Shogun

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Shogun

"Shogun" is a book written by a famous writer James Clavell telling us about the way of life, customs and traditions existing in feudal Japan in the sixteenth century and about life and adventures of one shipwrecked English ship pilot who suddenly finds himself in medieval Japan with its rival war-lords, samurai, seppuku, geishas and other things and notions looking strange and even wild for a European man.

The book's main characters are John Blackthorne, an English ship pilot of the Dutch ship "Erasmus"; a beautiful lady Toda Buntaro Mariko who falls in love with him; the most important Japanese feudal lord and warlord Yoshi Toranaga, the leader of half the country aiming at becoming Shogun (a supreme military dictator); and his rival Ishido.

The novel begins with the description of the violent storm that caught a Dutch ship "Erasmus" not far from the coast of Japan. The British pilot-major John Blackthorne with part of his crew who managed to survive find themselves on a strange island captured by strange people following strange and unknown customs and code. The ship is confiscated along with Blackthorn's stolen protégées "rutter" which I their only map home.Everything is strange and unknown for Blackthorne. He finds that the town he is in is ruled by a samurai named Omi. The author describes a terrible scene in which Omi decapitates a peasant just for nothing – for not bowing, it is shown here that in this country life costs nothing, it is also shows that disrespect can cost one's life. The samurai Omi put the pilot and his crew members into a pit that is used as a jail. It became clear to the samurai that the only captive worth dealing with was the pilot-major, Blackthorne. After the torture and death of one of the crew members and Omi's threat to do harm to other members if he misbehaves, the pilot agrees to behave. And after that he's allowed out of the pit. It is difficult for the Japanese to pronounce "Blackthorne", so Omi renames him "Anjin" which means "pilot".

When Blackthorne or Anjin realizes that he is really out of prison, he can hardly believe it. It becomes clear later that it was Toranaga who threw him into jail for the purpose of keeping him from his enemy Ishido.

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