Let me start by saying I bought Shogun based on the reviews and boy was I disappointed. I’ve travelled throughout Japan and love reading about its history so of course I got excited when this book finally came in the mail. It was backordered so took over a month. This reads like a White male fantasy complete with the Japanese being in awe of the largeness of the White man’s penis \*eye roll\* The non-White characters are written like caricatures, I just couldn’t get invested in the shallowness. I had a hunch there were historical inaccuracies, and yes I know it’s fiction and yes I know Clavell was a POW, but damn. There’s geographic inaccuracies, inaccurate translations of words, the samurai are depicted as casually cruel, cutting people down in the middle of the street and ordering people to commit seppuku on the turn of a dime. “Love is a Christian word…We have no word for love.” Sigh. I could go on but suggest me another samurai story that doesn’t read so…cringy.
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by Jmcfad2