Customer Reviews

Shogun Part 1 Of 3

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I'm very sorry.

The past year has seen a shift in my reading habits from paper-versions of books to the audio-versions. Audio I find preferable as you can read it in bed AND in the dark, without your hands aching from a heavy book.

One of my favorite books, one that I already read in dutch (my native language) when I was 11, in english when I was 22 and even seen the television-series in the mean time, was Shogun. I wanted to read this again...in this new format.

How disappointed I was.

The voice of the reader is boring to the extreme. Monotone, terrible accents, chaotic inflections. I again apologize, but I can't say anything positive about this adaptation of the book.

I admit NOT to have been able to finish ALL of the HOURS and HOURS of tapes...I probably never will. I managed the first 10 hours so far.

Maybe I'll find the time to record/dictate copy of the book some day...that will probably be my only chance of 'hearing' it completely.

I "read" a lot of audio books and unfortunately the talent of the reader can affect the result a great deal. In this case the reader has a slow drawn out pronounciation which I can live with. Unfortunately for the small amount of Japanese text his skill is non-existent. Although I speak some japanese I have trouble working out which words he is saying much of the time as he pronounces them so poorly - unfortunately I find this very distracting
He has given Blackthorn the accent of an English farmer or country Hick which also doesn't seem to fit the complexity of the character.
The book remains as enjoyable as ever - but for such a lengthy venture it is a shame they could not have got a reader who could have done more justice to this exceptional story.

Shogun is one of a series of books written by James Clavells. In this novel, he portrays a Portuguese traveler called "Blackthorne" who is on a voyage and is shipwrecked at Japan. He and his crew are roughly introduced to a nation at civil war with a totally different culture. Blackthorne gains respect from various Warlords and samurai and moves up the ranks becoming an addvisor to one of the warlords. This revealing and astonishing book is well worth reading. It goes into interesting detail illustrating the behavior of the samurai and the lifestyle of the Japanese at these times. Personally I found one of the best parts to be when a war occurs between two waging samurai groups.
Definetly get this book by any means possible and read it!!