Tai-Pan

Well-written and probably historically accurate capturing of the epoch of the opium trade and East India Company. Involves some, more or less accepted, physical assault of women which isn't fun to read about. Pretty actiony. "Dirk Struan rose from humble beginnings to build [...] the world’s largest Far East trading company. He is now the Tai-Pan—Supreme Leader—of all Tai-Pans in China. Along the way, however, he made a powerful enemy. Tyler Brock, Struan’s rival from their early opium-smuggling days, also heads a large trading fleet, second in size only to Struan’s."

A doorstopper of a novel that doesn't rise to the heights of Shogun. It's engaging and quite fun, but the length makes it hard to justify, compared to other historical novels. It relies quite a bit on repetition of the same themes and phrases by God and it's easy to see how you could cut it down severely without really compromising the contents. The novels chauvinistic and imperialist aspects might stand out to a modern reader but considering the time it was written and the period it's about, it's quite progressive.

In 1841, British forces are setting up shop on Hong Kong, and Dirk Struan, leader of the all-powerful Noble House trading firm, is at the forefront of knitting China and Great Britain inextricably together. Unfortunately, most of his family has just succumbed to plague in Scotland, his lone surviving son Culum resents his father and can't be trusted to rule Noble House, his arch-nemesis Brock is trying to destroy him, his Chinese bastard Gordon Chen is secretly involved with the Triad anarchists, the British government is skeptical of Hong Kong's value, other European powers are trying to disrupt British plans, the Chinese mandarins keep trying to violently dislodge the traders from Hong Kong, and the other traders are developing show more alliances and betrayals at lightning speeds. Oh, and Struan's young Chinese mistress really wants to get married.

In theory, this is exactly the kind of sprawling book that I love. Unfortunately, nearly all the Western-Eastern cultural interactions are inevitably reduced to "foreigners are strange, but I will allow them to continue in their misguided ways while I smirk from within my invincible cultural superiority." Which I'm sure happened in 1841 -- it's not as if Hong Kong was settled in the name of universal brotherhood -- but the book is so desperate to convey the point that it bludgeons the reader with redundant scenes. Clavell, we get it. But, wait! Clavell wants to puncture this kind of ethnocentric isolation as much as he wants to portray it, so he makes Dirk Struan into a near-messianic figure of tolerance and understanding. Struan really is settling Hong Kong in the name of universal brotherhood.

In short: eh. show less

After reading Shogun and King rat (and really liking both books), I decided to pick up Tai-pan.

The books tells the story of Dirk Struan, the Tai-pan (leader) of a large trade company in Asia, trading between China and England. He has a lot of enemies he has to deal with, dirty deals to make, etc., etc. All this is done with the founding and rise of Hong Kong in the background.

The book really disappointed me. The characters are shallow, the story is simple and highly predictable, very repetitious and the end is, well... pretty ridiculous. People who are hoping for an interesting historic novel (I was one) don't need to bother, the book is a bad kind of action novel, coincidentally taking place in and around Hong Kong in 1840.

In all, not show more a book you have to read, even when you really liked Shogun and King rat. show less

Not quite as good as Shogun, I would rate this 3.5 stars rather than 4. I had a harder time reading this, because the conflict centered more on the Westerners than what was happening in China (as opposed to Shogun) I wish that this story had been about a Westerner forced to adapt to Chinese life instead of what it was actually about, but it is still a good read.

Here's what I wrote after reading in 1988: "The master storyteller strikes again. This predecessor story to Noble House explains the origins of Hong Kong and its powerful conglomerate, Struans. Most memorable characters? Of course, Dirk Struan, the Tai-pan, who is ruthless, adventuresome, cunning, and surprisingly sensitive. Also memorable is May-May, his beautiful Chines mistress who helps him to be more "chinese" and less "barbarian". Memorable also is her seemingly favoriate word, "fantastical", "I'm fantastical urgent about marriage". Dirk Struan stuck with me; still think of some of his approaches and actions to this day!

James Clavell’s Asian Saga is a wonder of adventure story writing that covers the long history of European engagement with the Far East, especially with Japan and China. The core of the series is the two books Tai-Pan and Noble House which follow the Struan family as they battle for mercantile success in Hong Kong.

Tai-Pan covers the founding of Hong Kong in the middle of the 19th century and the origins of many of the traditions, friendships, relationships and feuds between various families and factions, both Western and Chinese, that we see in their more mature context in Noble House.

Dirk Struan is the central character here and although he sometimes comes across as impossibly talented, lucky and omniscient he does represent the kind show more of driving mercantilism that defines the 19th century. The story drives along with plenty of brio and enough incident and twists to please anyone.

The western characters tend to be drawn as black or white, whereas the Chinese characters are more nuanced and subtle, perhaps representing the author’s clear respect for Asian culture.

The pidgin English used to represent interactions between westerners and Chinese is of its time (the book was written in the 1960s) and would probably not be acceptable today; but, it does show the gulf in communication between the two cultures. I did find the broad Scots accents of the Struans and the uncultured speech of th Brocks a little wearing. show less