Noble House (Paperback)

~ James Clavell (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Dell Printing; Fourth Printing edition (1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440164834
• ISBN-13: 978-0440164838
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #477,448 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MASTERPIECE WORTHY OF THE TAIPAN!, September 30, 2007

By	NeuroSplicer (Freeside, in geosynchronous orbit) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

James Clavell was a WONDERFUL Writer (yes, with a capital W) and NOBLE HOUSE was a gift he left to us!

Through his eyes we visit Hong Kong in the 1970's. Clavell, like a virtuoso connaisseur of the human condition he is, manages to interweave a multitude of stories into a continuous carpet of a city living fast, taking risks, winning and loosing but never giving up.
Heads of huge conglomerates on the verge of foundering - yet never letting go of their rival's throat; dirt-poor Chinese maids striking it rich by a sudden turn of their joss; photographer-Wo and his trophy collection; drug-running smugglers asking for favors-you-can't-refuse; cold war spy networks riddled with double and triple agents; an American stock-market runner trying his hand in raiding Hong Kong companies; ladies getting "pillowed", men getting wooed, fortunes made and lost in the 10 days these all take place. Will the Noble House survive?

To quote Balzac, behind every great fortune lies crime. To prove him right, Noble House is but a thinly veiled reference to Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd, a real company. Anticlimactically for an historic British company operating in China, it is nowadays incorporated in Bermuda - and trying to forget its opium-running past (like so many City of London companies respectable today yet founded on drugs and dead natives).

All these stories are presented masterfully, without ever loosing the reader's interest or dropping the ball of building tension. There were less than a dozen writers who could do this - starting with Homer.

My copy was so worn I had to replace it.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

PS:
There is a 1988 TV mini series based on this book - of comparable merit. (The mini-series are currently available only on VHS). The major casting was excellent (having suave Pierce Brosnan and beastly John Rhys-Davies go head-to-head was a stroke of genius). Although it run for 6 hours total, it barely scraped the surface of the complex story-lines. Truly beautiful production.
Nevertheless, my advice is to first read the book and only THEN watch the TV version.