samurai—the only westerner to be so honored—and a monument was erected to him at his death in 1620.

Japan

Shogun is a portrait of Japan as it transitioned from feudalism to a nation-state ruled by an enlightened warlord. This moment occurs in the quarter-century of jostling for power that occurred after the end of the Ahikaga Shogunate, which had ruled since 1336. The Ahikaga reign ended when Yoshiake, the Shogun, lost a battle against Oda Nobunaga. Yoshiake shaved his head and became a Buddhist priest.

The civil wars that followed during the sixteenth century began to end when Oda Nobunaga, whose military strategy relied on guns, was assassinated in 1582. His ablest general, the peasant Hideyoshi Toyotomi, unified the country in 1590. With a unified Japan following him, Toyotomi invaded Korea twice: 1592-93 and 1598. He died during the second invasion and Japan withdrew from Korea. Five years of uncertainty followed his death before Ieyasu Tokugawa completed Toyotomi's attempt to make Japan one nation.

Tokugawa defeated his rivals in October 1600, at the Battle of Sekigahara. He became Shogun in 1603. Tokugawa insured the survival of his accomplishment by resigning in 1605 and helping his son carry on the Shogunate. Tokugawa's Shogu-nate established a peaceful kingdom for 250 years. Then the Americans, in 1853, forced the Japanese from isolation. In 1868, the emperor was restored and the reign of Shoguns ended. Under the emperor, the previously isolationist country took part in world affairs energetically. Its attempt to create an empire brought the country into World War II. Defeated by the United States in August of 1945, much of Japan came under US supervision for almost 30 years.

1975

By the mid-1970s, Japan had regained its sovereignty. Although it would be asked to apologize for various war atrocities committed during WWII, Japan by 1975 controlled all its islands, renewed a treaty of mutual defense with the United States (1970), and rebuilt its economy into one of the top non-communist industrial economies of the world. Soon the Japanese economy would be second only to the United States. The oil crisis of the 1970s hit Japan particularly hard. The Japanese responded by creating programs to reduce Japan's dependence on foreign oil through conservation and alternative energy sources.

Historical Fiction

Shogun belongs to the genre of historical fiction. This genre of literature arose in the early nineteenth century when Sir Walter Scott wrote the first historical novel, Waverly, in 1814. Scott's novel attempts to interest readers m history by showing how historical events affect private lives and individuals. One of the greatest works of this genre is Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, which was written in the mid-nineteenth century about Russian experiences in the war with Napolean. Works of historical fiction are not always literary masterworks. Rather, historical fiction can simply be a work which is costumed by a historical setting but pays absolutely no attention to historical accuracy.

The strength of historical fiction is not in its accurate rendition of events but in its faithful portrayal of the historical moment. Thus, Shogun's narrative is faithful to the reality of 1600—a rather barbaric Europe meets a highly civilized and war-torn Japan—even if it strays from accurate chronology. Clavell researched his subject exhaustively. For four years, he read accounts of visitors to Japan in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, as well as historical studies. He visited Japan. He fleshed out his novel by adding descriptions of the art of gardening and the tea ceremony. Some of the descriptive phrases used in the novel are actually paraphrases of the accounts he read. For example, much of what Rodrigues says about the Japanese can be found in the writings of the Jesuit Father Joao Rodrigues, who visited Japan in the late seventeenth century. This Rodrigues said the Japanese are "so crafty" they have "three hearts." Finally, the inspiration for the novel came from the story of Will Adams, who actually did shipwreck in Japan in 1600 and became a samurai.

Narrative

Shogun's narrator is a straightforward example of third-person omniscient: the narrator is all-knowing. However, the narrator has some interesting limits. For example, the positions of the Portuguese forts or other Jesuit matters are never revealed, nor are the real workings of the Council against Toranaga In fact, the narrator only reveals information that Toranaga would have known. Toranaga has spies everywhere, and he receives detailed reports from his generals, his ladies, and Lady Mariko. Furthermore, he has orchestrated all the major events of the book as if he were the director of a noh play. The idea that Toranaga is in fact the narrator is supported by the narrative shifts throughout the novel to first person when he is alone. An example of this occurs at the end of the novel. The paragraph begins with "he thought" and ends with Toranaga saying, "this is the chance I've been waiting for." Toranaga is thus revealed as the narrator, and the book is therefore the book he has been writing to advise future generations.

Structure

Clavell uses several structural elements to connect events and characters into a disciplined narrative. One structural element is chronology. The novel proceeds from the spring of 1600 to November 21, when Toranaga launches his battle plan, Crimson Sky. Along the way, flashbacks to previous events fill in the past. The novel, accordingly, is a historical account. Abetting the chronological structure are the motifs of chess and falconry The two metaphors are used to explain how the past is mixed with the present by Toranaga as he maneuvers to become Shogun.

