Shōgun (novel)

1975 novel by James Clavell

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Shōgun

First edition cover (UK)

Author| James Clavell
Cover artist| Ed Vebell (illustrated edition only)
Series| The Asian Saga
Genre| Historical fiction
Publisher| Delacorte Press (US)
Hodder & Stoughton (UK)

Publication date

| 1975
Publication place| United Kingdom, United States
Media type| Print (hardback and paperback)
Pages| 1152 pp (first edition, paperback)
ISBN| 0-440-08721-X (US) – ISBN 0-340-20316-1 (UK)
OCLC| 9326267

Dewey Decimal

| 823/.914 19
LC Class| PS3553.L365 S5 1975
Followed by| Tai-Pan

Shōgun (1975) is James Clavell's historical novel based on key events and figures of 1600 Japan when the Azuchi–Momoyama period approached its end and the Edo period soon commenced. The third book published, and the first chronologically placed, in Clavell's six-volume Asian Saga, by 1980 it sold six million copies worldwide, it has been made into two television miniseries (1980 and 2024), a stage production (Shōgun: The Musical), as well as one board game and three video games.

## Premise[edit]

Shōgun begins when Japan has had no Shogun (central ruler) for nearly three decades while rent by dynastic clashes, as well as meddled with politically and militarily by Catholic Portugal, their first and sole European trading partner for over 50 years. Further complicating the situation is a newly arrived ship from Protestant Holland tasked to take trade from the Portuguese. Based on events in the months before the Battle of Sekigahara—pivotal to the Shogunate restoration—Shogun ends with the battle's aftermath. The main protagonist is an English Protestant Pilot John Blackthorne.

## Plot[edit]

The Dutch ship Erasmus has been secretly sent to Japan to take over Portugal's lucrative East Asian trade. After much of its crew, including its captain, had died, it ends up marooned in Izu Harbor; making them the first Protestants to reach Japan.

The ship, its armaments, records, and coin are seized, with the surviving crew held captive by Yabu, Izu's daimyō (lord). Yabu wishes to keep his good fortune a secret, but his liege Toranaga, Lord of the Kantō and President of the Council of Regents, is alerted to it by a spy. Seeing the ship as an advantage against Lord Ishido, his chief rival in the factional Council, Toranaga has the navigator Blackthorne brought to him in Osaka.

Toranaga's meeting with Blackthorne is faithfully translated by a Portuguese Jesuit despite revelations of war between Catholic Portugal and Elizabethan England. Until then Toranaga was unaware Christendom was so divided.

To sequester Blackthorne from the other regents, he is imprisoned with a Franciscan friar who teaches Blackthorne rudimentary Japanese and of how the Jesuits' rōnin (mercenaries) invaded Japan and launched violent agitations to profit the Portuguese crown. Before the two Catholic regents, urged on by the Jesuits, can have him executed, Blackthorne is abducted in transit and returned to Toranaga.

Lady Toda Mariko (a Jesuit-educated Catholic loyal to Toranaga, not her church) faithfully translates to Toranaga Blackthorne's account of the Pope granting Portugal colonial rights to Japan and East Asia in return for replacement of all non-Catholic lords, including Toranaga, with those loyal to Portugal and Rome. He also reveals that Catholic rōnin recently invaded Japan from a secret Jesuit base in Macau.

A taken aback Toranaga halts the departure of Portugal's trading ship which upsets the other regents, who besides once again failing to assassinate Blackthorne, try to force Toranaga to commit seppuku. Instead he resigns from the council and flees Osaka. Aided by Blacktorne’s clownish antics, he, Toranaga, Mariko and others of his court make it to a safer Anjiro.

