{"product_id":"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-isbn-97","title":"Kissing the Mask","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"\u003e“Intrepid journalist and novelist William T. Vollman’s colossal body of work stands unsurpassed for its range, moral imperative, and artistry.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cem\u003eBooklist\u003c?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = \"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office\" \/\u003e\u003co:p\u003e\u003c\/o:p\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"\u003e\u003co:p\u003e \u003c\/o:p\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"\u003eWilliam T. Vollmann, the National Book Award–winning author of \u003cem\u003eEurope Central,\u003c\/em\u003e 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.  \u003cem\u003eKissing the Mask\u003c\/em\u003e is the first major book on Noh\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003eby an American writer since the 1916 publication the classic study \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"\u003ePisan Cantos and the Noh \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan style=\"FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"\u003eby \u003cspan style=\"COLOR: black\"\u003eEzra Pound. But \u003cem\u003eKissing the Mask \u003c\/em\u003eis pure Vollman—illustrated with photos by the author with provocative related side-discussions on femininity, transgender, kabuki, pornography, geishas, and more.\u003co:p\u003e\u003c\/o:p\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cblockquote\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom the National Book Award-winning author of \u003cem\u003eEurope Central\u003c\/em\u003e comes 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 extraordin-ary awareness and endless curiosity that have defined his entire oeuvre, William T. Vollmann takes an in-depth look into 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 transvestite 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 attraction and loss as Mishima, Kawabata and even Andrew Wyeth. From old Norse poetry to Greek cult statues, from Japan's most elite geisha dancers to American makeup artists, from Serbia to India, Vollmann works to extract the secrets of staged femininity and the mystery of perceived and expressed beauty, including explorations of gender at a transgendered community in Los Angeles and with Kabuki female impersonators.\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":44889351520485,"sku":"NP9780061228483","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780061228483.jpg?v=1730231065","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/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-isbn-97","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}