Book review: Shogun, by James Clavell
For me, ever since I visited Japan, I have been quite fascinated by the country. Ive read a few books to understand the culture more - the sound of waves, a tale for the time being, Shibumi, Ikigai and even Pachinko. But I think the book I was looking for was Shogun. It gave a comprehensive view of what the Japanese society was like, and why it may have evolved into what it is now. I am sure the book has its flaws, but its canvas is grand. And it’s a fascinating read. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in reading more about the country.
I won't write a review about the story though, but only share some interesting perspectives that I took from the book about Japanese society.
Overall
- Overall Japan felt like a clash of a much more developed society in terms of philosophy and some interesting concepts of life. Like valuing peace of mind, focussing on patience and so on. But it also felt quite regressive and repressive, in terms of violence, low position of women in society and so on. This clash becomes very apparent across the book as you don’t know what to think of it
- This was the most common theme in the book, and also one of the most difficult to comprehend. The rules and pillars of samurai life had some weird aspects to it, which may even sound crazy in today's world. But if you can understand them, it gives a good insight into why Japanese society is still so different than the Western world. Stoicism, karma, loyalty, duty and patience were the most important values of life. These were even more important than love or family or individual good. And it manifested itself in different ways in all aspects of Samurai (and Japanese) life
- Duty and loyalty was considered above everything else. Life and death had no meaning, other than to be spent in the pursuit of duty and service of one's master. It stood much above greed for money, need for love or even the value of life. The samurai were 'owned' by their masters in every sense. They lived and died for their masters. And that led to the ease with which the samurai killed themselves, by committing seppuku when they made mistakes, even if very small ones. Or the master could also ask a samurai to commit seppuku without a mistake, no questions asked. (Seppuku is the art of committing suicide by putting a dagger into one's own stomach and killing oneself). It is a very painful way of dying but was actually considered an honour under the samurai code. And that might help make it easier to understand some things that still happen in Japan today, like Shinkansen train drivers committing suicide when their train is a few seconds late! The value of duty to a Japanese can only be understood by them, no one else
- It was a similar situation for women. They were ‘owned’ by their fathers or husbands, and it was total ownership. There were clear rules for what women could or could not do, could expect and were expected to do. The aim of their life was to do their duty towards their husbands, and that was it. It felt a lot more constrained than we know about women in other cultures, and kind of explains some issues about women's place in Japanese society even till today
- Maintaining ‘Wa’ (or harmony), both within oneself and in one's surroundings was super important. And everyone strived to achieve it. Patience was also stressed on in everyday life, as being part of what every Japanese should strive for. As was the faith on Karma, which would always give you what you deserved if you give it enough time. As concepts these are very relevant in today’s times. I loved reading about them and the book inspired me to try to achieve some of these in my own life too
- It was interesting to see why the Japanese considered the West ‘mercenary’ while they saw themselves as being driven much more by duty than greed. And they felt that made them more progressive and higher placed than the West. I don’t fully agree with the principles, but it felt refreshing to read this, given how much the world today is driven by western principles
- The Japanese society had rules about everything. From meeting a person for the first time, to meeting a foe to have a negotiation to having tea. At times it felt like the society may have been a very constrained one, with everything about the individual let go of, for the sake of all these rules
- Overall, Japanese civilisation was much more developed socially than the Europeans. The protagonist mentions that they were clean and actually had baths while the Europeans still didn’t do that till that time. The Japanese houses and their cities were extremely clean while the Europeans still lived in squalor. And they had doctors who treated them for their accidents and diseases properly rather than just cutting them open and bleeding them, as was still being done in the west. All this is something that has largely been forgotten in the centuries afterwards when the world looked towards the West assuming them to be the best in everything. It was clearly not true, except of course in science, world discovery and warfare where Europe had moved much ahead much early on. The Japanese still fought with swords, while the world had moved onto guns and cannons
- The book also gives an interesting peek into how the sailors and adventurers were slowly discovering the world in the 1600s. As they slowly discovered new routes and marked them out, they also tried to keep it secret lest their enemy nations steal information of those routes from them. It's interesting to read especially when today we take it all for granted that the whole world knows about the rest of the world. But there was a time when all this wasn't a given, and its sometimes difficult to comprehend how that world would have looked and felt like. The camaraderie between sailors is also interesting to read about, in a world divided by imperialistic goals. How they felt a connection to each other but because of their loyalties, could not be friends or share their knowledge with each other
- The book also shed a light on how imperialism grew in Asia, highlighting some of the things that the Spanish and the Portuguese empires did, how they split up the world between themselves and made fortunes on the way. It gives details of how the Portuguese grew and ran their empires in Asia, running a chain of settlements from Japan to Macao to Goa, all the way to Portugal. It was a working machinery built to optimise trade and profit. Ships after ships of riches were taken away from the Japans to Europe, and they were such a lucrative business that people would kill for it. So many games, decisions and betrayals were driven by this desire to do business with Japan, it was all a very fascinating read
- All this trade happened in parallel with the aim of spreading Christianity, with the priests wielding a lot more power than would be expected. They were the first ones to get into Japan, managing to learn the language and getting the favour of the feudal lords. And they all worked together with the traders, playing different lords against each other and taking sides, based on what benefited their countries the most. The level at which politics and religion was interlinked quite baffled me
- Also, religion and politics were quite interlinked in those times. Spain and Portugal who were Catholic were pitted against England and Netherlands who was Protestant. Seeing their interactions with each other when in Japan, it suddenly became clear to me how much they hated each other. They were enemies who operated against each other on the basis of their religion, which is something I had never imagined before and I found quite eye-opening
Shogun while narrating its story, ends up describing so many other aspects of life in the 1600s that I found that much more fascinating than the story itself. And it is the part of the book that will stay with me longer than the adventures of Captain Hawthorne...
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