Clavell's division of chapters into six books is also a structural element. Each book ends with a significant development in Blackthorne's education or Toranaga's plan. Book One establishes the situation in Japan and ends with Blackthorne saving lives. At the end of Book Two, Blackthorne is saved in return. This trading of lives ties the characters together and builds loyalty between them. In Book Three, Blackthorne dies and is reborn a samurai. From this point, Toranaga plays a larger role as he begins to implement his strategy to become Shogun. Blackthorne's hopes to use his ship, Erasmus, in Book Four are part of Toranaga's plans, and the ship is destroyed in Book Five. Book Five also contains the climatic "poem" of Mariko, which unlocks Osaka and kills a several samurai. Book Six wraps up the loose ends and ends in Toranaga launching Crimson Sky.

A third pattern in the book is the cultural reciprocity between Toranaga and Blackthorne. The two men educate each other in the ways of the world. Toranaga takes time out of his battle plans to make sure Blackthorne is properly educated in the ways of the Japanese. In return, Blackthorne tells Toranaga about Europe. This new knowledge enables Tornaga to deal with the Jesuits and, eventually, to evict them from Japan.

Another organizing pattern concerns the characters and their love affairs, which are either reflective or codependent. The illicit love affair of Mariko and Blackthorne is matched by Omi's affair with Kiku Both affairs must be resolved for Toranaga to win. Toranaga's light-hearted affairs with his ladies, especially Kin, can be contrasted with the lustful courtship of Lord Zataki and Lord Ishido for Lady Ochiba. More positively, the relationships of Lord Sudara and Lady Genjiko andRo-drigues and his wife represent the ideal of pure love. All of these structural elements interlock to form the novel.

Clavell's techniques are highly cinematic. Shogun, for example, contains a great deal of dialogue interspersed with scenes of exciting action: ambushes, hand-to-hand combat, storms at sea, earthquakes. There is certainly suspense, too. The reader does not know whether Toranaga will succeed or whether Blackthorne will ever get home, but he certainly cares.

In all his novels, Clavell stresses the differences in values and behavior among different cultures. A superb teacher, he explains the clash of lifestyles and values between seventeenth century Japan and seventeenth-century Europe very clearly. The fact that certain habits of action and thought still influence the Japanese as well as the West makes his explanations important. Because his facts are presented so dramatically, they are fascinating. Clavell manages to tell the reader about the Japanese class system, the history of the samurai, and the meaning of Bushido, the samurai code. He also explains Japanese politics, family life and sexual practices. In addition, he supplies a great deal of information on daily life in Elizabethan England, Catholic-Protestant strife in Europe, and seventeenth-century seafaring and exploration. His novels are based on serious research and according to critics, are a fund of accurate information.

1600: Europeans rarely, if ever, take baths, thinking that it leads to illness. The Japanese, on the other hand, bathe often and prize cleanliness

Today: It is normal in all industrial nations for people to bathe often. Body odor and dirtiness are disapproved of by most people.

1600: Japan is a wealthy nation with a vast supply of silver and other commodities. Due to political strains, it cannot trade with China directly. Europe, except for the inflationary economy in Spam, is doing everything it can to increase its trade and gain wealth.

Today: Japan (despite a recession in the early 1990s), Europe, and the United States are the most powerful economies in the world. They meet on a regular basis to iron out trade issues for their mutual prosperity.

1600: Technology, in the form of weapons, printing, and navigation, are dynamic forces facilitating change in society. Governments are still capable of allowing technology to thrive or be stifled. European governments, who are competing among themselves, take advantage of any technological edge they can. The Japanese decide to reject the onslaught of new technologies.

Today: Japan is one of the leading producers and users of information technologies. Both in Japan and in the West, technology has become a necessary component of economic vitality.

The tale of the heroic traveler wrecked at sea, who finds strange lands with strange customs and must struggle wearily to get home to his own land, his wife and his family is, of course, as old as Homer's Odyssey (c. 1050-850 B.C.), the story of Odysseus' ten year journey home. Blackthorne's fate, as a helpless giant, in a land of small but powerful people who are embroiled in political dissension is a variant of Jonathan Swift's "Voyage to Lilliput" in Gulliver's Travels (1726). The fact that Blackthorne's adventures are not the stuff of myth or legend ties Shogun to "true" adventure stories such as The Travels of Marco Polo (1298), a record of the impressions made by a European of a different, but not at all savage, Oriental culture.

Tai-Pan (1966) discusses the history of China's trade with the West and the establishment and growth of Hong Kong, while dramatizing the conflict between Dirk Struhan, the head of a vast trading company and his chief rival, Tyler Brock. Again the clash of Oriental and Western customs underlies the action-filled plot as history is explained. Clavell's theme remains the proper uses of power and the behavior necessary to seize and retain it. A very popular novel, Tai-Pan remained on the best seller list for ten months.

