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Title: Shogun
Series: The Asian Saga #1
Author: James Clavell
Rating: Unrated / DNF@68%
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 1113 / 757
Words: 438K / 298K
When I read this in 2010, I loved it. It wasn’t perfect but the utter foreignness of the setting (1600’s I think, in Japan) made for an enthralling read.
This time, all I could read were the sailors swearing like sailors. The biggest part was that they would claim to be Christians and then take Jesus’s name in vain as part of their daily routine. I’m not blaming Clavell for including it, which is why I’m leaving this unrated, but it is not something I want to get comfortable with. It was starting to bug me and then it happened with several of the characters multiple times in just a few pages, so I decided I had had enough and dnf’d the book.
I don’t know why it bothered me so much this time and not so much back in ‘10. While I am older, I don’t feel like I can say I am more mature as a Christian, if anything I realize just how much in the shallow end of the pool I really am. My own temptation to swear at work is waaaaaay greater and thus harder to fight against. I’m less involved at church. I didn’t think much about it when I just dnf’d it, but now that I am writing, it is a puzzling aspect to me. I haven’t come to any conclusion but now I am curious. Something changed in me and I don’t know what it is. I’ll have to keep on cogitating on it.
I definitely won’t be re-reading the rest of the Asian Saga, as I remember not enjoying them nearly as much as I did Shogun back then. So another re-read that didn’t quite work out. I seem to have gone through a list of books like that in the last month or two. Good thing my tbr is close to 300!
Unrated DNF@68%