Blackthorne’s grasp of Japanese customs increases in Anjiro while his Japanese improves. but he is still disparaged as a leader of uncouth European rabble. Regardless, he advances socially by teaching how to fire cannons with greater accuracy, and by rescuing Toranaga from underneath rubble after an earthquake. A grateful Toranaga elevates him to the high samurai rank of hatamoto. In turn Blackthorne raises his regard for Toranaga and for Mariko, a key part of his inner circle with whom he secretly has an affair. A chance encounter with Blackthorne's old crew finds them revolted by his Japanese ways, and he by the European character of their coarseness.

To deflect suspicions Toranaga feigns to all, except Mariko, acquiescence towards Ishido and professes no desire to do battle. This charade enables Mariko to re-enter Osaka. To lay bare Ishido’s holding of noble households hostage, Mariko moves to exit Osaka, but Ishido's men respond with violence until an intentionally unharmed Mariko gives up on leaving. Saying she has been dishonored, Mariko vows to kill herself the next day. She does almost end her life, but in a delaying gambit, Ishido grants her leave at the last minute. That night Toranaga's duplicitous vassal Yabu lets Ishido's ninjas into Toranaga's compound to kidnap Mariko. Having retreated to a storeroom, Mariko willfully stands in front of a door set to explode and is killed. Her death, which Ishido sought to prevent, forces him to free his noble hostages, thus weakening military alliances. As for Yabu, he confesses to Toranaga and complies with his lord's order to commit seppuku, giving his prized katana to Blackthorne. Mariko wills money to Blackthorne to build a sea worthy ship for Toranaga’s navy.

At the book's end, Toranaga in soliloquy says he sank the Erasmus to form alliances with the Catholic lords, who in return agreed not to kill Blackthorne. Blackthorne’s karma, Toranaga says, is to never leave Japan, as Mariko's karma was to die for her lord, and as Toranaga's is to become shogun. In the book’s epilogue after wining the Battle of Sekigahara, Toranaga buries Ishido up to his neck until he dies 3 days later.

## Characters[edit]

Shogun is a work of historical fiction based upon the power struggle between the successors of Toyotomi Hideyoshi that led to the founding of the Tokugawa shogunate. Clavell based each character on a historical figure, but changed their names in order to add narrative deniability to the story.[1]

* John "Anjin" Blackthorne – Miura Anjin (William Adams) (1564–1620)
* Yoshi Toranaga – Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616)
* Yoshi Sudara – Tokugawa Hidetada (1579–1632)
* Yoshi Naga – Matsudaira Tadayoshi (1580–1607)
* Ishido – Ishida Mitsunari (1559–1600)
* Ochiba – Yodo-dono (1569–1615)
* Yaemon – Toyotomi Hideyori (1593–1615)
* Onoshi – Otani Yoshitsugu (1558–1600)
* Harima – Arima Harunobu (1567–1612)
* Kiyama – Konishi Yukinaga (1555–1600)
* Sugiyama – Maeda Toshiie (1539–1599)
* Zataki – Matsudaira Sadakatsu (1560–1624)
* Toda Mariko – Hosokawa Gracia (1563–1600)
* Toda Hiro-matsu 'Iron Fist' – Hosokawa Fujitaka (1534–1610)
* Toda Buntaro – Hosokawa Tadaoki (1563–1646)
* Toda Saruji – Hosokawa Tadatoshi (1586–1641)
* Kasigi Yabu – Honda Masanobu (1538–1616)
* Kasigi Omi – Honda Masazumi (1566–1637)
* Goroda – Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582)
* Nakamura – Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598)
* Akechi Jinsai – Akechi Mitsuhide (1528–1582)
* Lady Genjiko – Oeyo (1573–1626)
* Martin Alvito – João Rodrigues (1561/1562–1633/1634)
* Saeki Nobutatsu - Matsudaira Iemoto (1548-1603)
* Johann Vinck – Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn (1556?–1623)
* Spillbergen – Jacob Quaeckernaeck (?–1606)
* Father Dell'Aqua – Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606)
* Brother Michael – Miguel Chijiwa (1569?–1633)
* Captain-General Ferriera – Horatio Neretti, captain of the Black Ship in 1600

## Historical accuracy[edit]

Blackthorne's interactions with Toranaga are closely based upon accounts in the diaries of Adams.[2] However, while Adams served in Tokugawa's army at Sekigahara, he did not become a retainer or a samurai until after the battle.

