James Clavell's
SHOGUN
James Clavell, born Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell (10 October 1924 – 7 September 1994), was a British novelist, screenwriter, director and World War II hero and POW. Clavell is globally renowned for his epic Asian Saga series of novels and their televised adaptations, along with such films as The Great Escape and To Sir, with Love.
Clavell was the son of Commander Richard
Clavell, a British Royal Navy officer who was stationed in Australia to help
establish the Royal Australian Navy. In 1940, when Clavell finished his
secondary schooling at Portsmouth Grammar School, he joined the Royal Artillery
to follow his family tradition.
Following the outbreak of World War II, in 1940, at the age of 16, he joined the
British Royal Artillery, and was sent to Malaya to fight the Japanese. Wounded
by machine gun fire, he was eventually captured and sent to a Japanese prisoner
of war camp on Java. Later, he was transferred to Changi Prison in Singapore.
Clavell suffered greatly at the hands of his Japanese captors.
Changi was notorious for its poor living conditions. According to the
introduction to King Rat, written by Clavell's daughter Michaela, over 90% of
the prisoners who entered Changi never walked out. Clavell was reportedly saved,
along with an entire battalion by an American prisoner of war, who later became
the model for "The King" in Clavell's King Rat.
By 1946, Clavell had risen to the rank of Captain, but a motorcycle accident
ended his military career. He enrolled at the University of Birmingham, where he
met April Stride, an actress, whom he married in 1951.
In 1953, Clavell and his wife emigrated to the United States and settled down in
Hollywood. Clavell scripted the grisly science-fiction horror film The Fly and
wrote a war film, Five Gates to Hell. Clavell won a Writers Guild Best
Screenplay Award for the 1963 film The Great Escape. He also wrote, directed and
produced a 1967 box office hit, To Sir With Love, starring Sidney Poitier.
Clavell's daughter Michaela appeared briefly as Penelope Smallbone, Moneypenny's
successor, in the James Bond 007 movie Octopussy. The character, however, did
not catch on and was dropped after that single picture.
SHOGUN
Shōgun is the first novel (chronologically speaking) in James Clavell's Asian Saga. It is set in feudal Japan somewhere around the year 1600 and gives a highly fictionalized account of the rise of Tokugawa Ieyasu (here labelled "Toranaga") to the Shogunate, seen through the eyes of an English sailor whose fictional heroics are loosely based on William Adams' exploits.
Editorial Reviews
"Exciting, totally absorbing...be prepared for late nights, meals unlasting,
buisness unattended..." -- Philadelphia Inquirer.
"Adventure and action, the suspense of danger, shocking, touching human
relationships...a climactic human story." -- Los Angeles Times.
A bold English adventuer. An invincible Japanese warlord. A beautiful woman torn
between two ways of life, two ways of love. All brought together in a mighty
saga of a time and place aflame with conflict, passion, ambition, lust and the
struggle for power.
"Superbly crafted...grips the reader like a riptide...gets the juices flowing!"
-- Washington Star.
PLOT
John Blackthorne, pilot and acting captain
of the Dutch trading ship Erasmus, is shipwrecked on the coast of Japan. He and
his crew are taken captive and confined to a pit for a few days, until, in the
eyes of their captors, they begin to act like 'civilized' men. The samurai (Omi-san)
in charge of them throws slops on the crew whenever they misbehave. Eventually,
Omi-san tells Blackthorne that he and his crew must pick someone to die the next
day. He also specifies that Blackthorne is not to be picked. Eventually,
Blackthorne ends up at the House of the Daimyo, Yabu-san. Yabu originally plans
to keep the guns and money recovered from Blackthorne's ship, but is betrayed by
a spy who has informed his lord, Toranaga, of the ships arrival. The daimyo
turns Blackthorne over to the custody of his lord, Toranaga. While in the
household, Blackthorne is given the nickname Anjin, meaning "pilot," by the
Japanese because they can't pronounce his name. Blackthorne insists that Omi-san
apply the honorary suffix -san and so Blackthorne is henceforth known as
Anjin-san.
Blackthorne is interviewed by Toranaga, with a Jesuit priest serving as
translator. Blackthorne, an Englishmen and a Protestant, attempts to turn
Toranaga against the Jesuits. In doing so, he reveals to an unknowing Toranaga
that the Christian faith is divided, and other European countries intend to sail
the Asian waters since the Spanish Armada was defeated. The interview ends when
Toranaga's rival, Ishido, enters the room, curious about the 'Barbarian'
Blackthorne. Toranaga has Blackthorne thrown in prison for piracy to keep him
from Ishido. In prison, Blackthorne is befriended by a Dominican priest, who
reveals further details about the Jesuits conquests and the "Black Ship" trade.
Japan needs Chinese silk, but cannot deal with the Chinese directly. The
Portuguese act as an intermediary, shipping the merchandise in their Black Ship,
at great profit for the Portuguese. During the same time, Blackthorne learns
more Japanese.
Blackthorne is taken out of prison by Ishido's men, but Toranaga intervenes. In
their next interview, Toranaga has a different translator, the lady Mariko, a
convert to Christianity who is torn between her new faith and her native culture.
