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A review by sirsamueljoseph
Tai-Pan by James Clavell
3.0
Definitely struggled with this one more than I did with Shogun.
I think it's in the structure. In Shogun, we were able to learn about Japan through the naive eyes of Blackthorne. By the time the narrative begins in Tai-Pan, Dirk Struan has been running things in British China for years. While the narrative expands to include just about every white person (and a few Chinese people) on and around Hong Kong, it's Dirk who is our centerpiece. And while he's a very interesting character to follow, he's too blessed by the plot gods to ever really get behind. We are in his head for many of his challenges, but his victories are kept hidden from the reader for suspense, robbing them of some of their weight.
But still, what an expansive cast this becomes! It reminds me of the 1980 Popeye movie, how fully formed each person's "schtick" is and how they're all circling the same drain. It's fun to watch Struan move through a crowd and have brief encounters with people like Aristotle Quance, with Glessing and Longstaff, with Shevuan and Mary Sinclair and May-May. If the moment to moment experience weren't so enjoyable, I would have dropped this book around 600 pages ago.
I do also appreciate how the major events of this book had very little to do with the martial experience that took over much of Shogun. The three biggest plot events in the book are a land sale, a ball, and a shotgun marriage. This book concerns itself much more with the emotional struggle of the people trying to establish Hong Kong, and is richer for it.
My other major hang-up with this book was the phonetically spelled out pidgin English. I just really grate when authors do this kind of speech. I'd love to read a defense of it because it often just comes across as mean-spirited to me, pointing out when someone has an accent in a way that becomes impossible to separate from every single word they speak.
Rounded this one narrowly down to 3 stars, but very much enjoyed a lot of it. Gonna be a big break before my next Clavell epic, but I would be lying if I said that seeing (one of) the main characters of Gai-Jin is Tess and Culum's kid got me excited.
I think it's in the structure. In Shogun, we were able to learn about Japan through the naive eyes of Blackthorne. By the time the narrative begins in Tai-Pan, Dirk Struan has been running things in British China for years. While the narrative expands to include just about every white person (and a few Chinese people) on and around Hong Kong, it's Dirk who is our centerpiece. And while he's a very interesting character to follow, he's too blessed by the plot gods to ever really get behind. We are in his head for many of his challenges, but his victories are kept hidden from the reader for suspense, robbing them of some of their weight.
But still, what an expansive cast this becomes! It reminds me of the 1980 Popeye movie, how fully formed each person's "schtick" is and how they're all circling the same drain. It's fun to watch Struan move through a crowd and have brief encounters with people like Aristotle Quance, with Glessing and Longstaff, with Shevuan and Mary Sinclair and May-May. If the moment to moment experience weren't so enjoyable, I would have dropped this book around 600 pages ago.
I do also appreciate how the major events of this book had very little to do with the martial experience that took over much of Shogun. The three biggest plot events in the book are a land sale, a ball, and a shotgun marriage. This book concerns itself much more with the emotional struggle of the people trying to establish Hong Kong, and is richer for it.
My other major hang-up with this book was the phonetically spelled out pidgin English. I just really grate when authors do this kind of speech. I'd love to read a defense of it because it often just comes across as mean-spirited to me, pointing out when someone has an accent in a way that becomes impossible to separate from every single word they speak.
Rounded this one narrowly down to 3 stars, but very much enjoyed a lot of it. Gonna be a big break before my next Clavell epic, but I would be lying if I said that seeing (one of) the main characters of Gai-Jin is Tess and Culum's kid got me excited.