I highly recommend watching this seires if you havent already It is set at the beginning of the 17th century and is based on the true story of an english navigator, William Adams, who becomes the first white samurai, and also advisor to Tokugawa Ieyasu. It has a pretty good story and provides a great insight into japanese culture during this time.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083069/

looks cool

thanks

I am on page 500.

Great book. I've read on samurai archives that James clevells depiction of the Japanese is not entirely accurate but i like the
Book all the same. I haven't watched the movie yet

The movie series is pretty enjoyable. The whole story is nice because it does try to give you a look into the culture and politics of feudal Japan. Considering the time when it was written (and the movie was made) it was probably new material to a lot of people. My only gripe is the fawning between Blackthorne and Mariko becomes unbearable in the movie series.

I do appreciate that Clavell doesn't hold any punches about the samurai. We here in the West seem to have this pedestal upon which we place the concepts of samurai and bushido when, in reality, they were not much different from knights and chivalry. Just like in Europe, the samurai were a privileged class who could legally mistreat (or kill) the peasant class. Honor etc only really extended to others of the privileged classes and, even then, feudal lord were not above hiring "less honorable" people to do their dirty work for them. That isn't to say the Japanese did anything worse than other "feudal" societies around the globe, but they certainly weren't superior morally or otherwise...just different.

I finished reading the book last week.
It was good.

My only gripe is his choice to mix historically accurate names in with the fiction, seemingly at random will for no significant purpose. There are similar names, accurate names, switched around names and completely made-up names. I would have preferred all fictional names or close to fully accurate.