As this is going on, Toranaga is being threatened with being ordered to commit
suicide by the council of regents. To escape the plot, he must get out of Osaka
Castle, which he does by taking the place of a woman in litter with a train of
travelers leaving Osaka Castle. Blackthorne inadvertently spots the exchange
and, when Ishido shows up at the gate to Osaka Castle and almost uncovers the
plot, Blackthorne saves Toranaga by first saying that, in his country, it is bad
luck for a lord to give anything directly to a servant girl, then feigning
madness to avoid losing his head over the insult. In this way, he gradually
gains the trust of and enters the service of Toranaga, a powerful feudal warlord
who rules over the Kantō (Kwanto) plain, the site of modern-day Tokyo.
Despite a rocky start, Blackthorne slowly gains an understanding of the Japanese
people and their culture, and eventually learns to respect it deeply. The
Japanese, in turn, are torn over Blackthorne's presence; He is a cultural
outsider, a leader of a disgracefully filthy and uncouth group of rabble (his
ship's crew), but he is also a formidable shipbuilder, ship's captain, and
navigator. As such, he is both beneath their contempt and incalculably valuable.
A turning point in this perception is Blackthorne's attempt at seppuku (ritual
suicide). He demonstrates willingness to commit suicide with honor which deeply
impresses the Japanese, but is stopped as he is far more valuable alive than
dead. The Japanese grow to respect the "barbarian" in turn and he is eventually
granted the status of samurai and hatamoto. As they spend more time together,
Blackthorne and Mariko become intimate.
Blackthorne is torn between his love for Mariko (who is married to a powerful
samurai), his growing loyalty to Toranaga, and his desire to return to the open
seas aboard Erasmus and capture the "Black Ship," a treasure-laden Portuguese
vessel. Eventually, he reunites with the survivors of his original crew and is
so astonished at how far he's come away from the standard European way of life
(rare bathing, meat-eating) and is disgusted by what he sees. Blackthorne's
plans to attack the Black Ship are complicated by his friendship with that
vessel's pilot.
In parallel with this plot, the novel also details the power struggle between
Toranaga and Ishido (two great daimyos or feudal lords), and the political
maneuvering of the Christians (Catholics), particularly the Jesuits. Some of the
plot is driven by Blackthorne's enmity for the Jesuits, Spanish and Portuguese,
and his revelation to the Japanese that Catholics are not the only Christians.
There is also conflict between Christian daimyos (who are motivated in part by a
desire to preserve and expand their Church) and the daimyos who oppose the
converts in favor of the native Shinto and Buddhist faiths.
The climax of the manueverings comes when Mariko volunteers to go to Osaka
castle and face down Ishido. Ishido has numerous family members of other daimyos
hostage in Osaka, referring to them as guests. As long as he has these hostages
then other daimyos, including Toranaga, will not attack him. Ishido hopes to
lure or force Toranaga into the Castle and, when all the regents are there,
obtain an order for Toranaga to committ suicide.
Mariko volunteers to go to the castle, then (with Toranaga's order for her to
leave) defy Ishido and force him to either dishonor himself by dishonoring
Mariko, a lady of the first rank, or back down. When Mariko tries to leave the
castle, a battle ensues until she is forced to give up. However, she states that
since she cannot obey an order by her leige lord, Toranaga, she will committ
suicide. As she is about to do so, Ishido comes up and gives her the papers to
leave the castle the next day. That night, a ninja Ishido hired slips into the
castle and attempts to kidnap Mariko, with the help of Toranaga's vassal, Yabu.
However, she and Blackthorne (who accompanied her but was not aware of the plot)
and other ladies of the castle escape into a locked room. As the ninjas blow the
door down, Mariko steps up to door and declares that this is her act of suicide.
Mariko is killed and Blackthorne injured, but he and the other ladies of the
castle are allowed to leave the castle. Blackthorne discovers that his ship has
been burned up, ruining his chances of attacking the Black Ship, getting rich,
and sailing home to England. However, Toranaga gives him money and men to start
building a new one. Toranaga orders Yabu to commit suicide for his treachery.
A recurring motif in the book is Toranaga engaging in falconry. He compares his
various birds to his vassals and mulls over his handling of them, flinging them
at targets, giving them morsels to bring them back to his fist, and re-hooding
them. The last scene involves Toranaga letting his prize falcon free as he
reveals his inner monologue: he has burned Blackthorne's ship himself as a way
to placate the Christian daimyos and bring them to his side against Ishido, he
will encourage Blackthorne to build another one, and then burn that one. It is
Blackthorne's karma to never leave Japan, Mariko's karma to die for her lord,
and his own karma, his true purpose in being a major daimyo, taking out the
Taiko's heir to become Shogun. Toranaga has Ishido buried up to his head when
captured by his men.
This book is divided into 6 Books, the 3rd being the longest. It contains
extremely intricate plots and counter plots and straddles the line between
historical drama (tinged with romance, sex, courage, duty, and religious beliefs)
and political drama.
The novel has been adapted as a
groundbreaking television miniseries, a Broadway musical, and several computer
games, including an Infocom text adventure called James Clavell's Shogun.
The television miniseries, Shogun, was produced in 1980. Nine hours long (twelve,
including commercials), it aired over five nights. It starred Richard
Chamberlain, Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Shimada, and John Rhys-Davies. It was edited
into a two-hour version for theatrical release.
There have been three computer games based on the Shogun novel. Two text-based
adventure games with sparse graphics were produced for the Amiga and PC, and
marketed as James Clavell's Shogun and Shogun (Mastertronic). A unique graphical
Virgin Entertainment adventure game, Shōgun, was also produced for the Commodore
64 by "Lee & Mathias" in 1986.
Rights available in Norway.