OK, I finished watching Shogun. It ended with Toranaga saying “Soon Anjin-san, I will reveal to you why I must have destroyed your ship to save your life. Build another ship and I will destroy that too. There is much I need to learn from you my friend, and I reveal all to you.” And then it ended. Why did they have to destroy the ship to keep him alive? What happened to his dirty crew-were they on the Erasmus when it burnt down?Did Vinck like die of a heart attack or something? If Father Alvito had nothing to do with his ship being burnt down, then why did Mariko’s conversation with him perpetuate the ship to be burnt down? What about Buntaro, last they showed him he was growling “Anjin…” but never showed him again. Did I totally miss the point of everything or was the movie that bad and the book explains it all better? I even watched it with subtitles (I am deaf in one ear and find if I do not use subtitles, I miss a great deal of points). I don’t know, at the end my husband and I were like “I don’t get it.”
I would read the book, but not if it is equally disappointing. The romantic dialogue in Latin between Mariko-san and Anjin-san was quite sighable though, I will give it that. “Thou art beautiful and I love thee.” Oh sigh.
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It’s been a long time, Pansy–and the book was more detailed than the movie; but somehow it was more profitable for Toranaga to keep Anjin from sailing off and trading.
I don’t even remember the other crew members or the Jesuits. Last time I read it I was still an evangelical protestant, so I didn’t have my antennae up for the defamataion of Catholics!
Kiri-San is presented nicely in the book: her character is much better developed there than in the movie.
Never seen the mini-series, or rather, was only 5 years old or so when I did.
But the book does an excellent job of explaining these things, although the explanations are quite subtle.
Another title of Clavell’s I heartily recommend is “Tai-Pan”.
I have not read either, but I do remember them being on my parent’s bookshelf as a child. I will have to see if they still have copies of both.
Oh sorry Kathy, I hope I didn’t bug ya too much. 😉
My dad LOVED Tai-Pan! He used to order me to fetch him this and fetch him that, because he was “the Tai-Pan!”
Oh, heck, Pansy–you didn’t bug me! I’m just ignorant and forgetful!
And another good book of his, which was also made into a movie, was King Rat. It’s the story of American POW’s during WW2. Graphic in some places, but good. And MUCH, MUCH shorter than Shogun or Tai-Pan! (Both of which I read and loved when I was in college or maybe even high school!)
I did not enjoy King Rat, Gai-jin, Whirlwind or Noble House as much as Shogun or Tai-Pan, although they are still great books.
Others consider Noble House to be his magnum opus, so I could just be batty. You can’t go wrong with Clavell though, no matter which title.
Ack, after I read about the abortion, I dropped Gai-jin right away. That woman was sick…I could tolerate the descriptions of Toranaga’s bisexuality in the Shogun, but the callous abortion just caused me to throw the book away.
Toranaga saved Smith’s life by burning down his ship because Padre Alvito would have had him killed if he sailed. The maps Smith made of the sea routes would’ve been the equivalent of the Los Alamos information leaks in those days. Plus, the would-be Shogun needed to know more about Anjin-san’s ways, and didn’t want Smith bringing in more foreigners after he had gotten rid of the pesky Christians.
Hey, wasn’t Mariko supposed the be a candidate for the first Japanese abbess? What is it with nuns and sailors?
Didn’t read Tai-Pan…thought it’d be more like Gai-jin, which I hated.