Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 18, 2021 7:26:32 GMT -8
Publication order of Sano Ichiro booksThe first book, Shinju, was mostly pretty good. The second book, Bundori, started to wear thin because of some of the holes in the format. Be that as it may, I’m now reading the third book in the series, The Way of the Traitor. Detective-samurai Sano Ichiro is sent to Nagasaki in the year 1690. Nagasaki is the one city that is open to trade with the outside world and that’s exclusively with the Dutch. The head trader of the Dutch delegation goes missing and is later found washed up on the beach. Sano had been sent to Nagasaki as a means for the #2 man under the Shogun to try to get rid of him either by having him killed outright or mired in scandal. And the rules in Nagasaki regarding conduct concerning the Dutch are so strict, a death penalty awaits even minor violations or accusations. Sano is there on an inspection tour but wings it and takes over the investigation of the murder. The governor and other officials are glad to wash their hands of the matter and let Sano take over. The strength of these novels is the immersion into 17th century Japan. The weakness is Sano Ichiro himself whose character often seems ill-defined or random. Some of the plotting is a bit comic-bookish or amateurish from time to time. The author offers a realism that often doesn’t go too deep because of some of the thin or inconsistent characterizations. But the immersion in 17th century Japan generally does work well.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 20, 2021 9:25:07 GMT -8
Did you write some reviews of this series at ST? I recall some books to do with a Chinese "detective," but also seem to recall you mentioning this series as well. My memory is not what it used to be.
P.S. I was looking into this series at my local library and it hit me that the author of this series also wrote some books on Victorian England, the first of which I started to read. It was such trash (it was basically porno) that I stopped within the first 50-60 pages, which is very unusual for me.
I can't recall if I started any of her Sinju books.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 20, 2021 20:54:52 GMT -8
Yes, I wrote a little bit about it. The fact is, I picked up and finished Bundori after having laid it down for a year and a half (if not longer).
I certainly can’t say if 17th century Japan is being portrayed accurately, but it seems as if it is. I also think the problem with the main character is that a woman is trying to write a heroic man. And you can tell the writer just can’t speak the language. So the character comes off a little odd at times. And certainly the main character is less a character you can relate to and more a stick-figure to be bent as needed for the plot.
But in this third book, it’s interesting seeing the Dutch from the Japanese point of view. They (and probably all outsiders) are known as “barbarians.” And from their personal hygiene habits, you can see why this is a fitting label….even while the Dutch man ships that could blow just about any Japanese coastal city so smithereens.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 21, 2021 7:23:28 GMT -8
I can see the influence. In the Agatha-Christie-like culmination (all the bad guys are brought together and the mystery is resolved), the Bundori murderer butt-rapes the Shogun’s second-in-command (the Chancellor, arch-enemy of Sano). This seemed highly gratuitous. So there definitely is a little perv in the author.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 21, 2021 14:14:28 GMT -8
I can't recall if the Japanese preferred to call foreigners, "devils" like the traditional Chinese do, or just "barbarians."
While there is no doubt that the Dutch, and other Europeans, had pretty poor personal hygiene, even if they had washed every day, they would still have smelled bad to the Japanese. It is a matter of diet, and Europeans, with their diets heavy in meat and dairy products, have a particular odor. People who eat mainly rice, vegetables and fish smell very different.
By the way, East Asians generally saw Westerners as being excessively hairy and having very long noses. Look at some of the early pictures from Japan and China depicting those foreign devils/barbarians. Perhaps sailors do tend to being hirsute with large proboscises.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 21, 2021 17:13:50 GMT -8
That’s a point that actually is made in the novel.
Yes, the hairiness is mentioned as well. I mostly find myself siding with the 17th century Japanese, especially after returning from the supermarket. Westerners are a dirty, uncouth people. And if not bodily, then it’s just the same mentally and morally amongst the so-called elite.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 21, 2021 17:49:43 GMT -8
Westerners, particularly Americans, have become slovenly and porcine over the last fifty years. I believe it is simply a case of things being too easy for most. Many/most of those we today consider poor would be considered wealthy in past societies.
