I’ve discovered about shogun recently when the new film trailer dropped, I instantly was interested as I’m hooked on Japanese culture and learning actively Japanese.
The book was a fire, intense, stressful to read, dramatic and tragic but also partially satisfying with a dry aftertaste.
It’s so strange that I didn’t know that there was a book based on William Adam’s life although a lot of fiction in shogun still it highlights a lot William’s life, what I found satisfying is that in reality William Aka Anjin-san didn’t loose his lover as ( spoiler alert) he did loose Mariko in the book, that was a shocking twist, and the twist of toronaga who had burnt Erasmus in order to keep the barbarian in Japan, I’ve rarely cried over a book, but I’ve been crying for quite a long time on this boon.
Now I’m filled with sadness as such a wonderful book came to it’s end.
I would also recommend Samurai William, by Giles Milton - it is in part about the adventures of William Adams, the English sailor who ended up marooned in Japan and became an advisor to Tokugawa. In other words, the actual historical figure the novel Shogun was based on.
Obviously, the novel is highly fictionalized, particularly in the love story - the historical Adams married a Japanese lady, without the tragic love interest - in fact ending up with two wives, one in Japan and one in England.
However, the actual story of Adams, and his relations with the Dutch and English East India companies, Tokugawa, etc. is bizarre, adventurous and interesting enough.
One anecdote from the book: one European sea captain who ventured to Japan was heavily into pornography, and hoped to make a fortune selling European porn to the Japanese. This venture did not turn out so good for him; for one, the Japanese had their own culturally-specific taste in erotica. They did not find his porn attractive.
Some Japanese, in fact, did not even recognize his porn as porn.
In one truly bizarre episode, the captain enticed a Japanese lady to come into his cabin, for sex. He hoped to seduce her with a large oil painting of a nude woman pleasuring herself.
However, the Japanese lady had totally misinterpreted his intentions. She was a secret Christian, and thought the captain wanted to show her ‘forbidden’ religious icons. When she saw the painting, she thought it represented Mary (as she was familiar with oil paintings of European looking women being representative of Mary). So, much to the captain’s discomfort, she went on her knees to pray, sobbing in religious fervour. His attempt at seduction a failure.