Shōgun

Very much the Samurai oriented Game of Thrones that word of mouth sold it to be. I'd go an additional step further in specifying a more acute comparison to House of the Dragon, as Shogun leans more into the socio-political aspects of its feudal 16th century Japan. It's over 1000pg count allows the characters to breathe and develop through its various revelations, fights, betrayals, and romantic ties. While I would say that author James Clavell gets a little trigger happy with his assumption that seppuku was committed on the fly left and right, Clavell does take detailed pauses to showcase the stark cultural differences between the English, Portuguese, Spanish, and of course, Japanese. It's a tome to get through, but I did enjoy my time with it—possibly the longest I've taken to read a single book ever.

Shogun is the story of an english sailor that shipwrecks on the coast of japan. Really though its a story about the clash of radically different cultures. James Clavell manages to pull of a bit of a magic trick with this book. You start the book feeling like a foreigner to the story, the english sailor is lost and confused, and so are you. Slowly but surely though, you learn to understand and love the japanese way. By the end of the book it feels like you've been culturally assimilated! The scope is huge without sacrificing the intricate details and the character development is very well done.

Historical Accuracy aside, Shogun is a masterpiece of historical fiction. Be warned though, this book will make you really really want to visit Japan.

Executive Summary: Started slow and ended too fast (impressive for such a long book) with some good parts in between the periodic lulls to the plot.

Audiobook: Ralph Lister did a pretty good job. He does a few voices. This book is massive, and the audio reflects that at a whopping 53.5 hours. It's by far the longest audiobook I've listened to (and I've listened to all of Wheel of Time).

I think doing this in audio helped me make it through the slower parts, but I wouldn't call it a must listen. It's a decent option though. If I were to do it over again, I'd probably have listened at 1.25 speed (something I almost never do) to cut down on the sheer length.

Full Review
I've long been a fan of Japan, Samurai and Bushido. Most of what I know of it comes from anime and Kurosowa films though. This is considered historical fiction I believe, so I imagine it's a little more accurate than those other things I've watched. Certainly the anime (Ninja Scroll I'm looking at you).

This book has been on my radar for awhile, and has been recommended to me by a few friends. I didn't finally get around to picking it up until it was on sale earlier this year.

I thought this book started really slow. I don't like any of Blackthorne's crew and for me the story didn't start to pick up until he was away from them.

I loved the deep dive into feudal Japan, but I found my focus drifting every few sessions. The underlying story of the power struggle between the various Daimos to fill the power vacuum left by the previous shogun was excellent. I just felt there were too many lulls along the way.

I'm not a huge fan of romance subplots, but I thought the one in this book was pretty good. For me that's saying something. Fans of romance may have a differing opinion.

My biggest disappointment with the book wasn't the slow start or the lulls. It was that after so many hours invested listening, the ending felt rushed. I know there are other books, but I feel like a lot could have been cut out to spend more time on Toronaga's plotting.

Overall I'm glad I finally picked this book up. I liked it, but didn't love it as much as I was hoping. I probably won't be continuing on with the rest of the series, which appears as though it doesn't continue the lingering threads of this book anyways.

Really conflicted on this one. Aspects of this book are done very well but I don't think I jived with Clavell's writing style too well. It's hard for me to say because I read it over three months and alternated physical, audio, and immersion reading, and over that course of time my interest ebbed and flowed quite a bit. I do think this is a book I would like to revisit down the road and just devote a week or so to reading it straight through. It's very much about the cultural conflict and I think being immersed in it would work much better for me.

But as it is currently, I just think this book is too long. And I love long books. Almost all of my favorite books are 900+ pages and I have never been intimidated by the length of a book. But Shogun just felt endlessly and so much of it was circular conversations and in depth discussions that could easily have been trimmed down for the sake of some sort of momentum. There is not a moment in this book where I felt I could not stop reading it, which for a marathon book can be an issue. It's very dialogue heavy which I normally love, but so much of the dialogue is very repetitive and features characters speaking in broken language so the dialogue is not particularly fun or witty or interesting half the time. There are specific word choices that seem to pepper every single page, like “neh” or “so sorry”.

I also don't think people threatened to commit seppuku as much as Shogun would suggest. Shogun makes it seem like samurai would wake up, have breakfast, offer to commit seppuku for not enjoying breakfast enough, and then be on with their day. It felt like a bastardization of a ceremony that modern people obviously find strange and so Clavell focused on it more than is necessary. The actual documented amount of attempts or offers of seppuku is not that many.

Also the narrative structure of the book is kinda weird. There's not really a climax. There is a portion where more exciting events happen and then we deal with the fall out of those events, but it doesn't feel like the natural end of the book and then the epilogue, in the last few paragraphs is like “oh yeah and then this conflict happened this way”. It reminds me of long Stephen King books where I imagine he looks up from a marathon of writing, sees what his page count is at now, and decides he needs to end in the next few pages.

This review is coming off more negativity than intended considering I'm giving it 7/10. The thing is, I found the book consistently good. There aren't any places I feel are bad or clunky and I was always interested. I just didn't feel interested ENOUGH for how long I had to be reading it. It's like I would have rathered if there was a 200 page slog somewhere in here but another 200 page section that was absolutely amazing. I didn't get any of that...it was consistently “good” but at no point crossed the line into “awh yeah, this is what I'm here for” and that's disappointing to me.

