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A review by obr
Cloud Of Sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka
2.0
A book that certainly nabs your attention... for the first 50%. After that it was just going through the motions.
It's a story of samurai-lords at the time nearing the end of the Shogunate, when outsiders from America and Europe were really making their presence felt. We focus in on a group centred on the young Lord Genji, the last of his line and subject of many plots and rumours. Word is he is a dilettante in love with a geisha, sees visions of the future, sympathises with Christians, and is terribly unfit in his role as leader of his fiefdom. Someone is plotting against him. Ninjas could be anyone, anywhere, waiting for their chance to take his down and end his family line. Then along come the Christian Missionaries who's motives may or may not be as simple and pure as they seem. No one and nothing is as it seems. All that is certain is that change is coming whether Japan is ready for it or not.
As a tome of convoluted political/social intrigues between samurai clans, it's pretty interesting. It's just a shame that by the half way point, you know what's going to happen to everyone. The writing just dried up a bit. It's an incredibly slow book as-is, but when it started dealing with lots of little details that went on and on... It started to drag.
Then there's the habit of the narration to hop between viewpoints within the same paragraph. It meant that instead of us guessing at a room full of people's intentions, we got a glimpse inside everyone's head. It destroyed some of the intrigue factor by removing the reader participation/speculation element, and could get a tad hard to follow who was "speaking" at the time.
It reads like a gleefully cliched historical novel, prone to poetic musings and meandering plot-points that time-hop about the place. There's plenty of blood and gore, though the account of the deeds are matter-of-fact rather than gratuitous description.
A story of backstabbing, revenge, katana-weilding madmen and murder that's more dry account than dynamic action, it's not an overly bad story. Maybe it takes the right person to really enjoy something quite this stylised.
It's a story of samurai-lords at the time nearing the end of the Shogunate, when outsiders from America and Europe were really making their presence felt. We focus in on a group centred on the young Lord Genji, the last of his line and subject of many plots and rumours. Word is he is a dilettante in love with a geisha, sees visions of the future, sympathises with Christians, and is terribly unfit in his role as leader of his fiefdom. Someone is plotting against him. Ninjas could be anyone, anywhere, waiting for their chance to take his down and end his family line. Then along come the Christian Missionaries who's motives may or may not be as simple and pure as they seem. No one and nothing is as it seems. All that is certain is that change is coming whether Japan is ready for it or not.
As a tome of convoluted political/social intrigues between samurai clans, it's pretty interesting. It's just a shame that by the half way point, you know what's going to happen to everyone. The writing just dried up a bit. It's an incredibly slow book as-is, but when it started dealing with lots of little details that went on and on... It started to drag.
Then there's the habit of the narration to hop between viewpoints within the same paragraph. It meant that instead of us guessing at a room full of people's intentions, we got a glimpse inside everyone's head. It destroyed some of the intrigue factor by removing the reader participation/speculation element, and could get a tad hard to follow who was "speaking" at the time.
It reads like a gleefully cliched historical novel, prone to poetic musings and meandering plot-points that time-hop about the place. There's plenty of blood and gore, though the account of the deeds are matter-of-fact rather than gratuitous description.
A story of backstabbing, revenge, katana-weilding madmen and murder that's more dry account than dynamic action, it's not an overly bad story. Maybe it takes the right person to really enjoy something quite this stylised.