Shogun is James Clavell's best work. The contrast between Japanese and Western culture is masterfully portrayed by Blackthorn in his comic blundering. Blackthorn's buffoonery, although unintentional, does cause a great deal of consternation in the minds of the Japanese people he interacts with. Japanese people who have contact with Blackthorn think his mentality and behavior are unbelievably incomprehensible. But Blackthorn also suffers from these encounters with deep pain within his own tormented psyche. Blackthorn was trained in puritanical religious extremism, and his bigoted opinions cannot be reconciled with Japanese permissiveness. Clearly, Christian virtues do not comport with Buddhism or Shinto Japanese culture, and Western values, in Shogun, are portrayed as barbaric, primitive, and inferior when compared to Japanese standards of conduct. Blackthorn struggles to suppress his hysterical outbursts and the raging anger he feels when Japanese behavior crosses a line that would be considered heinous acts in European society. Murder, suicide, and promiscuous sexuality seem to be praiseworthy endeavors, or ignored as trivialities, under the samurai law of Bushido. In England such abhorrent acts would be considered capital crimes, punishable by sentences of death, demanded by public outcry, and English common law. Mariko, a highly intelligent woman, taught Portuguese and Latin by Jesuit priests, a Catholic convert, devout Christian, and fiercely loyal samurai woman, tries to navigate the complexities of feudal Japan for Blackthorn; as an official interpreter for her liege lord Yoshi Toranaga. But Mariko becomes hopelessly entangled in contradictions between her Christian faith and her Bushido duty of honor to her liege lord Yoshi Toranaga. Nevertheless, in spite of Mariko's great love for Blackthorn, Mariko dies defending her samurai honor, rather than surrendering to her Christian ideals.
However, it is important to note that Mariko may have feigned her Christian ideals as a method to foist revenge upon the Jesuit priests who, Mariko believed, duped her father into betraying his liege lord, the Taiko. When Mariko dies during the ninja attack, Lord Ishido and the Jesuit priests are greatly weakened, with catastrophic consequences to follow. Lord Ishido dies a humiliating death, his feet firmly planted in the ground, his head removed with a bamboo saw. The Jesuit church will be banned from the interior of Japan for many years.
Blackthorn never adapts to Japan as his adopted country. After the death of Mariko and the burning of Erasmus, Blackthorn's central role as a dangerous military threat diminishes to a paltry role of petty Lord Toranaga vassal. Blackthorn is assigned to lead a salvage operation to reclaim the burnt skeleton of his lost warship Erasmus from the sea. Lord Toranaga commissions Blackthorn to build a replacement ship. Blackthorn is assigned other mundane shipbuilding tasks. Blackthorn's plan of plundering the Portuguese Black Ship of treasure and returning with accolades to England to be Knighted by the Queen as a peer and historical legend is over. Blackthorn is marooned in Japan forever. Lord Toranaga will tightly control Blackthorn, as a vassal, and burn any future ship Blackthorn may build, on a whim, depending on political expediency. The threat Blackthorn presented to the status quo has passed. The crisis is over. Blackthorn no longer has any influence on Japanese political affairs.
Shogun follows James Clavell's model of delay, negotiate, repeat. In Shogun the reader waits with bated breath for the attack on Osaka castle, only to realize that the attack will have to wait until the next book is written. Lord Ishido dies as foretold by the soothsayers with his feet firmly planted in the ground, implying that Lord Toranaga has won the war and will be soon named Shogun. Lord Toranaga will quickly enforce the Christian expulsion edicts. But the war is omitted with a single stroke of the pen.
The Asia Series
All of James Clavell's books in the "Asia" series use the same formula, endless delay, perpetual negotiation, repeat. If you are looking for hard paced decisive action, James Clavell is not the author for you. This endless delay works well in Shogun, (unless you spend 300 pages waiting for the attack on Osaka castle), but if you read Tai-pan, Gai-jin, Noble House, or James Clavell's Whirlwind, the model becomes tiresome and predictable. What I call the James Clavell fatigue factor. The plot summary of these books follows the same trite cumbersome pattern. Avaricious businessmen endlessly plot trade agreements to circumvent impossible odds, destroy a rival competitor, and dominate the market. The goal? Power, gloating, pride, and fabulous profits. King Rat, is a story of an American POW con-artist trading contraband in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II. King Rat is an excellent book written prior to the "Asia" series. King Rat is a straightforward tale of a black market profiteer who manipulates his less affluent comrades with bribes and favors. But the war ends with a rat, who was captured to be served as dinner to some unfortunate person as meat, chewing through the mesh of his cage determined to escape. The manipulative black market profiteer is reduced in status to just another common trooper headed for home. Tai-pan is a good read-only because May-May is such a well developed Asian female fantasy every pre-pubescent boy dreams about. The other two books in the "Asia" series, Gai-jin and Noble House are average in quality and could be passed over without any regrets.