Adams never met Hosokawa Gracia, in contrast to Blackthorne's intimate relationship with Toda Mariko.[1]

The novel contains numerous Japanese language errors, as well as mistakenly depicting Japanese castles as having portcullises and 17th-century samurai as using socket bayonets.[3] Carrier pigeons, used extensively by Toranaga, were unknown in Japan at the time.[4]

## Background[edit]

Clavell was an officer in the Royal Artillery during World War II and was a prisoner of war at Changi Prison in Singapore from 1942 to 1945, an experience that formed the basis of his first novel King Rat. Despite this experience, he admired Japan and the Japanese people, and described Shogun as "passionately pro-Japanese."[2]

Clavell stated that reading a sentence in his daughter's textbook that stated that "in 1600, an Englishman went to Japan and became a samurai" inspired the novel.[5] Shogun was therefore based on an actual series of events involving Adams, who reached Japan in 1600 and became involved with the future shogun Tokugawa. He achieved high status managing commercial activities for Tokugawa's shogunate, though much of the interaction between the various characters in the novel was invented. The first draft was 2,300 pages and Clavell cut it down to 1,700 with the help of his editor, German Gollob.[6] However, Shogun was edited lightly in comparison to Clavell's earlier novels.[4]

## Themes[edit]

The main theme of the novel is the precarious peace of Japan in 1600, a nation consumed by endless civil war and political machinations. The heir to the Taiko (retired Kampaku), the deceased supreme leader of Japan, is too young to rule, and five daimyōs chosen by the late Taiko for their ability to work together hold power as a Council of Regents until the boy comes of age. The novel details the intense power struggle between the two most powerful daimyōs, Toranaga and Ishido, as they both seek to thwart the other's ambitions. As a subtext, there is also the political maneuvring of the Protestant and Catholic powers in the Far East. This translates an internal conflict in Japan between Christian daimyōs (who are motivated in part by a desire to preserve and expand their religion) and the daimyōs who oppose the Japanese Christians as followers of foreign beliefs and potential traitors whose loyalty is questionable.[citation needed]

Portugal, which holds the sole right to trade with Japan, and the Catholic Church, mainly through the Order of the Jesuits, has gained a religious, economic, and political foothold and seeks to extend its power in Japan (as they have done in nearby places such as Goa and Macao). Guns and other modern military capabilities brought to Japan by the Portuguese, and indirectly by Blackthorne, are still a novelty and coveted by powerful lords looking to gain an advantage over their rivals, but are despised by many samurai as a threat to their traditional methods of fighting. In contrast, however, the silk trade is viewed as essential, and the Portuguese traders regularly amass huge profits via their annual "Black Ship" fleets from Macao.[citation needed]

Japanese society is shown to be very insular and xenophobic, with foreigners referred to as "barbarians" and shunned for their arrogance, eating habits, lack of fluency in the Japanese language, and inability to respect Japanese social customs. As a result, there are many internal conflicts between the "Eastern" and "Western" cultures – especially to do with duty, honor, sexuality, cleanliness, diet, obligations, hierarchies, loyalties, and – more particularly – the essence of 'self'. Blackthorne is also torn between his growing affection for Mariko (who is married to a powerful, abusive, and dangerous samurai, Buntaro), his increasing loyalty to Toranaga, his household and consort, a "Willow world" courtesan named Kiku, and his desire to return to the open seas aboard Erasmus so he can intercept the Black Ship before it reaches Japan.[citation needed]

A recurring motif in the book is Toranaga engaging in falconry. He compares his various birds to his vassals and mulls over his handling of them, flinging them at targets, giving them morsels, and bringing them back to his fist for re-hooding. There are other recurring themes of Eastern values, as opposed to Western values, masculine (patriarchal) values as opposed to human values, etc. Another is the granting of honours and favours to those who display loyalty - including the trading of secrets by a mama-san called Gyoko, which allows Toranaga to gain an upperhand in his power play for the shogunate.[citation needed]

