{"product_id":"kissing-the-mask-beauty-understatement-and-femininity-in-japanese-noh-theater-isbn-9780061228490","title":"Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater","description":"\u003cp\u003e“Intrepid journalist and novelist William T. Vollman’s colossal body of work stands unsurpassed for its range, moral imperative, and artistry.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—Booklist\u003cp\u003eWilliam T. Vollmann, the National Book Award–winning author of Europe Central, offers a charming, evocative, and piercing examination of the ancient Japanese tradition of Noh theatre and the keys it holds to our modern understanding of beauty.  Kissing the Mask is the first major book on Noh by an American writer since the 1916 publication the classic study Pisan Cantos and the Noh by Ezra Pound. But Kissing the Mask is pure Vollman—illustrated with photos by the author with provocative related side-discussions on femininity, transgender, kabuki, pornography, geishas, and more.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat defines beauty when a mask conceals the face, and what can this ancient art teach us about femininity today?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eA Deep Dive into Noh Theatre:\u003c\/b\u003e Go behind the rainbow curtain into the world of Noh, Japan’s ancient and beautiful performing art, as National Book Award-winner William T. Vollmann attempts to decode its mysteries.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe Art of the Mask:\u003c\/b\u003e Explore the haunting power of Noh masks, from their creation by master carvers to the way actors use them to convey complex emotions and transcend reality on stage.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eGender Performance in Japan:\u003c\/b\u003e From the stylized femininity of Noh and Kabuki to the modern worlds of geishas and transgender women, Vollmann investigates the many faces of womanhood.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eStunning Author Photography:\u003c\/b\u003e Illustrated with dozens of Vollmann’s own evocative photographs, capturing the faces, costumes, and hidden moments of a world steeped in tradition.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e | \u003cblockquote\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom the National Book Award-winning author of \u003cem\u003eEurope Central\u003c\/em\u003e, a charming, evocative and piercing examination of an ancient Japanese tradition and the keys it holds to our modern understanding of beauty \u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat is a woman? To what extent is femininity a performance? Writing with the extra-ordinary awareness and endless curiosity that have defined his entire oeuvre, William T. Vollmann takes an in-depth look at the Japanese craft of Noh theater, using the medium as a prism to reveal the conception of beauty itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSweeping readers from the dressing room of one of Japan's most famous Noh actors to a trans-vestite bar in the red-light district of Kabukicho, \u003cem\u003eKissing the Mask\u003c\/em\u003e explores the enigma surrounding Noh theater and the traditions that have made it intrinsic to Japanese culture for centuries. Vollmann then widens his scope to encompass such modern artists of desire and loss as Mishima, Kawabata and Andrew Wyeth. From old Norse poetry to Greek cult statues, from elite geisha dancers to American makeup artists, from Serbia to India, Vollmann uncovers secrets of staged femininity and mysteries of perceived and expressed beauty, including specific makeup procedures furnished by an L.A. transgender bar girl, a Kabuki female impersonator, and the owner of a semi-clandestine studio for Tokyo cross-dressers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eKissing the Mask\u003c\/em\u003e is illustrated with many evocative sketches and photographs by the author.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“[Vollmann’s] voice is strong and persuasive.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The performance of female characters by male Noh actors sparks a deeply researched, lovingly detailed, and obsessive discourse on the nature of feminine beauty....[A] fervently reflective, probing narrative...[that] rewards it on almost every page.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[A] provocative inquiry into beauty and desire... [Vollmann] is a passionate and penetrating observer ... a daring, brilliant, and idiosyncratic quest astonishing in its discernment, scope, and feeling.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[Vollmann’s] evocations of [Noh’s] death-haunted stories, its eerie masks, its male actors playing women...are so electric and strange, so enchanted, that they made me long for the very dramas that have often sent me toward the exit before the intermission. Best of all, he registers, and seems to relish, the contrast between Vollmannic effusions and a culture that speaks in pauses and implications, when it speaks at all...The romance of the Other has rarely been so eagerly embraced.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePico Iyer, New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[Vollmann’s] evocations of [Noh’s] death-haunted stories, its eerie masks, its male actors playing women...are so electric and strange, so enchanted, that they made me long for the very dramas that have often sent me toward the exit before the intermission.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePico Iyer, New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Reward[s] the reader who stays with it for the long trip, the way a travel chronicle does.... Vollmann is not just a writer who admires. He is a writer who looks and touches.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ecco","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44887766335717,"sku":"NP9780061228490","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780061228490.jpg?v=1730227421","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/kissing-the-mask-beauty-understatement-and-femininity-in-japanese-noh-theater-isbn-9780061228490","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}