“Shōgun” forces you to approach those issues and encourages you to listen to its lessons on becoming more aware of the world - even if it makes you uncomfortable. has an increasingly toxic attitude toward nations in the global south that are scarred from the actions of colonizers. A lot of the issues confronted in “Shōgun,” such as the hazards of colonialism and rampant xenophobia, are still problems we are wrestling with today - the U.S. Throughout the novel, these issues are either subtly addressed or thrust upon the reader, designed to make you ponder the subjects, to feel disgusted that these things are happening and to think whether we’ve really changed as a society. The first edition cover of “Shōgun.” / Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons “Shōgun” tackles a variety of social issues such as xenophobia, prejudice and conceptions of racial superiority, while also discussing prominent political topics like the pitfalls of colonialism, the cloak and dagger nature of political maneuvering, and the dangers of isolationism. Instead of wallowing in disappointment about the lack of dragons, I ended up finding a wonderful piece of literature addressing problems we still struggle with today.

I was persuaded to read “Shōgun” because I’d heard it was like “Game of Thrones” but instead of Westeros, it’s set in feudal Japan and sadly without dragons. In the end, he still picks himself back up to persevere and survive. He’s confronted by a culture he doesn’t understand, a country he doesn’t know and a series of events out of his control. From there, it picked me up and dragged me along Blackthrone’s harrowing tale of love, loss and struggle to survive in a foreign land where there are adversaries at every turn. The novel threw me into the year 1600 with the story of English pilot John Blackthorne, whose ship and crew are marooned in Japan after being caught in a vicious storm. When I started “Shōgun,” it immediately stoked my imagination, seized my heart and put my life on autopilot for the next couple of weeks as I raced to the finish.

From that, I assumed it would be lackluster in today’s context, but it wasn’t. I’d heard family members talk endlessly about how “Shōgun” captivated the minds of people in the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s with its book and miniseries. I cannot say I had high expectations when I picked up James Clavell’s historical fiction novel “Shōgun” (1975).

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