Since I have close ties to Japan, I’ve wanted to read the novel Shogun by James Clavell for a long time now. I tried a couple of times, but always put the book aside because it was so boring and because the length just made it seem like an impossible obstacle to overcome.
Then I got the bright idea of trying the audiobook version. That way, “reading” the book would require much less effort and I could soak up the story while driving, cooking, cleaning, etc. Unfortunately, listening to the story doesn’t make it any more interesting. Frankly, I really don’t understand why this book has attracted so much attention and has managed to gain legions of fans from around the world. Obviously there must be some merit to it, but it’s beyond me.
Plus, I just have to say that the reader for this version absolutely sucks! I mean, I don’t want to bag on the guy too much, but that was the most god-awful rendering of the Japanese language that I have ever heard — and I’ve heard plenty of people butcher the language in various ways. I’m not saying that a Japanese expert should have read the book, but geez, you’d think the guy (who is a professional reader, by the way) would have done at least a bit of research into how to pronounce the language since there was so much of it sprinkled throughout the text.
Not only that, but the reader didn’t have a very wide range of voices for the different characters. He used the same voice for severl recurring characters, which made it hard to distinguish who was talking to whom (especially for the women). Again, this guy is supposed to be a professional book reader/performer. He should be able to do consistent voices, right?
All in all, the whole thing was crap. From the story to the reading to the god-forsaken length… Sorry Shogun fans, I recommend staying as far away from this book as possible!