Customer Reviews

Gai-Jin

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I never finished the book the first time it was published. I thought I'd try the audio as the book was extremely long and to be fair, the reader was great. Unfortunately, the story has NO character the reader can root for or empathize with. The heroine wasn't a good Catholic, the hero was too ill, the bad guy didn't really rape the girl, and her one friend kept wanting to blackmail her into sleeping with him, even though he had V.D.! Unlike Shogun where the Japanese were strangely honorable or Taipan where the Chinese were clever or Noble House where the hero literally fought for his legacy...the people in Gai-jin were remarkably stupid and selfish.

The only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 was because of the occasional mention of the Hag and Uncle Gordon and Toranaga...characters bigger than life. It is the reason I listened to the end. Quite sad that Clavell created characters so rich that it could keep a reader going thru a truly bad novel--just to get whatever tidbits of characters that fascinate--only to create characters in his last novel, that, hopefully, will be forgetable.