![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It is, if nothing else, a testament to enthusiasm: to the pull of a subject. ![]() And that originally, the book was over 2300 pages before being pared back to a slim 1100. Part of me loves this book for the sheer improbability of its genesis: Clavell read a sentence in his daughter’s textbook that said “in 1600 an Englishman went to Japan and became a samurai” and decided that was enough to birth a tome. I devoured it while waiting for check-ins, while aboard the Shinkansen, and while en route to places that appeared in the bloody thing. There’s a lot of detail – I imagine in 1975 that the book’s coverage of Japanese customs and history was quite novel. The chapters aren’t enormous, and the text gallops on. (Trust me: I’ve tried with both Orlando Furioso and Decameron and come a gutser each time.) So this was recommended by and old friend, and I figured it was time.Īnd you know what? It’s perfect travel reading. I wanted something epic, because a good epic will thrash you along its byways faster than a taut modernist tale, and because I know that I can’t read Canonical Classics on a plane. I’d been looking for something to read that wouldn’t make my eyes roll back into my head. I read it digitally: but then, I was travelling through Japan. And I didn’t read it in the phonebook-sized paperback edition I had picked up along the way. So it was a little embarrassing to note that this is the first time I’ve actually read the book. This guy never had to buy his literature at an op-shop, I assure you. ![]()
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