SO MANY PAGES...!!!
Oct. 20th, 2008 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
croikOkay so after 20,000 years I finally finished Shogun!
It's a fantastic book, but at the same time, I couldn't help but be disappointed with the ending. It felt like when it got to a certain point, everything started to drag out and be less interesting... The last hundred pages especially. Maybe I should have held off reading it 'cause I'm sick today (ughhhh my throat hurts so bad it's making my ears hurt) and that kind of spoiled some of the enjoyment.
But the first 900 pages or so of the book were really excellent, so that's what I'm going to think about when I look back on the book.
In fact, the end of the book wasn't really an ending anyway. It was pretty much "See Appendix: Actual Japanese History." Which wouldn't really be a bad thing except I was really expecting (and looking forward to) the battle at Sekigahara. Isn't that why someone reads a book entitled "shogun"? To see Tokugawa become shogun? But it stopped short right before he did it! I much would have rathered the author snip two to three hundreds pages from elsewhere in the book and written the battle instead. I mean, the ninja attack that was the "climax" wasn't even really as exciting as the escape from Osaka several hundred pages earlier, so stopping short of the final conflict to declare, "And by the way, Toranaga won" when I could have told you that before even picking up the book...
Well I'm sure it was the right decision but I'm still disappointed not to get a real samurai battle. It's a shame he didn't write Nobunaga's story instead. SO SORRY, NEH? Shit now I'm going to add that to end of every sentence in my head for a long time.
Anyway, I told myself I was going to read The Tale of Genji once I finished, but instead I found a lovely new history book at Borders, so that comes first. Oh samurai history books, I love you as much as fiction <3
On an unrelated note, we need to get some GSRP ideas flowing. Sil if you read this before I come on again, let's start a planning thread for Halloween. There's still time to cook up something. Hopefully I won't be so sick then >:I
It's a fantastic book, but at the same time, I couldn't help but be disappointed with the ending. It felt like when it got to a certain point, everything started to drag out and be less interesting... The last hundred pages especially. Maybe I should have held off reading it 'cause I'm sick today (ughhhh my throat hurts so bad it's making my ears hurt) and that kind of spoiled some of the enjoyment.
But the first 900 pages or so of the book were really excellent, so that's what I'm going to think about when I look back on the book.
In fact, the end of the book wasn't really an ending anyway. It was pretty much "See Appendix: Actual Japanese History." Which wouldn't really be a bad thing except I was really expecting (and looking forward to) the battle at Sekigahara. Isn't that why someone reads a book entitled "shogun"? To see Tokugawa become shogun? But it stopped short right before he did it! I much would have rathered the author snip two to three hundreds pages from elsewhere in the book and written the battle instead. I mean, the ninja attack that was the "climax" wasn't even really as exciting as the escape from Osaka several hundred pages earlier, so stopping short of the final conflict to declare, "And by the way, Toranaga won" when I could have told you that before even picking up the book...
Well I'm sure it was the right decision but I'm still disappointed not to get a real samurai battle. It's a shame he didn't write Nobunaga's story instead. SO SORRY, NEH? Shit now I'm going to add that to end of every sentence in my head for a long time.
Anyway, I told myself I was going to read The Tale of Genji once I finished, but instead I found a lovely new history book at Borders, so that comes first. Oh samurai history books, I love you as much as fiction <3
On an unrelated note, we need to get some GSRP ideas flowing. Sil if you read this before I come on again, let's start a planning thread for Halloween. There's still time to cook up something. Hopefully I won't be so sick then >:I
