Philosophical question about samurai I havent been drinking!

Hello everyone

I wonder if you lot could help me with something. The thing is you
see I have recently been having a problem with faith, you see, not in
the religious way at all. But to do with the samurai of the past,
sometimes I want to believe all what is written about these great
people, sometimes it seems to be just exagerated, these historical
figures are like characters literally in a game or movie, Nobunaga
the cruel, dominant stiffled dictator, Hideyoshi- the rags to riches
story, or should that be the ashigaru to daimyo story. whatever.
Tokugawa Ieyasu the man who ate the cake, took the glory. If you go
further back you have Yoshitsune the tragic hero, Benkkei the warrior
monk who accomplished amazing feats. I know in the history of all
countries all have their heroes, in British history we have the
charge of the light brigade the victory against the armada. But I
don't think their are really any mythological characters. I am not an
expert but sometimes I think why I am drawn to Japan is that the
history is all around Japanese society even the cities of Japan are
sometimes based on the names of feudal era castles, or vice versa.
Popular authors who we all read like master Stephen Turnbull
constantly are giving this rosy view somemight say corny blossom
view, but I understand Japan is a bit like this sometimes the poems
are mostly very tragic, all or nothing affairs. All I am saying is
that the truth is sometimes very much distorted. What got me thinking
like this is that 1. I read a certain book, 2. I read George Sansoms
book )much more realistic I think.3. I have been looking at Japanese
maps studying place names, seeing the history literally engrained
into the landscape. I don't know, I just wonder sometimes what the
Bushi of the past would think of us saying oh this guy was the best
samurai because he conquered such and such an area. Killed so many
people. You know how much can we actually understand about the
samurai. Oh sorry to rant on and on. I hope I made some point, this
is a disscussion group after all, my favourite samurai was Akechi
Mitsuhide, but I guess you could guess through my comments. Was he a
good samurai? I don't know, but atleast he put an end to Nobunaga
rest his soul. Sigh,

what do others think? I don't think I have lost the interest in
Japan, just I am more wary/weary of the truth.

Mark

A good portion (though not all) of the 'history' of the Sengoku era
was written in the 17th and 18th centuries - decades or more after the
fact, so that alone makes things a bit questionable (although I assume
they were using documents contemporary to the Sengoku to write thier
histories). Also, god only knows how many hundreds or thousands of
pages of firsthand information kept in temples and shrines around
japan was destroyed by allied bombers during WWII - who knows what
sort of information was lost. Not to mention the fact that in some
cases, some actual decendants of various clans are STILL holding
tightly to personal letters and firsthand accounts from the 16th
century without letting scholars getting a look at it because it is
'family matters'. The Sengoku era is still being slowly pieced
together bit by bit, many temples have storage rooms that probably
havent been gone through in decades. Last time I was in Japan, I went
to a temple in Yamashina, Kyoto that after over 100 years brought out
a contemporary wood carving of Tokugawa Ieyasu that had been sitting
in one such storage room. Believe it or not, new Sengoku era
information is still coming to light. Within the past 8-10 years I
read somewhere that some new documents found in a temple shed some new
light on one of the sengoku clans (can't remember any details.) This
is probably why all the bookstores not only have shelves and shelves
of books exclusively on the Sengoku period, but also why there are new
Sengoku period books coming out yearly, if not monthly. The
scholarship in the West is decades and decades behind Japan -
especiallly when you have almost all of the 'classics' about the
Sengoku in the West were written between 20 - 40 years ago, including
Sansom, Berry, Hall, etc.

I'm still waiting for the new Sengoku scholarship renaissance to hit
the West.