing by men in Shakespeare's England, that I felt as if he hadn't really examined his own issue thoroughly. He also wanders off into his own relationships in a self-pitying way that truly detracts from the work. I thought it would have made a great magazine article.