Let us count the ways.
1. Food is plentiful and affordable. 2. Virtually everyone has a TV and radio. 3. Virtually everyone has a telephone. 4. The percentage of truly homeless is small. 5. Clothing is plentiful and cheap. 6. Education is available and free for a minimum of 12 years. This includes free meals. 7. Medical care is available and inexpensive if one is on Medicaid. 8. Virtually everyone has indoor plumbing and electricity.
I don't believe I need to go on to prove my point.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 22, 2021 7:51:39 GMT -8
All those things are intrinsically good….or at least not bad. Funny how they’ve eroded our character though.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 22, 2021 9:51:55 GMT -8
Perhaps the phrase, "Too much of a good thing" was created for similar situations.
There are no new problems. Humanity has always been a sorry lot. The fact is, we as a society, have forgotten all the old aphorisms which have been passed down to us by our ancestors. We are ignorant of history and think like children. This has been planned.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 22, 2021 17:00:30 GMT -8
So true.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 29, 2021 12:18:36 GMT -8
I finished the 3rd Sano Ichiro novel this morning. I can honestly say that the hero of these stories has all the charisma of a bus accident. I also think the lack of charm and relatability of any of these characters is because these novels are written by a woman. There is a decided difference between the so-called “cozy mystery” and something written by Rudyard Kipling.
That’s not the worst of it. The plots themselves (although this book started off solid enough) are artless, dull, and repetitive. There was exactly zero pay-off in this detective mystery for having trudged to the end.
Why do you bother? one may well ask. Well, I won’t bother anymore. I’m still somewhat amazed that a writer who obviously did a lot of historical research could have written such artless stories and characters. They are wafer-thin with nothing to sink your teeth into.
I’m surprised that she had endurance enough to write 18 in the series. In the back of my mind, I was hoping these novels would get better with practice. But they just got more artless and perfunctory. At least with the Ian Rutledge novels, the character was well-defined and interesting even if the plots were rather bad. But when you start rooting for the criminals, you know the author has lost you. I couldn’t have cared less if Sano Ichiro had been killed off or thrown into prison.
Writing, when done well, is a way to communicate a time, place, and characters. Good writing makes them come alive. But Sano Ichiro only ever felt like a wafer-thin finger puppet for the writer to bend this way and that in order to crank out yet another ten pages. And there was just way too much estrogen in the way this story of a high-ranking samurai was told.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 29, 2021 12:40:38 GMT -8
It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. You have confirmed my thoughts regarding this author. I can now forget about reading anything she writes. Hours of my precious time saved. Thanks.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 29, 2021 15:42:13 GMT -8
I did indeed do the dirty job. I was hoping, as with the Elsa Hart stories (Jade Dragon Mountain, The White Mirror, City of Ink) that there would begin to be assembled “more than the sum of its parts.” But the Sano books by Laura Joh Rowland never took off. The main character, strangely, became less and less defined, less realistic. Note that Elsa Hart (presumably) is a woman and I found her writing engaging. This other broad though inserts ridiculous amounts of estrogen into a story of a detective samurai. She constantly has him questioning his motivations. And the character is a waffle. One of the worst devices I’ve run into in a long time was the device of Sano not letting his sidekick help him. He did this in order to keep him out of danger. What’s his job as his sidekick? To be by his master’s side facing danger. This chick likely had the historical datum right. But the characters never felt real. And despite the bloodletting (badly written), you never got the impression that any of these samurai were Clint Eastwood. They were more like Oprah in samurai clothing. Actually, I wish she would have killed off Sano in this one and let his sidekick take over. At last this guy had a pair of cahonies. There were all kinds of opportunities to write a good story. The cast and set that she assembled was good enough. But she just had no grandness or imaginative spirit or something. Hard to put into numbers, but you know it when you read it. All elements but storytelling artistry are there. Regarding Elsa Hart, she stopped at three with her novels centered around Li Du. I could try her The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne. But the reviews suggest this is a serious dropoff from her Chinese novels. The search continues for something to read. Dare I try another Ian Rutledge? I think I'm burned out on those.
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