## Reception[edit]

The New York Times's Webster Schott wrote, "I can't remember when a novel has seized my mind like this one [...] It's almost impossible not to continue to read Shōgun once having opened it".[7] In addition to becoming a best-seller, with more than six million copies of the novel in 14 hardcover and 38 paperback printings by 1980, Shōgun had great impact on westerners' knowledge of, and interest in, Japanese history and culture. Henry Smith, editor of Learning from Shōgun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy (1980), estimated that 20 to 50% of all students in American college-level courses about Japan had read the novel. He described the book as "a virtual encyclopedia of Japanese history and culture; somewhere among those half-million words, one can find a brief description of virtually everything one wanted to know about Japan", and stated that "In sheer quantity, Shōgun has probably conveyed more information about Japan to more people than all the combined writings of scholars, journalists, and novelists since the Pacific War".[8] Criticizing inaccuracies in the author's depiction of Japan, Smith wrote in History Today that "Clavell is in effect delivering a sermon on the errant ways of the West", contrasting Blackthorne and other Christian Westerners' barbaric ways to the superior "meditative and fatalistic posture of the Japanese samurai".[9] The author of James Clavell: A Critical Companion called the novel "one of the most effective depictions of cross-cultural encounters ever written", and "Clavell's finest effort".[10]

Clavell said that Shōgun "is B.C. and A.D. It made me. I became a brand name, like Heinz Baked Beans."[11] He reported that the ruler of a Middle Eastern petrostate offered him a full oil tanker for a novel that would do for his country what Shōgun did for Japan.[12]

## Adaptations[edit]

### Television[edit]

In 1976 Clavell employed Robert Bolt to write a screenplay.[13] In 1978, he selected Eric Bercovici to write a miniseries for NBC. Clavell and Bercovici decided to simplify the story for an American television audience by omitting one of the two major plot lines of the novel, the struggle between Toranaga and the other warlords, and focusing on the adventures of Blackthorne and his romance with Mariko. Due to the focus on Blackthorne's perspective, most of the Japanese dialogue was not subtitled or dubbed.[2] This nine-hour television miniseries aired in 1980, starring Richard Chamberlain, Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Shimada, and John Rhys-Davies. This was edited into a two-hour theatrical release. A 5-disc DVD release appeared in 2003 and a 3-disc Blu-ray release in 2014.

On August 3, 2018, it was announced that FX would be adapting the novel into a miniseries.[14] The 2024 miniseries stars Hiroyuki Sanada, who also served as co-producer, Cosmo Jarvis, Anna Sawai, Tadanobu Asano, Takehiro Hira, Tommy Bastow and Fumi Nikaido.[15] The trailer was released in late 2023 and the first two episodes premiered on February 27, 2024.[16] In contrast to the 1980 miniseries, this closely follows both plot lines of the novel and translates the dialogue between the Japanese characters, although several characters' names are changed, for instance, Yabu was changed to Yabushige.[17] The series was met with acclaim, with special praise towards Sanada, Jarvis, Sawai, and Asano's performances. In May 2024, a second and third season were officially announced to be in development.

### Stage musical[edit]

A stage musical adaptation, Shōgun: The Musical, was produced in 1990.

