Gai-Jin

The Epic Novel of the Birth of Modern Japan

By: James Clavell

Narrated by: John Lee

The dynamic epic novel of political upheaval and societal change in late 1800s Japan, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author and unparalleled master of historical fiction, James Clavell

This epic novel by master writer James Clavell, loosely based on the Namamugi Incident and Anglo-Satsuma War that took place in the late 1800s, is a richly researched, panoramic view of Japan’s budding relationship with the Western powers, its sweeping societal changes, and the political upheaval that followed.

As Malcolm Struan, the son of Culum and Tess Struan, and a small band of Westerners travel down the Tōkaidō road, they are attacked by two Satsuma samurai, who mortally wound John Canterbury and seriously injure Malcolm, who then finds reprieve in the merchant village of Yokohama after a narrow escape facilitated by the unscathed Angelique.

Angelique Richaud, Malcolm’s penniless but beautiful French companion, is thrown into a world of political intrigue, fierce devotion, unstable family dynamics, blackmail, and secrets as the trading houses battle for supremacy.

With a cast of dynamic and fully recognized characters, Gai-Jin spins a tale of passionate love affairs, devastating loss, intense power struggles, and the fight to survive and thrive in a hostile new land that will leave listeners longing for another foray into Clavell’s extraordinary Asian Saga.

©2015 James Clavell (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Compared to Taipan and Shogun this was mediocre.

Shogun in Taipan are epic books by the same author. This book was much less engaging. In addition, the performance was not as compelling. This may be due to the lack of depth and relation to some of the characters. The voices of all the Japanese characters sounded very similar. Also some of the Japanese word pronunciation was incorrect. If you don't speak Japanese then that won't bother you. This book was just okay. I'm glad I finished it, but I'm also glad it's over.

great book. I'm sad to see it end.

I had hoped for an ending as legendary as shogun and tai pan. this book was good all the way through.

In so many ways so much better than a movie

Books have such better character development and plot and scenery if you use your imagination. This is a fantastic way to enjoy James Clavell's brilliant writing, and the performance enriches the remake with the accents and characters and inflections.

John Lee's telling of this story was excellent.

Another Clavell work that is excellent in both depth of character and story. Please to anyone interested start with Shogun and follow the tale. You will enjoy the journey.

Awful reading

The reading of this book was awful. The accents were terrible and often the book would say a person yelled or raised their voice and the reader would actually read it quieter. The book itself wasn’t as good as the first two but wasn’t awful.

Excellent and riveting

The narrator did an amazing job with all the voices and accents. Really enjoyed listening to this epic story!

Gotta love Clavell!

I truly enjoy all of his novels. So rich in history, detail and culture.

The reading and acting are superb!

Not as good as Shogun or Tai Pan but still good

not as good as the first two chronological books but still good. the ending was better than expected.

Another James Clavell Book

This is the third book I read from the Asian Saga series. I have come to expect James Clavell' novel to have extensive background and details of building his characters and the storyline. I have enjoyed the first two books of the series, but I just cannot stomach this one. Maybe because I finished reading Sho-Gun then went straight to Gai-Jun. The storyline and the plot twists were all so familiar.

Even though I came to appreciate the amount of details he put into developing all the characters for the first two books, I have grown tired of learning every tiny detail. Imagine writing a novel of everything you do in all 365 days of the year. That's how I feel about reading these books. After listening to 30+ hours, I just had to stop. I really wanted to like this one as I had enjoyed the previous two, but it was becoming too much of the same thing.

It was good

The performance is staggeringly great!

The story is good.

However, some parts did just not interest me as much as others. The shishi sonojoi stuff was very hard to care about. They just seemed incredibly shallow and obsessed with killing and dying. Yawn. Really basic characters with zero redeeming qualities. The emperor and the shogun, Yoshi, were barely in the story so there were just no Asian characters of note, at all. Certainly no one to care about. The other challenge was that the performer had to do the Japanese voices and he did them exceedingly well! But he had to speak their dialogue in English of course, even when they would have spoken to each other in Japanese, and so he had to do their voices in broken English, I mean, Engrish. He had to do this to distinguish their voices with a nod to the fact that they were Japanese. But this is challenging to listen to for very long, especially when this story line is dull and one note, well two notes - kill and die. (To be fair one of them also obsessed on rape too.) And they were a huge part of the story. We didn’t have a Dirk Struen to love - no strong central character - there were many English characters and mainly two Japanese idiots. So not as much of a strong pull in the story from any character. It was more …broad.

Angelique’s rape added a complication certainly and I was rooting for her, even though I thought it far fetched she could wake up and open the door when they knocked, and also talk to them, but that she’d then sleep through a rape! The author should have made her passed out period, never acknowledgeing anyone. If someone at your door wakes you, rape would! And that she also enjoyed the rape was …at best very far fetched.

It was still an interesting listen as the time period is fascinating. The performer was so good it was incredible to hear him do so many voices!!

The book is good enough. Not as much of a ride as Tai Pan ( or Shogun of course). Tai Pan pulled us through! I loved so many of the players! This book just meanders and step by step we are moved through, chapter by chapter, well enough. Often I had a hard time keeping track of who was who because they hadn’t made an impression frankly.

No one really to love. Like able yes.

So, good enough.