Speaking of "historical novels"- James Clavell's "Shogun"

[stratcat]

Hi All-
I just read the thread on Musashi, and I wondered, what about James Clavell's "Shogun" novel?

At first sight it seems to be fairly well researched (it is a large book- 1000+ pages) but I've caught a couple of bloopers so far
-Judo and Karate appear some 200 years BEFORE they actually came to exist (the novel takes place in 1600. Judo and Karate don't appear, as such, until the mid to late 1800's)
-The names are all changed, Toranaga instead of Tokugawa, Nakamura instead of Hideyoshi, etc.

The question is: is there a historical basis for the Englishman, Blackthorne? I certainly don't remember ever having heard of a foreigner in Tokugawa's camp, much less a Hatamoto. Can anyone clarify this for me?

And does anybody know why the author changed the names around? I mean Gore Vidal does this sort of thing all the time, i.e. "Lincoln" and "Burr", etc. It's not like there's anyone around now that might be offenfed.

And what about the events in the novels themselves? Aside from the mention of Sekigahara and the Council of Regents, and find it hard to recognize the events. And what about Oda Nobunaga? He's nowhere to be found!

Anyway, thanks for your help
Stratcat, 2003!

[PRehse]

Shogun - is meant to be only loosely based on histroical events. When you write these things you have a choice - use the real names and have people cry foul if things are not quite right or make it clear (by using altered names) that you make no claims.

Blackthorn was based on the histrical character of William Adams - although the love-interest was a clear imposibility he was definately in Tokugawa's favour.

Really really brief description can be found here. That took just a little effort with google.

http://hsv.com/writers/jeffog/wa-hist.htm

[fifthchamber]

Hi all,
Not much to add to what Peter said....There is a book out now on the actual William Adams character..Here
...And Oda Nobunaga is certainly mentioned in "Shogun"!...He goes under the name "Goroda" in it....But died before the book and is only listed in the history set out before "Nakamura's" takeover as Taiko... (Page 202 for example "This was just after the Dictator Goroda (Oda Nobunaga) had been assassinated when General Nakamura (Toyotomi Hideyoshi)...Was trying to consolidate all power into his own hands"...
Regards

[PRehse]

I recently finished another Eji Yoshikawa (author of Musashi) book. This one is far more rooted in historical reality than Musashi which in turn was more rooted than Shogun.

The Heike Story

I really liked this - kept flipping to the geneology charts as the story unfolded.

[Earl Hartman]

I saw the movie version of "Shogun".

How can I put this? Let's see.....

Oh yeah. It really, really sucked.

If the book is anything like the movie, it must be really bad.

Foreigner good and kind. Japanese violent, unfeeling and inscrutable. Heap brave foreigner save beautiful Japanese damsel from abusive husband.

Puh-leeeeeeze.

I especially hate all of those people who gushed about "how much they had learned about Japan" by watching that POS on television.

The spirit reels. The mind boggles. The stomach heaves. The bowels churn.

[PRehse]

Originally posted by Yobina
Ah, sorry 'bout the double post.

Yobina-san;

You can of course delete the second post.

I liked the Shogun series but I have a gift for not taking films made for a general audience very seriously. I could say that my interest in Japan was sparked by the book.

[kage110]

I liked the Shogun series but I have a gift for not taking films made for a general audience very seriously. I could say that my interest in Japan was sparked by the book.

I will second that. That book started my interest in things Japanese at the tender age of eleven. The book is very good (as are the majority of Clavell's other novels) and the TV series (which I own on video) is ok but nothing special.

[Jock Armstrong]

Guys, guys, Shogun was a NOVEL about a fantasy about "The Japans" not Japan. It was not ever intended to be a historical treatise. Relax folks- some are getting WAY too serious about this. As for ill treatment of foreign sailors. It just depended on who you met with. Tokugawa was friendly- some daimyo were highly anti foreigner. the xenophobia with gripped the warrior class [with shogunate sanction] did not really become the norm till nearly a hundred years after Will Adam's time but Japanese warriors ferocity and touchiness were well documented before this by the Portugese [also in Adams's own memoirs he recorded an incident in Indonesian waters where two wako {Japanese pirates] vessels attempted to board his own small flottila and had to be annihilated since they would not surrender]. The incident of boiling unfortunate sailors was performed by the same headcase who delighted in tying his peasants hands then igniting their mino [straw raincoats] and watching their death throes. This charmer was the prime reason for the shimabara rebellion, which later took on a Christian flavour [they were being actively persecuted]. One of the main reasons for Perry's visit was to end the execution of shipwrecked sailors on sight. [some were lucky enough to be imprisoned by more farsighted japanese officials. As for the book, it actually addresses the comparitive barbarities of west and east. If I remember, the younger samurai in Kasigi Yabu's retinue [Omi I think but I can't remember] is disgusted by the torture of the dutchmen. Perhaps the gentleman from palo Alto is not a deep reader, if indeed, he has read the book at all......

