{"id":8703,"date":"2010-03-01T09:13:13","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T13:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=8703"},"modified":"2015-08-17T09:58:35","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T13:58:35","slug":"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-housew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/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-housew\/","title":{"rendered":"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]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/03\/Kissing-the-Mask.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-29212\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/03\/Kissing-the-Mask.jpg\" alt=\"Kissing the Mask\" width=\"700\" height=\"1057\" srcset=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/03\/Kissing-the-Mask.jpg 700w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/03\/Kissing-the-Mask-529x800.jpg 529w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a>Vollmann (<em>Imperial<\/em>; <em>Europe Central<\/em>), who has tackled an astonishing array of subjects in fiction and nonfiction, here explores female beauty \u2013\u00a0its creation and consumption\u2013\u00a0with 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&#8217;s Helga paintings, and legendary Norse women and even dons his own cross-gendered mask with the help of a makeup artist. While Vollmann&#8217;s sprawling tome clearly contains committed research, it is a flawed hodgepodge of indulgent musings (or a &#8220;string-ball of idle thoughts,&#8221; as he calls it).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Verdict<\/strong>: Describing himself as &#8220;Deaf, dumb and illiterate in Japanese,&#8221; Vollmann also admits, &#8220;This book cannot pretend to give anyone a working knowledge of Noh.&#8221; Readers might instead try <em>Japanese N\u014d Dramas<\/em>, translated by Royall Tyler, or, for Japanese perspectives on beauty, the works of Yukio Mishima and Yasunari Kawabata.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.libraryjournal.com\/article\/CA6719695.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">&#8220;Theater,&#8221; <em>Library Journal<\/em>, March 1, 2010<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vollmann (Imperial; Europe Central), who has tackled an astonishing array of subjects in fiction and nonfiction, here explores female beauty \u2013\u00a0its creation and consumption\u2013\u00a0with a spotlight on highly stylized traditional Japanese Noh theater. Because male actors wearing strictly codified masks perform all Noh roles, men,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,76,107,60,20,6535],"tags":[205,6608,59,149,51,2828,70,571,364,1047,2829],"class_list":["post-8703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-japanese","category-memoir","category-nonethnic-specific","category-nonfiction","category-repost","tag-art-architecture","tag-bookdragon","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-gender-inequality","tag-identity","tag-kissing-the-mask","tag-library-journal","tag-personal-transformation","tag-sociology","tag-theater-studies","tag-william-t-vollmann"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>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] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/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-housew\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"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] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Vollmann (Imperial; Europe Central), who has tackled an astonishing array of subjects in fiction and nonfiction, here explores female beauty \u2013\u00a0its creation and consumption\u2013\u00a0with a spotlight on highly stylized traditional Japanese Noh theater. Because male actors wearing strictly codified masks perform all Noh roles, men,...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/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-housew\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-03-01T13:13:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-17T13:58:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/03\/Kissing-the-Mask.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1057\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"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] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/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-housew\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"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. 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