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 by William T. Vollmann [in Library Journal]
Vollmann (Imperial; Europe Central), who has tackled an astonishing array of subjects in fiction and nonfiction, here explores female beauty – its creation and consumption– with a spotlight on highly stylized traditional Japanese Noh theater. Because male actors wearing strictly codified masks perform all Noh roles, men, ironically, are both the creators and purveyors of female beauty. From Noh, Vollmann explores other far-flung performances of feminine beauty, including revered geisha, L.A. transvestites, a porn model, Andrew Wyeth’s Helga paintings, and legendary Norse women and even dons his own cross-gendered mask with the help of a makeup artist. While Vollmann’s sprawling tome clearly contains committed research, it is a flawed hodgepodge of indulgent musings (or a “string-ball of idle thoughts,” as he calls it).
Verdict: Describing himself as “Deaf, dumb and illiterate in Japanese,” Vollmann also admits, “This book cannot pretend to give anyone a working knowledge of Noh.” Readers might instead try Japanese Nō Dramas, translated by Royall Tyler, or, for Japanese perspectives on beauty, the works of Yukio Mishima and Yasunari Kawabata.
Review: “Theater,” Library Journal, March 1, 2010
Readers: Adult
Published: 2010
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