Ya... one look at this book is enough to discourage many would-be readers- MAN its big! I got a copy of this from my godfathers library: it was like nestled between an array of other similar looking titles. Though caught in a dilemma whether to read it or not, I decided to give it a try. What better way to while away time rather than to read a book that fitted like a brick in my hand and weighed that much too!
Other than for the fact that James Clavell’s Shogun is massive and immensely long, nothing is left wanting in this Japanese masterpiece- be it action, romance, adventure, intrigue or suspense. There’s an army of characters here, beginning from the shipwrecked English captain John Blackthorne, to the coutesan Mariko- san, with a bevy of nothing short of 75 characters in between. Reading this is like stepping into a world set five centuries back, so perfectly does Clavell cast his story, set in an era of emperors, courtesans, christian missionaries, wooden clipper ships, enormous stone castles et al. All the characters, be it Japanese or European, are shown from a perspective such that the reader lives through all their lives at the same time, with a livid display of emotions and feelings. Even the antagonists of the novel are portrayed in this light, which somehow doesnt make you hate them. The incidents given, especially the war scenes, are full of colour, vibrancy and radiate with a life that is seldom seen in novels, making it all the more addictive. I daresay that this book can be completed in five or six continuous sittings, and the end, it leaves you worn-out, exhausted, content and so Japanisized you can as well as take the next flight to Tokyo: wakarimasu reader-san!
All in all, this book makes compulsory reading for all adventure buffs, and it comes to being nothing short of an epic. Go watch Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai after reading this, and although the movie isnt gonna hook you up as much as this book did, you are bound to take up an instant liking of Japanese customs and rituals. I havent read the other novels by Clavell and am presently on the lookout for more, but if it comes to being as good as Shogun, then no holds barred, I can confidently assure you that James Clavell is second to none when it comes to writing epic dramas.