Drunk as a Lord
Drunk as a Lord is a collection of four novellas by Ryotaro Shiba, published in 1965. The English version was published by both the Japan Foundation and Kodansha International in June 2001. Eileen Kato translated the stories, and it was the second of Shiba's works to be translated into English.
Content
All of the stories involve daimyō reacting to developments during the Tokugawa shogunate.Drunk as a Lord
"Drunk as a Lord," the collection's namesake, is about a drinking and partying lord, Yamauchi Yodo, who tries to forge an alliance between the imperial court and the Tokugawa shogunate, but his efforts are in vain; he attempted this because he wanted to remain loyal to the Tokugawa even though he had taken an oath of loyalty to the Emperor and disagreed with open-door actions from the shogunate.Yodo, described as an alcoholic in the story's end section, on page 103, also has an interest in literature, poetry, and debate, and proficiency in military affairs. The story places emphasis on his intellectual pursuits. Additionally he commits acts of torture against inmates who had committed political crimes. Shizuka Saeki of Look Japan describes Yodo as "a hard-drinking libertine who lives life on the wild side". Margaret Stawowy of The Japan Times characterized Yodo as "a double-talking, pompous tyrant" stated that "I was calling him an alcoholic and a bad word that also begins with “a” by page 12, and things only got worse." Stawowy argued that the narrative, by placing so much emphasis on the erudite characterization, does not prepare the Western reader for his more disagreeable traits, even though "having wisdom and a fine intellect does not exclude the potential for base conduct".