Noble House (1981) brings the history of Western trade with China, and the history of Hong Kong, up to date, as the latest Tai-Pan, Ian Struan Dunross, a descendant of Dirk Struan, struggles to maintain the solvency of his company in the face of the Brock clan's machinations now engineered by Quillen Gornt, its latest descendant. Dunross is also faced with modern political and financial problems. This novel was even more successful than its predecessor, leading the best seller list and remaining on it for eleven months.

NBC presented Shogun as a television miniseries in September 1980. It was shot in Japan at a cost of twenty-two million dollars. Richard Chamberlain, as Blackthorne, headed a cast of fifteen Europeans and twenty-eight Japanese. Shogun had the second largest television audience in the United States up to that time. The miniseries was also made into a two-and-one-half-hour film which was shown internationally.

Shogun, produced by Shogun Productions, appeared in 1980 as a television adaptation of twelve hours and five parts. The NBC-sponsored film was made in Japan for $22 million. Eric Bercovci and Clavell wrote the script. Orson Welles narrated and Jerry London directed Richard Chamberlain as the Pilot, Toshiro Mi-fune—as classic an actor in Japan as John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in America—as Toranaga, and Yoko Shimada as Lady Mariko. Clavell was also paid one million to be executive producer. It is estimated that 130 million viewers watched the five parts when they aired. One of the most surprising features of the film was the lack of subtitles during the first part of the series. This feature forced viewers into the position of Blackthorne until he had learned Japanese. In 1981, a 2.5-hour movie was cut from the longer series.

In 1989, Shogun provided enough material for Infocom to make a computerized adventure game. While the characterization and graphics of the product were rated highly, as an adventure game it was not received very well.

In 1990, with investment from Clavell, the novel was adapted to the stage under the direction of Michael Smuin. "James Clavell's Shogun, the Musical," with lyrics and script by John Driver, bends the novel's around Shakespeare's King Lear. Instead of a struggle for power, Taiko divided his realm between rivals. The play was unsuccessful both commercially and critically.

Sources

Barnes, Julian, review, in New Statesman, November 21, 1975, p. 650.

Carlyle, Thomas, "Sign of the Times," in London Magazine, 1829.

Crosland, Susan, "Maybe I'm James Clavell," in The Sunday Times, London, November 2, 1986, pp 41,43-4.

Ellul, Jacques, The Technological Society, Alfred A Knopf, 1965.

Enright, D.J., review, in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times, July 28, 1975, p 5.

Interview, in the Guardian, October 4, 1975.

More, Thomas, Utopia, Wordsworth Editions, 1998.

Pollm, Burton R, "Poe in Clavell's Shogun- A Novel of Japan," in Poe Studies, Vol 16, 1983, p. 13.

Review, The New Yorker, September 18, 1975, pp. 44-5.

Schama, Simon, "Visualizing History," in Culturefront, Vol 7, No 1.

Schott, Webster, review, in The New York Times Book Review, June 22, 1975, p. 5.

Smith, Henry, "Reading James Clavell's Shogun," in History Today, Vol. 31, October, 1981, pp 39-42.

Teachout, Terry, "James Clavell, Storyteller," in National Review, Vol. XXXIV, 1982, pp 1420-22.

Further Reading

Alden, Daunl, The Making of an Enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire, and Beyond. 1540-1750, Stanford University Press, 1996.
Daunl Alden's The Making of an Enterprise tells how the Jesuits were instrumental in the consolidation of the Portuguese Empire First for Portugal and then for the Spanish, the Jesuits perfected the technique of colonial exploitation to the benefit of the investors and the Church.

Rand, Ayn, Atlas Shrugged, Plume, 1999.
Clavell believed in the philosophy of Objectivism This philosophy was codified by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged, originally published in 1957, as a theory holding that all individuals operate out of self-mter-est This theory is explicated m the story of Dagny Taggart's encounter with a libertarian group seeking an end to government regulation.

Roberson, John R, Japan Meets the World The Birth of a Superpower, Millbrook Press, 1998.
Roberson details the Japan's interaction with the world from the arrival of the Portuguese in 1543 to the Nagano Olympic Games Roberson focuses on the internal politics of those 400 years as Japan made decisions about how to deal with the rest of the world.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War, edited by James Clavell and translated by Thomas Cleary, Delcorte Press, 1983.
Sun Tzu's 2,000-year-old classic contains the philosophy of the warrior, such as "To win without fighting is best" Although written for the Chinese warrior, Sun Tzu's book has been used by warriors of all nations and has recently found a readership amongst businessmen.

Tames, Richard, Servant of the Shogun. Being the True Story of William Adams, Pilot and Samurai, the First Englishman in Japan, St. Martin's Press, 1987.
Tames's biography of William Adams gives the full story of the English pilot who shipwrecked off the coast of Japan in 1600. Adams eventually became a samurai and married a Japanese woman Although he went on a few trading expeditions, he lived out his life as advisor to the Tokugawa Shogun until he died in 1620.

Tracy, James D, The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade, 1350-1750, Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Tracy presents an in-depth analysis of the role played by merchants and their shipping expeditions in early modern state formations in Europe.