Gai-Jin
Authors: James Clavell
PRAISE FOR JAMES CLAVELL’S
GAI-JIN
The Long-Awaited Sixth Novel in His
Magnificent Asian Saga
“Gai-Jin
is Shōgun plus! … Great entertainment.”
—
Daily News
(New York)
“Clavell keeps you turning the pages.”
—
Los Angeles Daily News
“A feast of intrigue, romance, blackmail, plot and counterplot … it should be read for its ability to immerse the reader in a century and culture at once distant from our own, yet oddly familiar …. The characters’ motivations are ones that cut across time and place: corruption, greed, fear, lust, and the ancient need for revenge.”
—
West Coast Review of Books
“Gai-Jin
is major reading. If you like Clavell’s other novels, you’ll surely sink your teeth into this one. He is a master at capturing the Japanese persona …. He dives deep into the complexities of a monarchic society and the early attempts at cross-cultural negotiations. The result is nothing less than a saga.”
—
Sun-Times
(Chicago)
“Unceasingly satisfying … Clavell is in top-notch form …. He again melds plot-driven storytelling and colorful characterization in vibrant collaboration with an exotic, dynamic setting.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“Exhilarating … a rich, enveloping novel.”
—
Cosmopolitan
“Interesting, exciting…James Clavell fans will love it!”
—
The Milwaukee Journal
“Compelling … The Japanese love fine
jubako—
lacquered boxes that fit within boxes that are in boxes. In
Gai-Jin
, James Clavell has written a
jubako
of a novel.”
—
Christian Science Monitor
“Spirited storytelling … you get your money’s worth.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
“Clavell is an artful, entertaining storyteller …. There’s not a page in
Gai-Jin
that doesn’t advance the plot, develop a character, or resolve some conflict with a burst of action.”
—
San Jose Mercury News
“An exciting story … history, romance, exotic settings. Spies, double-dealing, narrow escapes, violent deaths. All the basic ingredients of a runaway best seller are here in James Clavell’s latest Asia-based novel,
Gai-Jin.”
—
The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly
“A well-told story … few eras of Japanese history were more violent, turbulent, and politically exasperating than the 1860s…. Mr. Clavell revels in the turbulence of political death and rebirth.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
| 1600 | SHŌGUN |
| 1841 | TAI-PAN |
| 1862 | GAI-JIN |
| 1945 | KING RAT |
| 1963 | NOBLE HOUSE |
| 1979 | WHIRLWIND |
This novel is for you, whoever you are, with deep appreciation—for without you, the writer part of me would not exist….
Gai-Jin
, meaning foreigner, is set in Japan, in 1862.
It is not history but fiction. Many of the happenings did occur according to historians and to books of history which, of themselves, do not necessarily always relate what truly happened. Nor is it about any real person who lived or is supposed to have lived, nor about any real company. Kings and queens and emperors are correctly named, as are a few generals and other exalted persons. Apart from these I have played with
history—
the where and how and who and why and when of it—to suit my own reality and, perhaps, to tell the real history of what came to pass.
Map of Japan in 1862
YOKOHAMA
14
TH SEPTEMBER
1862:
The panic-stricken girl was galloping full speed back towards the coast, half a mile ahead, along footpaths that led precariously through the rice swamps and paddy fields. The afternoon sun bore down. She rode sidesaddle and though normally expert, today she could hardly keep her balance. Her hat had vanished and her green riding habit, the height of Parisian fashion, was ripped by brambles and speckled with blood, tawny fair hair streaming in the wind.
She whipped the pony faster. Now she could see the tiny hovels of the Yokohama fishing village clustering the high fence and canals that enclosed the Foreign Settlement and spires of the two small churches within and knew, thankfully, in the bay beyond were British, French, American and Russian merchantmen and a dozen warships, both steam and sail.
Faster. Over narrow wooden bridges and canals and irrigation ditches that crisscrossed the paddy and swamps. Her pony was lathered with sweat, a deep wound on his shoulder and tiring rapidly. He shied. A bad moment but she recovered, and now she swerved onto the path that led through the village to the bridge over the encircling canal and to the main gate and the samurai guard house, and Japanese Customs House.
The two-sworded samurai sentries saw her coming and moved to intercept, but she charged through them into the wide main street of the Settlement proper on the seafront. One of the samurai guards rushed for an officer.
She reined in, panting.
“Au secours … à l’aide
, help!”
The promenade was almost deserted, most of the inhabitants at siesta or yawning in their countinghouses, or dallying in the Pleasure Houses outside the fence.
“Help!” she called out again and again, and the few men spread along its length, British traders and off-duty soldiers and sailors mostly, some Chinese servants, looked up startled.
“God Almighty, look there! It’s the French girl …”
“What’s amiss? Christ, look at her clothes …”
“Cor, it’s her, the smasher, Angel Tits, arrived couple of weeks ago …”
“That’s right, Angelique … Angelique Beecho or Reecho, some Frog name like that…. ”
“My God,
look at the blood!”
Everyone began converging on her, except the Chinese who, wise after millennia of sudden trouble, vanished. Faces began to appear in windows.
“Charlie, fetch Sir William on the double!”
“Christ Almighty, look at her pony, poor bugger will bleed to death, get the vet,” a corpulent trader called out. “And you, soldier, quick, get the General, and the Frog, she’s his ward—oh, for God’s sake, the French Minister, hurry!” Impatiently he pointed at a single-story house flying the French flag. “Hurry!” he bellowed. The soldier rushed off, and he trundled for her as fast as he could. Like all traders he wore a top hat and woolen frock coat, tight pants, boots, and sweated in the sun. “What on earth happened, Miss Angelique?” he said, grabbing her bridle, aghast at the dirt and blood that speckled her face and clothes and hair. “Are you hurt?”
“Moi, non
… no, I think not but we were attacked…Japanners attacked us.” She was trying to catch her breath and stop shaking, still in terror, and pushed the hair out of her face. Urgently she pointed inland westwards, Mount Fuji vaguely on the horizon. “Back there, quick, they need—need help!”
Those nearby were appalled and noisily began relaying the half news to others and asking questions: Who? Who was attacked? Are they French or British? Attacked? Where? Two-sword bastards again! Where the hell did this happen … ?
Questions overlaid other questions and gave her no time to answer, nor could she yet, coherently, her chest heaving, everyone pressing closer, crowding her. More and more men poured into the street putting on coats and hats, many already armed with pistols and muskets, a few with the latest American breech-loading rifles. One of these men, a big-shouldered, bearded Scot, ran down the steps of an imposing two-story building. Over the portal was “Struan and Company.” He shoved his way through to her in the uproar.