Post #1926223

Quasit's Book Recommendations: "Shōgun" (1975) by James Clavell When I was in my early teens my father had a fairly serious heart attack. He survived, thank goodness, and lived well past 90 years old. But while he was bedridden and convalescing, our neighbors brought all sorts of books over to help him pass the time. They were mostly best-sellers of the time; books that I would never have read on my own, since I was a science-fiction fan. "Shōgun" was one of them. I'm not sure if Dad read it, but I sure did. And I've read it more than a couple of dozen times since then. Possibly the greatest historical fiction novel ever written, it's almost impossible to put down. An English pilot named Blackthorne and his surviving crew are stranded in feudal Japan in 1600, the first English and Dutch men to reach those shores. But their enemies, the Spanish, the Portugese, and missionaries of the Catholic Church, have established themselves in Japan. So the pilot and his crew face torture and death. Samurai, intrigue, pirates, geishas, sex, love, ninjas, politics, religion...it's an incredible book, absolutely gripping. Even though it's 1,000 pages long, it feels too short. Every time I reach the end, I find myself wishing for more! Luckily I can re-read a good book every six months or so and enjoy it as much (or more) as the first time. Which is why this is my travelling book. There are (or were) a lot of copies of the paperback in used book shops, so I picked up several over the years—along with a hardcover edition to keep in my library. One of the most fascinating things about the book is that it's actually based loosely on historical events. An English pilot DID become the first Englishman to land in Japan at a time when it was occupied by the enemies of England, and he really did reach a surprisingly high status. Incidentally, as Blackthorne learned Japanese in the book I learned some too. Some of the words may be a bit out of date - they're from 1600, after all - but they still made a good basis to learn more from watching anime. And if you like "Shōgun" you might enjoy "Learning From Shōgun", a free PDF of academic essays about the book and its historical accuracy. I found it extremely interesting, although •one• of the articles gave me an overpowering urge to kick the author (of the article) a good hard kick in the pants. Academic sneering can be SO annoying... http://www.columbia.edu/~hds2/learning/Learning_from_shogun_txt.pdf Happy reading! 🤓📖 Edit: almost forgot the Internet Archive loan link! https://archive.org/details/shogunnovelofjap0000jame #Books #Bookstodon #HistoricalFiction #Classics #Adventure #QuasitBookRecs