Review by angh - Shōgun | The StoryGraph

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angh 's review for:

Shōgun by James Clavell

4.25

adventurous emotional informative tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Rating: 4.25/5 ⭐️

What an epic story. For moments it felt like I was reading a fantasy book, all the characters getting ready for war, the way you’re introduced to this world, their culture, all the elements reminded me of the worldbuilding in some fantasy and sci-fi books, I think maybe it was the style. Then I remember this is set in Japan, and it’s actually based on real life events and people, specifically the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate (that led to research binge on Japanese history), some names were changed, and there was some “creative license” after all it’s fiction, but yeah, based on real events. And it was mostly accurate based on the things I read, a good mix of the real world and fiction. I don’t think Samurai were willing to commit seppuku after every single minor mistake, but what do I know, I won’t focus on how accurate it was.

It takes some time to get into the story, at least that was my case, the book is +1100 pages long, so of course it’s gonna take some time to get to the good parts. While I liked all the interactions between characters, from small conversations to big confrontations, the funny, the romantic, and the tense moments, and I wouldn’t exactly cut scenes, I would shorten some of them. Really, I think there were entire chapters that were just long conversations that could've been reduced to one scene. And what I think takes more space, the insane amount of POVs.

Part of what made it hard for me to get into the book at first was the constant change of POVs. Usually the POV character is listed at the beginning of the chapter, or there’s some sort of division if the POV change happens in the same chapter. But here, you’re reading one character’s thoughts and in that same paragraph you change to another character’s thoughts, which can be confusing when you’re just reading. And maybe it wouldn’t be a problem if it was the same characters rotating, like just Blackthorne, Toranaga, Mariko, Yabu, Alvito, etc. but here you get everyone’s POV. Seriously, you get the monologue of Guard #2, even though he dies in that same scene.

What did it for me was changing to the audiobook, Ralph Lister did an incredible job narrating the book. He managed to make different voices for every single character, including their accents –japanese, spanish, portuguese, english– and even speaking those languages. He did such a good job making voices for everyone, that even if a character doesn’t show up for 300 pages, the moment you hear it, you know who’s speaking. That definitely helped. It took time, the audiobook is 53 hours long, probably the longest I’ve ever listened to. But I think I would’ve taken longer if I just read the book.

I’ve seen that some people find the ending anticlimactic, and certain character’s death unnecessary, but personally I think it fits the story. Yeah, after 1000 pages building up a war that is resolved in a different way, I can see how that feels anticlimactic, but it totally fits with Toranaga. He was a strategist, and when you finally learn the extent of his plans, something that doesn’t happen until the last pages, it’s a great twist.

I haven’t watched the show yet, I wanted to read the book first, but that’s next on my list. I also saw that Shogun is the third book Clavell published but the first in chronological order in his Asian Saga. While this certainly made me more interested in reading his works, all of his books are over 1000 pages, so I might need a break before I get to his next book. But I do look forward to reading the rest of the saga.

Content Warnings