He plans for any contingencies and shows resilience in the face of a series of setbacks beyond his control.

Finally, I guess it had the same sort of slight historical liberties as Shogun did, probably, but I know nothing whatsoever of the history of China so I never noticed, and thus that too didn't bother me. Anyone who presented a half-coin to the Tai-pan of the Noble House must be granted whatever he asked, whether legal or illegal. Business concerns of the Noble House included smuggling opium from India into China, trading spices and sugar from the Philippines, importing Chinese tea and silk into England, handling cargo papers, cargo insurance, renting of dockyard facilities and warehouse space, trade financing, and other numerous lines of business and trade.edu/~hds2/learning/) is an interesting group of essays both praising and criticizing certain aspects of Clavell’s novel, but he makes clear that as a novelist, he was not so interested in historical accuracy as he was in storytelling. Este despre a-ti pastra cuvantul indiferent de situatie, viclenie pentru a negocia astfel incat sa fii mereu in avantaj, curaj si antrenarea obiceiului de a vedea imaginea mai mare, de ansamblu. Diversa la collocazione geografica, uguale la sottolineatura sulle abitudini igieniche e di pulizia degli orientali (giapponesi in Shogun, cinesi qui) contrapposte al culto della sporcizia e delle superstizioni dannose (tipo quelle su pulizia delle mani o aria fresca) di noi occidentali dell'epoca.

I will talk about the finale in the spoiler below because I feel it's necessary as it made me lower my score from barely 3 stars to a fair 2 stars, but I can say without spoiling anything that I was not wrong in my assumption.Not so much because there was any tension, but rather because I was curious to see what would happen before the end because I knew the book could not end in this state of paradise for the protagonist. He might be the happiest person in this new world that is about to be carved out of the coast of China. In what is literally the last page, however, one of Struan's oldest friends says a few words to Culum, which make him decide that he is his father's son and is going to lead the Noble House as a man. I did already kinda peek at the beginning and was certainly not bored with his version of the Namamugi attack.

Truth be told, I think this was better written than Shōgun even though I actually liked the 1975 book set in Japan better. James Clavell δεν έχει εκδοθεί (στο σύνολο του) στην χώρα μας, παρά μόνο σε ευτελείς εκδόσεις τσέπης, οι οποίες δεν χαίρουν εκτίμησης από μεγάλο μέρος του αναγνωστικού κοινού. We are never really given an approximation as to how long she had been with Struan, but it seems to be a significant time. By the end of this year, he found service on the East India Company merchant ship Vagrant Star to China.He’s a man of action, a trader, a sailor and a bloke with a long memory: a lot of the book is taken up with a long-awaited reckoning with his nemesis, Tyler Brock. The thing I suppose I needed most this year was a balls-out story of daring, legal piracy and hard-nosed colonialism in the service of personal riches and furthering the drug trade. There is no big quest, no life-threatening challenge that is to be overcome, only this series of problems that are fixed as soon as they arise. I'll admit that the first 100 pages or so are difficult to get into, as the author flits from one new character to the next, explaining their backgrounds before getting on with the storytelling.

It's been a long time since I last cracked it open, but do I harbor any doubts that it would still prove to be a first-rate page turner? I was gonna go with Noble House but that one seems like it has a lot of shit having to do with finance, which I pretty much don’t understand a lot about. The second part of the arrangement, Struan agreed that a member of the Chen family would forever be comprador of Noble House. He shows actual depth, being torn between his cruel, heartless and efficient side and the love he clearly feels for his family. This is the story of his fight to establish himself and his dynasty as the undisputed masters of the Orient.Either that, or everything else going on was balls enough to make me believe that that kind of story would be great. Having inhaled Shōgun (and the excellently terrible miniseries adaptation) on a trip through Japan, I was well prepared for the way this novel would go.