James Clavell: Gai-Jin review

It was a nice contrast taking this massive, almost an epic book after reading Dan Brown's Deception Point.
Clavell is famous on his novels of the Asia: Japan, Hongkong and Taiwan. Gai-Jin takes place in Japan in 1860s when the power of the great ruler shôgun is falling apart. Some rebelling samurai want to restore the power to the emperor. Within this chaos there are the gai-jin, the strangers from abroad trying to make their living and get in touch with the Japanese economics.

This book is over 1000 pages long, but it doesn't feel bad reading it. Clavell has a great skill in describing the Japanese people as they see themselves - not how the western people see the Japanese.
Clavell doesn't have to describe characters' personalities, because they are reveiled naturally by the acts that they take and how they react on things. The language is vivid and storytelling takes you away.
The only problem for me was that I didn't find any of the characters (massive amount of them too) appealing to me, so I couldn't identify with any of them and feel bad nor happy for them.

Gai-Jin is a historical novel, which is slightly based on facts, but shouldn't be read as a document, but as a great description of the time when the samurai still were the only persons allowed to carry a katana in Japan.

If you're interested in Japan and history, this is definitely a book for you. Though I do recommend, that you start with the best of Clavell: Shôgun. That novel took my heart and also it is somewhat a prologue to the Gai-Jin.
/ [Caterin S.]

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