Honto

[oldshaghat]

One of my father's favorite books is James Clavell's Shogun. I've been reading it, and I'm about halfway through. It's the story of an English naval pilot that crashes ashore in 1600's Japan and the ensuing political turmoil that follows. There are some interesting crossover points from Neal Stephenson's Baroque trilogy, as the eras overlap, and

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As chance would have it . . .

[tladd]

I recently picked up a very worn copy of Shogun from a used bookstore and finished reading it (for the first time) a week ago.

I greatly enjoyed it, and I have to admit the extreme picture of Bushido presented by Clavell is an appealing read -- so much so that you want it to be true. Just as you want the whole story to be true. But though Blackthorne is based on the true story of Adams, the whole story is highly fictionalized, as is, I think, the description of the culture.

I think that in the mid 1970s, when the book was written, there was still very little awareness of Japanese historical culture. Japan was to America at the time not too dissimilar from how Vietnam is to America now -- a nation at which we recently fought a war, veterans still recovering, and a distant manufacturer of cheap goods. My understanding is that Shogun the book, the resulting miniseries ~5 years later, and the movie culled from the miniseries, all did a great deal of service bringing awareness of Japanese historical culture to the U.S. (Albeit the cartoon version of Ninjas and Samurais and all that.) However, there were also a number of Japanese-made movies that helped generate interest historical Japan in the 70s, so Clavell was not acting alone. (I remember seeing reruns of John Belushi in "Samurai Delicatessan," and similar sketches from Saturday Night Live from around that time. Also, George Lucas was heavily influenced by Japanese films about samurai in designing Star Wars.)

Anyway, whatever the context, I really enjoyed the book, and it had just enough historical accuracy to give it that little extra spice. (It helps that I go to Japan regularly, and have seen all of the still existing historical locations of that book, etc.)

FYI, no one I know from Japan has read "Shogun," or even heard of it.