### Games[edit]

There have been three video games based on the novel. Two text-based adventure games with sparse graphics were produced for the Amiga and PC, marketed as James Clavell's Shōgun by Infocom and Shōgun by Mastertronic. A unique graphical adventure game, Shōgun, was also produced for systems including the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and IBM PC by Lee & Mathias and released by Virgin Entertainment in 1986.[citation needed]

The tabletop game publisher FASA published James Clavell's Shogun in 1983. This was the third of four boardgame titles based on Clavell novels.[citation needed]

## References[edit]

1. ^ a b Nedd, Alexis (28 February 2024). "The Real History Behind FX's 'Shōgun'". IndieWire. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
2. ^ a b c "Why This Historian Is Looking Forward to the New 'Shogun'". TIME. 27 February 2024. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
3. ^ Bakkalian, Nyri (17 December 2021). "Is James Clavell's Shogun Accurate History - Or Pure Fiction?". Unseen Japan. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
4. ^ a b "MAKING OF A LITERARY SHOGUN". The New York Times. 13 September 1981. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
5. ^ Beamon, William (15 September 1980). "Shogun: $20-Million Samurai Saga Sprang from a Single Textbook Line". Evening Independent. p. 1B. Archived from the original on 17 January 2023. Retrieved 21 September 2012.
6. ^ JOYCE ILLIG (9 February 1975). "Book Business: Paperback Magruder Sawed-Off Shogun Engulfed". The Washington Post. p. 200.
7. ^ Schott, Webster (22 June 1975). "Shogun". The New York Times. p. 236\. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 16 March 2018. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
8. ^ Smith, Henry D. II, ed. (1980). Learning from Shōgun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy. University of California, Santa Barbara / The Japan Society. pp. xi–xii, 18, 151. Archived from the original on 23 January 2009. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
9. ^ Smith, Henry (10 October 1981). "A Historian Reads James Clavell's Shōgun". History Today. 31 (10).
10. ^ Macdonald, Gina (1996). James Clavell: A Critical Companion. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 82–83. ISBN 0-313-29494-1.
11. ^ Allemang, John (29 November 1986). "Clavell bullies the bullies now that he's No. 1". The Globe and Mail. p. E.3.
12. ^ Bernstein, Paul (13 September 1981). "Making of a Literary Shogun". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 12 February 2020. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
13. ^ Kilday, Gregg (13 September 1976). "Mazursky: Next Stop New York". Los Angeles Times. p. d11.
14. ^ Otterson, Joe (3 August 2018). "FX Orders Alex Garland Drama 'Devs,' Limited Series 'Shogun'". Variety. Archived from the original on 19 August 2018. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
15. ^ Petski, Denise (30 September 2021). "'Shōgun': Anna Sawai Joins Hiroyuki Sanada & Cosmo Jarvis In FX Limited Series; Full Cast Set". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on 1 October 2021. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
16. ^ "Shōgun - Official Trailer". Youtube. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
17. ^ "How FX's 'Shōgun' Compares to James Clavell's 1975 Novel". TIME. 27 February 2024. Retrieved 11 March 2024.

## External links[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Shōgun (novel).

* Shogun at FactBehindFiction.com

* v
* t
* e

Works by James Clavell

Asian Saga|

| Novels|

* King Rat (1962)
* Tai-Pan (1966)
* Shōgun (1975)
* Noble House (1981)
* Whirlwind (1986)
* Gai-Jin (1993)

|

Adaptations|

* King Rat (film, 1965)
* Shōgun (miniseries, 1980)
* Tai-Pan (film, 1986)
* Noble House (miniseries, 1988)
* James Clavell's Shōgun (video game, 1989)
* Shōgun: The Musical (1990)
* Shōgun (TV series, 2024)

Characters|

* Dirk Struan
* John Blackthorne
* Tyler Brock

Other writings|

* The Children's Story (1964)

Films directed|

* Five Gates to Hell (1959)
* Walk Like a Dragon (1960)
* To Sir, with Love (1967)
* The Sweet and the Bitter (1967)
* Where's Jack? (1968)
* The Last Valley (1971)

Films written|

* The Fly (1958)
* Watusi (1959)
* The Great Escape (1963)
* 633 Squadron (1964)
* The Satan Bug (1965)

Authority control databases

International|

* VIAF

National|

* Germany

*[OCLC]: Online Computer Library Center number
*[LC Class]: Library of Congress Classification
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