He adapts Chinese ways more readily than others, bridging the gap between Britannia’s steel fist and the effective habits of the people who actually live where the novel is set and putting him ahead of the pack. But mostly, he’s presented as a more international bloke than the sort you’d picture given the time: he has a Chinese mistress, and – albeit in cringe-to-read-now pidgin English – communicates with locals more effectively than his competition in the import/export trade. He’s a man of action, a trader, a sailor and a bloke with a long memory: a lot of the book is taken up with a long-awaited reckoning with his nemesis, Tyler Brock. He’s all action, all the time, whether he’s up to (authorised) freebooting or rooting. (As lean as a 700-page book can be, I suppose.)Ī lot of that cracking energy comes from the titular Tai-Pan (or big cheese) of the work, Dirk Struan. Sure, Shōgun has a higher level of detail, but Tai-Pan is scrappier, leaner.

Tai-Pan was written before Shōgun – even though their positions are reversed if one is to read Clavell’s Asian Saga series in chronological order – and I think that it whips through the action a lot more quickly. Having inhaled Shōgun (and the excellently terrible miniseries adaptation) on a trip through Japan, I was well prepared for the way this novel would go. I did, and I’m glad because if there’s anything that can distract from this year, it’s a doorstopper-sized tome about Bastards Being Bastards played out against the backdrop of 1840s China (including the nascent outpost of Hong Kong) and the oceans of the world.

Clavell novel tai