![]() ![]() ![]() But mostly, he’s presented as a more international bloke than the sort you’d picture given the time: he has a Chinese mistress, and – albeit in cringe-to-read-now pidgin English – communicates with locals more effectively than his competition in the import/export trade. He’s a man of action, a trader, a sailor and a bloke with a long memory: a lot of the book is taken up with a long-awaited reckoning with his nemesis, Tyler Brock. He’s all action, all the time, whether he’s up to (authorised) freebooting or rooting. (As lean as a 700-page book can be, I suppose.)Ī lot of that cracking energy comes from the titular Tai-Pan (or big cheese) of the work, Dirk Struan. ![]() Sure, Shōgun has a higher level of detail, but Tai-Pan is scrappier, leaner. Tai-Pan was written before Shōgun – even though their positions are reversed if one is to read Clavell’s Asian Saga series in chronological order – and I think that it whips through the action a lot more quickly. Having inhaled Shōgun (and the excellently terrible miniseries adaptation) on a trip through Japan, I was well prepared for the way this novel would go. I did, and I’m glad because if there’s anything that can distract from this year, it’s a doorstopper-sized tome about Bastards Being Bastards played out against the backdrop of 1840s China (including the nascent outpost of Hong Kong) and the oceans of the world. ![]()
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