Shogun by James Clavell is a great novel filled with many lessons, particularly about duty and honor.
In my Shogun Book Review we’ll cover basic synopsis, some lessons learned, and some of my overall closing thoughts.
Keeping this exerpt more “high level” so as a result I won’t spoil anything for you if you do decide to read these books.
This review only encompasses part I, see Shogun Part II book review.
June 10, 2024 by Kazu Fujimoto
Story
Englishman John Blackthorne gets lost at sea, caught in a storm, and eventually winds up in Japan with his immediate crew of the ship Erasmus. The book takes place in the Sixteenth Century or so – a period of time when empires such as the English, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese were focused on expansion and discovery. This was also the era of the Samurai,
During this period of time, there also arises civil conflict in Japan, between various different provinces and Blackthorne needs to figure out what to do so that both he and his crew can survive and even get back home, all the way to England.
Below are some of the main points and lessons that I’ve been able to pick up from this book and thought were interesting.
Christianity
Although I don’t practice religion directly, I’ve mores been recently open to implementation in my life. There’s something attractive about the values and principles that are associated with religion, especially with those such as love and kindness.
However, there was something that struck out to me regarding a point of view on the Christian Religion:
He said that the Christian religion was vulnerable because they taught that their chief deity, Jesu, said that all people should ‘love’ one another – he taught nothing about honor or duty, only love
Omi
The interpretation of this, I will leave up to you.
This is a conversation that occurs early on in the book which drives the narrative of honor and duty that you will read throughout the book.
Persuasion
The main character Blackthorne is an Englishman that wound up on Japanese territory. Of course, thing will unfold such that the Japanese will be proceeding with caution the entire time. There are many situations in which Blackthorne is presented with someone important and with a translator.
There are also cases in that there was a man, a woman, and a boy, and it was interesting to see who he put his focus on to try to win over. I drew a parallel between this situation and in business such that there will be times in business where you will need to persuade someone, but you will be upon many differing perspectives.
Business and meetings are no one size fits all, so as a result you will need to execute accordingly.
Six faced and three hearts
Never forget Japmen’re six-faced and have three hearts. It’s a saying they have, that a man has a false heart in his mouth for all the world to see, another in his breast to show his very special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is never known to anyone except himself alone
Rodrigues
This comes from one of the Portuguese interpreters that have picked up Japanese.
Note that this book takes place around the time Christian missionaries arrived in Japan with Father Xavier and the Jesuits in the 1540s. The rise of Christianity did bring forth conflict and threaten national unity, which ultimately resulted in the Tokugawa shogunate banning Christianity in 1620.
Although it was interesting to read about this characterization towards Japanese, I’d wager that naturally we are all like that.
We express ourselves as a certain character in work, as another character to our family and friendships, and to ourselves alone, maybe even a completely different character.
Seppuku
Seppuku is the art of killing oneself by cutting into his or her own stomach. It was repeatedly brought throughout the book that whenever one did something which was dishonorable, they would ask for permission to commit seppuku. I thought it was insane that they would value death and honor over their lives.
Some characters in the book, would do things such as make mistakes which would then bring dishonor to themselves or their family. They would then ask their masters and leaders if they had permission to kill themselves. Some masters would not grant them the luxury of death and have them continuing to suffer in reality.
It’s so wild to think about as many of us who live in the 21th century, I’m sure value our lives. (I know things like suicide occur, that’s a completely and irrelevant subject.)
It’s also interesting to see other perspectives on life and death that this book provides.
My Closing Thoughts
Being Japanese myself, the book hits extremely hard.
One of my greatest strengths is execution. Which is basically just getting things done. I’m generally someone that’s pretty reliable and as a result, if I tell someone I’m going to do something, I get it done.
I understand what moves the needle and what doesn’t, so I focus on the things that move the needle.
Under promise and over deliver.
That which his ancestors most liked to do and most constantly did cannot be erased from a man’s soul
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
I like to think about why we are the way we are and ultimately, I believe it’s a combination of our upbringing, flaws, and qualities that we as individuals each posses.
About the author of this book review
Kazuyoshi Fujimoto, PE
Founder | Engineering Career Coach | Principal Mechanical Engineer
Kazu oversees all of ultmeche’s engineering services. He provides consulting such as resume reviews, rewrites, mock interviews, and all services career related. Additionally, Kazu performs consulting work regarding Oil & Gas, Automotive, and Aerospace & Defense. Kazu is licensed as a professional engineer in the state of California and has 9+ years of experience in Oil & Gas, Automotive, and Aerospace & Defense.
In his spare time, he also enjoys reading books ranging from Fiction, Non-Fiction, History, Business, Economics, Biographies or anything that remotely interests him and likes to write about it.
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