History and Mystery Reads

Rating: 7/10

• Accuracy: Loosely based on William Adams and Tokugawa Ieyasu around 1600, with names changed and Japanese customs sometimes simplified or exaggerated.
• Readability: Gripping and immersive, though over 1,000 pages long.
• Plot: An English pilot shipwrecked in Japan becomes a pawn and then a player in a struggle for supreme power.
• Science bonus: Blackthorne’s value lies in navigation: his rutter, the secret record of sea routes and reckonings, is a prize that Portuguese, Jesuits and Japanese all want.

In 1600 John Blackthorne, English pilot of a Dutch ship, is wrecked on the coast of Japan. He is captured, threatened with death, and gradually becomes the servant and adviser of Toranaga, a powerful lord manoeuvring to become Shōgun. He falls in love with Mariko, a Christian noblewoman who serves as his translator.

James Clavell, a former prisoner of the Japanese during the Second World War, based Blackthorne on William Adams, the first Englishman in Japan, and Toranaga on Tokugawa Ieyasu. The novel explores the clash of cultures, the politics of the Jesuits and the Portuguese, and the intricacies of Japanese feudal society.

The book’s strength is its immersion. Readers learn about food, bathing, honour, poetry and power through Blackthorne’s eyes, and the political intrigue is superbly plotted. Toranaga is a memorable strategist.

The weaknesses are its Orientalist view of Japan, the exaggeration of violence and sexuality, and some inaccuracies. The English hero’s role is inflated for drama, and Japanese characters sometimes become exotic types.

The 7 reflects a hugely entertaining novel that shaped Western views of Japan for decades. The 1980 miniseries was a phenomenon, and a 2024 adaptation offered a more Japanese-centred version.