Tai-Pan: The Second Novel of the Asian Saga

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He knows how merciless life can be and his primary goal every day is to protect what is his and the people he cares about. Whatever rules Cullum may believe exist in England dinna necessarily translate to the rough and ready wilds of empire building.

There are two major characters I want to talk about, although Clavell managed to create a fairly interesting and diverse cast of characters.I was gonna go with Noble House but that one seems like it has a lot of shit having to do with finance, which I pretty much don’t understand a lot about. They cut off most of the romance stuff, and what romance there is, they've got a lot better chemistry and spend much less time just dully telling each other how much they're in love, or "pillowing", or talking about dildos. Truth be told, I think this was better written than Shōgun even though I actually liked the 1975 book set in Japan better.

In Shogun si aveva da creare lo Shogunato, il destino del Giappone era in gioco e il protagonista era il jolly pescato dall'uomo che avrebbe cambiato la storia nipponica. They hate and despise each other, but more than once as the plot unfolds they find themselves allied in a common cause. The two have been feuding for decades, sworn to destroy each other, despite having similar interests and actually working together a lot of the time. The Taipan is Clavell's greatest character, at least by the parameters I’ve listed, which, if you know the author, says a lot.It might not be something you’ll come back to, but the time taken to read will be well, if guiltily, spent.

I do not think I will be able to muster enough words to explain the sensations I felt while reading this awesome novel. It takes you to the far exotic East, a place that has always enchanted me, with its deeper philosophies, like chinese Taoism, so very different from anything western, or Zen-buddhism, which the samurais embraced as a means to prepare themselves for the eminence of death in combat. While the sudden death of such a likable character certainly had an impact on me, it is without doubt one of the laziest endings I've ever witnessed in a book.It broke my heart a little bit and I cried, usually this would ruin the book for me, but this one was a masterpiece and I can't say even one bad thing about it. Their children fall in love with each other and marry and a huge storm destroys many homes and livelihoods.