Hokusai’s appeal as one of the most recognizable artist of Japan’s Edo period has never waned; in March 2023 a version of his iconic woodblock print Under the Wave off Kanagawa (or The Great Wave), from his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, was auctioned for 2.76 million US dollars. Yes, you read that right, US$2.75 million.

It’s literally massive

This publication contains the most complete and verified collection of Hokusai’s works that has been published until now – and the key word here is “verified”. What I hadn’t known is that Hokusai used many different names for his work in different genres and media, so the challenge has always been to confirm the provenance of works attributed to him. (Which is why the title is The (Almost) Complete Hokusai.) As a result, it has has 722 pages! And we’re talking an actual coffee-table-size publication here – it’s a whopper: 11.4 x 15.6 in./28.95 x 39.62 cm; 15.32 lb/6.94 kg.

It is hardcover (obviously), clothbound (my copy is in green, but it also comes in purple), with a ribbon bookmark, and it arrived in an attractive box with the book’s cover design printed on it.

The printing is superb – the semi-gloss pages have a lovely, smooth, weighted feel, the colours and clarity are pristine, the binding is solid. The fabric of the cloth cover looks like mint-coloured watered silk. This is what I’d call a premium product. Taschen is known for producing high quality art books, and this one is outstanding.

The critical and interesting Introduction (in English, French, and German in my edition) by Andreas Marks, contextualizes the huge collection of images. His analysis shows the difficulties with provenance and authentication of works by famous artists, after their deaths. The quote below is part of the argument:

“In contrast with most of his fellow artists, quite a few details about Hokusai’s life have been transmitted to us and many of them are now largely taken for granted. At the same time though, since these details have been recounted as anecdotes to consider them as the truth is a false premise.

The illusionary view of Hokusai is mostly derived from The Biography of Katsushika Hokusai (Katsushika Hokusai den), written by author and journalist Iijima Kyoshin (1841-1901) in 1839 […].

Kyoshin was eight years old when Hokusai died, and Hokusai had already been dead for over 40 years by the time Kyoshin began interviewing people and compiling a biography from personal hearsay but without trying to, or without being able to check anything in terms of the facts.”

The (Almost) Complete Hokusai, by Andreas Marks, p. 15

700+ images

By the time Hokusai died aged 89, his catalogue raisonné included 1,300 designs carried out in his final years under the name “Manji”. To represent his huge volume of work, the book contains reproductions of 746 woodblock prints, paintings, sketches, and book illustrations, many of them in eye-popping detail, some on fold-out pages, others over multiple pages, focusing on one part at a time. You literally see things that you’ve never noticed before. It contains images of artworks sourced from over a hundred institutions worldwide. As I have done, you can literally sit and page through this for hours and hours. The text and commentary are fascinating.

The author

Andreas Marks has the right credentials to have authored this. He studied East Asian art history at the University of Bonn and obtained his PhD in Japanology from Leiden University with a thesis on 19th-century actor prints. From 2008 to 2013 he was director and chief curator of the Clark Center for Japanese Art in Hanford, California, and since 2013 has been the Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art and director of the Clark Center for Japanese Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. In 2024, he was awarded the commendation of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for his contributions to the promotion of Japanese culture. You won’t get a better example of someone with his feet in two different cultures.

Recommended? Absolutely

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. This one is a keeper. If you love Hokusai’s work, or that of any ukiyo-e artist of that period, for instance Utagawa Hiroshige, it is worth the cost of about US$200.00.

I always say, if you’re going to give a publication a long life by going to all the trouble of physically printing it, then make it worthwhile. Make sure there are no factual errors or typos, smears or blurs, colour errors, paper flaws, layout problems, etc. Turn the book into an object that has its own intrinsic value. This most most certainly has value. It makes all the other books that I have about Hokusai simply pale by comparison.

Like with zombies, there are established parameters: Reacher does not smoke or drink. He does not kill for fun. He doesn’t get emotionally attached. He has no possessions other than a toothbrush and the clothes he is wearing. He has no home, lover, partner, or children. He mentions only one family member, his brother. His logic and sense of purpose are dead straight, A to Z, no messing about. I was really looking forward to the 3^rd season of Reacher on TV – almost as much as John Wick 4. Finally, it got released on Prime in Canada, and there we were: waiting, slavering.

