Book Review: Shogun by James Clavell

Shōgun: A Novel of Japan by James Clavell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first Englishman to visit Japan arrives just was the delicate socio-political balance left is at a tipping point between stability or never-ending war. Shogun by James Clavell follows the story of John Blackthorne who must adapt to an alien culture whilst his protector Yoshi Toranaga navigates the late Sengoku era of Japanese politics to survive.

Clavell’s fictionalized account of the first Englishman’s arrival just before the founding of the Tokugawa shogunate is a political thriller disguised behind a man in a foreign nation story. The 1200+ page novel is an engaging read though parts throughout are repetitive—Blackthorne’s internal thoughts obsessing about the Black Ship being the main culprit—that make me thankful that Clavell cut over a third of the original during the editing process. While I enjoyed the sight into Japanese culture and the political intrigue throughout the book, the history enthusiast in me disliked Clavell’s decision to renaming historical individuals because every time I saw Toranaga I kept thinking Tokugawa Ieyasu, Ishido was Ishida Mitsunari, the Taiko was Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Goroda was Oda Nobunaga, etc. to the point that I got a tad frustrated because I mixed the historical name with the fictionalized name. Yet Clavell’s overall writing was able to bring me back to the historical novel.

Shogun is a fantastic historical novel of an Englishman’s arrival in late Sengoku era Japan that brings the culture to the fore and the political intrigue twisted throughout a nice highlight.

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