Tai-Pan

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

Fascinating historical fiction. Not as good as shogun, but still better then most books. Great ending, but not as dramatic as I would have liked for the majority of the book. Most of the time I had little doubt Dirk would pull through.

I read this book while traveling in Asia in 1988. When I reached the typhoon scene, I was in a high-rise "guest house" in Hong Kong just as a real typhoon was blowing in. The windows down the hall were open by necessity, and the gale ripped through the building for hours as my astonished eyes darted from the fictional typhoon on the page, to the roaring, wet wind tunnel, and back to the page. Wow! I never forgot it!

A recommended read, whether in a real typhoon or not!

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."

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!