Отдавна вече се убедих, че за Джеймс Клавел няма какво да се пише. Безсмислено е, напълно излишно. След роман като "Гай-джин" каквото и да кажеш, ще е плоско и безсмислено. И макар да не ми се стори невероятен като "Тай-пан", е просто всепоглъщащ. Чудя се какво ли тогава ще ни предложи "Търговска къща"?

I'm afraid that like most of the other reviewers here I just had to abandon this one mainly because of a lack of focus on any central character. I was listening to the audiobook version which was 50 hours long, I got 20 hours in and had to abandon it. Virtually nothing happened in 20 GODDAMN HOURS!! Shogun is one of my favourite books but unfortunately this reads like bad fan fiction or a really early first draft of Shogun. So much needless description about nothing and the way it flits from character to character to character you have no real time to become invested in anyone.

Decent enough book but man it dragged in places. It was hard to want to finish it, frankly. But overall, still good but still not better than Shogun.

first 900 pages were really good, but Clavell doesn't wrap up 80% of the plot lines he created and spends the last 300 pages wrapping up the plots that i enjoyed the least. this book could have been two really good books but instead turned into one long book that lacked a conclusion.

OK, so this book was on crack in (mostly) the most delightful, soap opera-y way. I pretty much had no idea what was going to happen because ANYTHING COULD HAVE HAPPENED. I want to give this 4 stars but for one thing, and those who have read this book know exactly what I'm talking about -- Angelique/Ori. First of all, let me say that I appreciate how Angelique turned out to be way smarter than anyone would have suspected, which was awesome. But her irresistible vagina DID get kind of annoying. I actually did think the women in this book were pretty well written, and Clavell definitely understands the mindset of both sets of people really well. BUT OMG WAS THAT ORI THING COMPLETELY PROBLEMATIC OR WHAT!? Like, so many problems with that. I won't go into them. Oh and also the ending was really weird and abrupt and weak.

I am putting this down. I don't care about any of the characters, I find every single one of them somewhere between insufferable and maddening.

I might pick it up another time.

Finally! I finally finished Gai-Jin. Phew. The two-star rating is simply because this book does not measure up to the previous two. It was more confusing, slower-paced, and just generally less compelling, particularly the Japanese side of the story. What I've heard from others is that this is the weak link in the Asian Saga series, so I'm looking forward to reading the next installment and seeing how it improves.

This is the 3rd book in the Asian Saga, but the last book that James Clavell completed. He was working on another when he died. The story of Asia still coming into the west is now up to the 1800s and the American civil war is going on and talked about in the story.

We get into the world of the Japanese, but not as much as in Shogun. This is centered on the English village of Yokohama and the story revolves around how they were trying to open Japan up to trading.

I love Shogun and it's one of my favorite books of all time. Amazing. Tai-pan was a great story too. The amount of work that went into these books is amazing and its understandable that James only had time in his life to write 6 of them. This book was written almost 30 years after Shogun. All the historical elements were there, the research into the culture was there, but the story didn't feel as sharp as the others. Shogun is like a samurai sword slicing perfectly. This story, the blade feels duller to me, less focused.

Plenty happens in these 1100 pages. There is a love story at the heart of this book between Malcolm Straun, the newest Taipan and Angelique, an young French woman. Around them, there is the floating world or the 'whore' houses where all the politics and scheming seem to happen. There are plot twists and each side trying to outsmart the other. The difficulty of the translators is on display and we see how different each side thinks and how they both can't understand the other because their worlds are so different.

There is a band of shishi, which are like terrorist trying to overthrow the shogunate and support the emperor. The shishi are interesting and especially Hiraga. He takes Sun Tsu to heart and he is trying to know his enemy and looks on the outside like he is becoming them. It's all fascinating.

This did take me awhile to read. I am simply having a hard time focusing. One time I would read 100 pages a day and then it might be 2-3 pages with no reading at all and then I would read maybe 20 pages or so for a while. It wasn't the story, it was me. This is my tome for the year, so I am going to try some short fun books to try and ease me back into more focus.

I do love this series and I do plan on reading the other 3 books in the future. They are a lot to digest. This Asian world is so foreign and so hard to believe that's how things were. I'm sure there are still threads that exist in Asia. It's understandable to see why people commit suicide when deals go bad or other people die. It's in their history. Their society is beautiful and oh so harsh.

I would never make it in that society. You have to be so cunning to have a chance at making it in society or you will be under someone's book heel and I am simply not that cunning. Maybe if I were to be brought up to think that way, but the way I am now, oh lord, I would not make it. You have to expect everyone is plotting and scheming against you and you must outsmart them or be swallowed. It's a harsh society in many ways. I do love how clean they are and it simply makes Westerners look so dirty, at that time.

Imperialist western ideas are on full display here and we see the empire building and how they came in and forced themselves on this society who didn't ask for it. They make sure they get the best deals and everything is to their advantage. So much is talked about here as what is happening in world events.

I wouldn't start with this book, but it should be read. James Clavell is a master at his craft and I enjoyed immersing myself in this story. It was worth the time.