7/10

To be fair I listened to this book on audio and I do NOT recommend that. Ralph Lister has no range for his voices so all the men sound the same which makes it very difficult. Also you have to pay a lot of attention or you'll get lost which is what happened to me. About 25% I was getting very bored and forced myself to get to about 75% and I finally give up. This is a huge surprise for me because I love Japanese culture and historical fiction. Maybe I will reread it physically in 30 years. I did really enjoy the historical facts though

This one is hard for me to rate. The story is epic. I had emotional reactions to the characters. And I wanted to know what happens in the end. My only real issue was the length. 1300 pages is the longest I've ever read. There were a few times I wanted to call it quits and Google what happened in the end. But I stuck with it. The action sequences were great.

I'm really conflicted on this book. On one hand there is an engaging and perpetually unfolding narrative of political intrigue. How does one Japanese Feudal Lord respond to and make use of a European? How does he gain hold of more power? How does the European adapt to an unknown culture?

Yet, on the other hand Clavell plays fast and loose with the realities of Japanese history and culture. From an anthropological perspective, he's essentializing Japanese culture to be nothing more than the dichotomy between honor and shame. There's always more to culture than one “core” element, but we never see that here. Because of that I can't call this “historical fiction.” This is more of a “non-fantastical fantasy” book if that makes any sense.

Ed eccomi finalmente giunto alla fine di questo libro, iniziato a marzo e concluso nei primi giorni di giugno. Un tempo epocale per me, ma comprensibile considerando le sue quasi 1300 pagine e un blocco del lettore che mi ha lasciato in panne per oltre un mese. Nonostante queste difficoltà, volevo assolutamente finirlo prima di guardare la serie tratta da Disney. Come appassionato di lettura, non potevo infrangere una delle regole fondamentali: mai vedere serie o film basati su un libro prima di aver letto il libro stesso. Ma ora, veniamo alla recensione:

“Shogun” di James Clavell è un romanzo epico che trasporta i lettori nel Giappone del XVII secolo, un'epoca ricca di intrighi politici, culturali e personali. Questo libro, parte della saga asiatica di Clavell, è un capolavoro di narrativa storica che cattura l'essenza di un periodo cruciale nella storia giapponese.

La storia segue John Blackthorne, un navigatore inglese che naufraga sulle coste giapponesi. Attraverso i suoi occhi, i lettori vengono introdotti a una cultura completamente diversa, con le sue complesse gerarchie sociali, il codice dei samurai e le lotte di potere tra i daimyo (signori feudali). La narrazione di Clavell è dettagliata e vivida, rendendo ogni scena incredibilmente reale e coinvolgente.

Uno degli aspetti più affascinanti di “Shogun” è la sua capacità di immergere i lettori in una cultura tanto diversa e, allo stesso tempo, renderla accessibile e comprensibile. Clavell dimostra una straordinaria abilità nel descrivere le tradizioni, i costumi e la filosofia giapponese, facendo sentire i lettori come se stessero vivendo l'esperienza di Blackthorne in prima persona.

I personaggi sono ben sviluppati e complessi. Blackthorne è un protagonista affascinante, il cui viaggio personale di adattamento e comprensione della cultura giapponese è al centro della trama. Ma è l'interazione tra lui e gli altri personaggi, come il potente e astuto Toranaga, che rende la storia così avvincente. La loro dinamica è un esempio perfetto della capacità di Clavell di creare tensione e intrigo.

Inoltre, “Shogun” esplora temi universali come l'onore, la lealtà e il sacrificio, rendendolo non solo un romanzo storico, ma anche una riflessione profonda sulla natura umana. La scrittura di Clavell è elegante e fluida, mantenendo i lettori incollati alle pagine fino all'ultima riga.

In conclusione, “Shogun” è un libro straordinario che offre una finestra su un mondo affascinante e distante. La maestria di James Clavell nel tessere una trama complessa e avvincente, insieme alla sua capacità di descrivere vividamente un'epoca storica, rende questo romanzo un must per gli appassionati di narrativa storica e per chiunque cerchi un'avventura coinvolgente e ricca di sfumature culturali.

Leggere questo libro è stata un'avventura straordinaria, e lo consiglio vivamente a tutti gli amanti dei romanzi storici, soprattutto a chi è interessato alla storia feudale giapponese. È stato il primo libro che ho letto su questo argomento e mi ha permesso di scoprire un capitolo della storia che non conoscevo affatto, benchè ne fossi sempre stato attratto.

It's fine, can see the appeal, but for me there's no magic hook that makes me want to keep reading. The orientalism is fun and over the top but it wasn't enough.

I gave up at page 566, which is outrageously late to be making that decision. That's on me.

After that many pages I'm definitely still counting it as having read it.

Four stars.

The first half I found an absolute chore to get through (and half of 1100 pages is a hell of a lot) but then it clicked, and I was engrossed.

I loved Mariko & Blackthorne, of course - and Blackthorne's steady transformation. And Toranaga, what a character! I enjoyed how deep and rich and clever the whole story was, and how vividly the world is painted - historically accurate or not, it's certainly beautiful. So many passages gave me the shivers, especially towards the end.

I did struggle to keep up with the politics though, particularly in the early chapters. But it was really worth persevering. Excellent climax & excellent ending.