Spoilers ahead!

But in the 3^rd season, Jack Reacher – Persuader, the writers have lost it. The whole thing has fallen over. I know it is based on Persuader, the 2003 (ages old) Reacher novel, but that should’ve meant that the character is more of the same, being of an earlier vintage. The credits do say “based on”. That should’ve warned me. The writers of this season’s episodes are Nick Santora, developer (creator); Scott Sullivan, writer for television; Cait Duffy, executive story editor; Lillian L. Wang, story editor; Michael J. Gutierrez, story editor, and (phew) Nora Jobling, staff writer.

No Lee Child. Ah-hah. And way too many cooks working in the kitchen.

Listing the digressions

Well, let’s see what went haywire, shall we?

1) Reacher makes mistakes. Too many to list. Just errors in logic, and plot holes all over the place. My husband got so tired of me shouting at the screen and pointing out the obvious that he had to tell me to calm down.

One example is his final fight with “Paulie”, a badass who’s built like a brick sh*thouse, even bigger than Reacher. Reacher throttles him, he hangs him, he drowns him, he beats him to a pulp – dang it, Paulie just won’t die. Really?! Any human being, no matter how strong, would have died from drowning after being strangled into unconsciousness in the tidal whirlpool. But no. The writers drag it out so long it almost gets funny.

2) Reacher kisses his colleague! His female co-conspirator-and-government-agent-colleague! He shags her!! Yow! (Not “Frances Neagley” – a new character called “Susan Duffy”.) I mean, viewers must have visualized Alan Ritchson without his clothes on, and, yep, we do get a glimpse of him in the altogether with his yummy backside on display, but seriously?! This is as uncharacteristic as James Bond getting married and settling down.

3) He makes that mistake that heroes make, even way back in classical Greek literature: he fails to quickly and effectively administer the death blow to his enemy. He doesn’t simply kill his enemy, “Quinn”, immediately when he finds him after years. In stead, he faffs around and talks and plays hide-and-seek. Oh, come now! He shot the guy once before and never checked if he was actually dead – even if he had fallen over a cliff? And the guy doesn’t recognize him now? What, is Quinn blind or brain-damaged or something? At the end, when Reacher finally has to kill Quinn off, I kept saying, oh for heaven’s sake, stop talking! Just shoot him! In the head!! And do it twice to make sure!!

4) There is this weird sub-plot of the female agent, Susan Duffy (played by Sonya Cassidy), having a guilt complex over a junior agent who she sent to almost certain death on a mission. So, this junior agent was naive and dumb. But she volunteered. That’s the breaks. Do I care about her? Nope. And the dialogue and character development for the Susan Duffy character is just abysmal. Obviously she is meant to depict that stereotype that is now so de rigueur, and that I so dislike; “the strong girl boss”.

She goes from dewey-eyed affection to boiling rage, and from speaking normally to swearing like a maniac, in literally seconds, no build-up. Normal…wait for it…mad as hell…wait for it…back to normal…wait for it…mad as hell…repeat… (We were laughing and timing her switches in emotion while we watched.) Can’t blame the actress. She just delivers the lines. Man, that was irritating.

And the worst is…

5) Reacher always walks in and he walks out. No, this time, Susan Duffy walks out on him, after effectively having smooched him into submission. No, Reacher. This will not do, not at all.

Sigh…

I got so bored with Season 3 that I watched with one eye and listened with one ear, just to get through it. The thing is: what makes (or made) the suspense so powerful in the Reacher books is that there is a straightforward emotional and narrative arc, in which Reacher’s consistent strength and stoic-ness, and utterly laconic communications, contrast with the chaos and badness of the antagonists, and causes tension. It works. And the plot always has a clever twist. You need to actually pay attention. But, having deviated disastrously from this recipe, the end result is a boring, tasteless dish.

Maybe next time things will revert to normal. A 4^th season is in production, as well as a spinoff. I’m not holding my breath though.