Epic is the first word that comes to mind when reviewing this novel. Shogun is over a thousand pages long. Yet amazingly Clavell kept me completely enthralled even as I read the final page. I'm not sure a book like this could be written today. Clavell takes you on a long journey, and you have to have the patience to follow. If you do, you will find it a more than worthy journey.

Shogun tells the story of an English sailor who comes to Japan a barbarian. By the end of the story, he has been civilized by the Japanese. He has even become a samurai. This illustrates one of the major points of the book. From the perspective of the Japanese, their first encounters with the West showed them we lacked civility. We had no standards of hygiene. We lacked the order of their feudal system. We had no concept of honor nor the willingness to kill ourselves and others to maintain that honor. We were childish in our views of sex and love. Etc.

On the other hand, we see the English perspective just as clearly. The samurai are brutal, oppressive to the lower classes and obsessed with death. They are so consumed with pride they fail to see the real threat the West poses. They are intolerant of religions that differ from their own. Etc.

You see clearly the flaws and strengths of each culture and the interaction between them that results seems realistic. It is a sharp clash. But you also realize at the end of the day, each character is the same: Human.

Clavell does his historical homework here, to justify all of this. But does the actual story hold together? In my view, that is it's true strength, even more than the clash of cultures. The English ship pilot Blackthorne feels as real as the Japanese samurai woman Mariko. It is amazing how a man in the 20th century can put himself in the mind of people who lived in different cultures, were not of his gender and lived so many years ago. Clavell does this, and then some. The story line itself is equally engaging. The struggle for power in Japan, the struggle between Christianity and traditional Japanese religion, and the struggle of each characters internal problems all keep you reading.

This alone makes this novel worth it. But there is an added element. Clavell based this all on real events. Of course, he changed many things, but after you are finished reading Shogun, look at the real historical figures this story was based on and you will find a tale just as interesting as the novel. ( )

This was a long one. I liked it, but sometimes the characters seemed a bit... one dimensional? The Japanese were uniformly horrified by the Western ways of the main character, but in my experience there are always people who are fascinated and accepting of alien cultures. But this was hundreds of years ago, so what do I know? This is an action-intrigue-romance-cultural exchange blockbuster that finishes a bit abruptly. If you like ritual suicide, this one's for you. (Don't worry: it doesn't finish with ritual suicide. But it happens. A lot.) ( )

Also a well done movie, but if you saw that first do NOT let it stop you from reading the book. It's fantastic. I don't know anything about the Japanese culture, but I hope he didn't get much wrong, because he makes me feel like I do. The in depth look at the culture & times is very well done. There is plenty of action, romance & suspense. ( )

A kaleidoscope of Japan at the time of the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. True, the names have been changed to allow Clavell to exercise artistic licence, but the historical personages are easily recognised.

Also true is the fact that the intimate relationship between Blackthorne and the Lady Mariko would not have happened like that. So it goes.

When this novel was new, many science fiction fans of my acquaintance devoured it eagerly, saying "This is a science fiction novel!" When I asked what they were talking about, they said "It's about a man coming to terms with an alien civilization", and that is true. Japanese society and culture works on completely different rules to Western society, and that has been the cause of so much pain and suffering during the 20th century. Clavell wrote this book from a position of knowledge; he had experience of the Japanese as a PoW in the Second World War, but he then went further and did his research to uncover the reasons behind what he saw. This book, and others like it, play an important part in increasing our understanding of this alien culture, no matter how much they have spin and fancies added for the entertainment of Western audiences. ( )

To read Shogun is to be immersed in the savagely beautiful, tragically noble world of feudal Japan. ( )