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The Universe is speaking to me!
I read Trevanian's "Shibumi" in the early 1980's as a teenager.
Fast forward to October 24, 2014 - Keanu Reeve's "John Wick" showed a guard reading Shibumi.
Fast forward yet again to USA Network's "Shooter" season 1 episode 2 which aired November 22, 2016 and Ryan Phillippe as Bob Lee Swagger, a former Marine sniper, was going through a trunk that belonged to his deceased spotter. Yep! You guessed it ... Swagger came across a copy of Shibumi!
Shibumi tells the story of Nicholai Hel, who is the world’s most wanted man. Born in Shanghai during the chaos of World War I, he is the son of an aristocratic Russian mother and a mysterious German father and is the protégé of a Japanese Go master. Hel survived the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world’s most artful lover and its most accomplished—and well-paid—assassin. Hel is a genius, a mystic, and a master of language and culture, and his secret is his determination to attain a rare kind of personal excellence, a state of effortless perfection known only as shibumi.
Now living in an isolated mountain fortress with his exquisite mistress, Hel is unwillingly drawn back into the life he’d tried to leave behind when a beautiful young stranger arrives at his door, seeking help and refuge. It soon becomes clear that Hel is being tracked by his most sinister enemy—a supermonolith of international espionage known only as the Mother Company. The battle lines are drawn: ruthless power and corruption on one side, and on the other . . . shibumi.
What is the common thread of all 3 stories? The world's best assassin tries to leave his former life but is dragged back in and is now the world's most wanted man.
Time to reread Shibumi :)
The Universe is speaking to me!
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