[Jock Armstrong]

PS Also remember the movie release of two hours was cut down from around eight hours of the TV miniseries. Only the most basic of plotlines remained. Also, in Japan, the series was cut differently to present the story more from Toranaga and Hiromatsu's view point.Apologies to Earl- I forgot that you had only seen the movie. Read the book -its not fact but it gives a "feeling" of the old days.

[Earl Hartman]

Apology accepted. Haven't read the book. I saw the miniseries on TV, and it was just, well, stupid. The one scene that stood out was when Adam's squeeze was going to kill herself, and it was all in public like a regular seppuku ritual, and she even had a guy who was going to be her kaishaku! I just cannot believe anything like that could possibly have happened. Also, the fight at the end where Adams fights with ninjas and kills them with a katana was dumb.

I mean, c'mon guys.

Not only that, while I am perfectly willing to accept the fact that the Japanese could be perfectly beastly, I got tired of the way the film portrayed Adams always having to protect the locals. It just gave the whole thing a "foreigners good, Japanese bad" feel.

So, I never bothered to read the book. A movie based on real historical sources and Adams' own memoirs would be very interesting, however.

[Mark Barlow]

I enjoyed the book but not the movie. The only real complaint I had with the book was having one of the townspeople being expert in karate and judo.

[koma]

I enjoyed the book and the mini-series. The movie was just butchered to get it on the shelves.
Perhaps Clavell used the terms "judo" and "karate" because those were terms his readers would understand. I don't think he had martial artists as an audience in mind while writing it.
Historical fiction is just that, fiction. It might be based on bits and pieces of facts but it's just fiction.

[Mark Barlow]

Koma,
I'm sure you're right but I still hate to see things "dumbed down" for the general public. I've read some outstanding historical fiction that was entertaining, informative and historically accurate.

I've forgotten the title, but there was a novel out a few years ago involving an Okinawan who had been blown out to sea and joined an American whaling ship in the early 1800s. The book detailed the history of the various te systems because the Okinawan trained in Shuri te and Naha te (forgive me if I've butchered the spelling). I loaned it to a shorin ryu instructor (who never gave it back) who had trained in Okinawa under Hohan Soken and he assured me that the book was correct in every detail regarding Okinawan karate.
This is the kind of narrative I enjoy.

[Jock Armstrong]

Anjin san couldn't kill ninja with a katana? How so, or better why not? Blackthorne is a pretty salty ole Elizabethan seadog. He's no shrinking violet either, having a heap of combat experience against the Spanish- or is this a kind of reverse racial bias that assumes that asian martial arts are much more effective than the old western ones? Documents [Japanese as well as European] relate how some samurai picked a fight with some portugese sailors and got their asses handed to them on a plate. The Ports were armed with boarding cutlasses [ not to be confused with the shorter "cutlass" of the Royal Navy in the 18th C- these were long swords similar to katana] and the officers with rapiers. Tha samurai were screwed by their own overconfidence- when they came back for revenge they had studied up on how the Ports fought. They did better but it was pretty even. Authorities solved the situation by not allowing the sailors to carry weapons ashore and forbidding the samurai to fight any of them. There is a fallacy that because western MA died out in the end of the 19th C that somehow they never existed . It goes hand in hand with the idea that ancient people were stupid because they weren't technologically advanced- which we know is not true. Schools which taught swordsmanship, boxing/wrestling and pistolcraft were common and considered a prerequisite for young gentleman to have a "rounded" education. No MA are intrinsically "superior" to others. The warriors make them work or don't.

Drunken Scotsman abroad.

[Mark Barlow]

The title of the book I mentioned in an earlier post is HARPOON by C.W. Nichol who also wrote MOVING ZEN: KARATE AS A WAY TO GENTLENESS.