`Read Pdf ⚜ Tai-Pan (Asian Saga, #2) é An Alternate Cover of this edition can be found dblogspot.comhere.

Set in the turbulent days of the founding of Hong Kong in the 1840s, Tai-Pan is the story of Dirk Struan, the ruler - the Tai-Pan - of the most powerful trading company in the Far East. He is also a pirate, an opium smuggler, and a master manipulator of men. This is the story of his fight to establish himself and his dynasty as the undisputed masters of the Orient. Plague of Darkness #2) é An Alternate Cover of this edition can be found dblogspot.comhere.

Set in the turbulent days of the founding of Hong Kong in the 1840s One Step Too Close Tai-Pan is the story of Dirk Struan The Art Of Woman - Rebecca Lynn - Teddy Bear: Rebecca Lynn: Hot Sexy, Naughty Coed (JHS Photography Book 28) the ruler - the Tai-Pan - of the most powerful trading company in the Far East. He is also a pirate Unix System V Network Programming an opium smuggler Ginger Nut and a master manipulator of men. This is the story of his fight to establish himself and his dynasty as the undisputed masters of the Orient. I meant to start with Shogun and this book was available at the library so I started here first. It was a great story of how Hong Kong was under British rule. It was a great read and James Clavell is a talented author. I plan on reading of these Asian Saga's. ***MOVIE ADDENDUM ADDED SEPT 13th, 2014***

”’Joss’ was a Chinese word that meant Luck and Fate and God and the devil combined.”

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Hong Kong was just a cluster of fishing villages when the English traders arrived in 1841. The port quickly proved a safe haven to ships even impervious to Typhoons.

Dirk Lochlin Struan is a Scotsman who has spent a good part of his adult life in the orient amassing a fleet of clipper ships and a great fortune. He is called the TaiPan. He has made his own joss by being smarter, ruthless, accumulating wealth, and being stronger than his opponents. He calls his company The Noble House. The company is built along clan lines with loyalty being first among the most weighted characteristics for joining his empire, and by association, those selected, will also benefiting from his protection. Before anyone has a chance to show loyalty they have to prove something than just competence. They have to be really good at something that is useful, something that will strengthen “the clan”. Struan is tough on people, but that comes from the struggles he experienced reaching the top of the mountain. He knows how merciless life can be and his primary goal every day is to protect what is his and the people he cares about.

He has a nemesis, Tyler Brock, who is as tough and unyielding as Struan. A man who has been equally successful, but always seems to come up second best. He simply isn’t as smart as the TaiPan, but he covets the honorary title. They hate and despise each other, but than once as the plot unfolds they find themselves allied in a common cause. They are certainly nay gentlemen, but they do honor their own version of a gentlemanly code.

Dirk’s son Cullum comes out from London and is appalled to discover the man his father has become. He is rather harsh on Struan, long before he understands the circumstances that have shaped his father. Whatever rules Cullum may believe exist in England dinna necessarily translate to the rough and ready wilds of empire building.

”You used to be God to me. But in the thirty days I’ve been here I’ve come to know you for what you are. Killer. Murderer. Pirate. Opium smuggler. Adulterer. You buy and sell people. You’ve sired bastards and you’re proud of them and your name stinks in the nostrils of decent people.”

Well, Cullum, *sigh*, you have very set opinions for someone who hasn’t even walked a mile beside him yet, and certainly not a step in the very boots that built this empire. Struam is undeterred by Cullum’s assessment and plans to have him take over as the TaiPan when he decides to return to England to run for parliament. He will mold the lad whether the lad knows it or not.

Run for parliament you say? With a Chinese mistress and a slew of bastards in tow?

There are better options, half a dozen at least of the women/girls he knows who would help to open doors for him, but there is just one damn problemHELOVESMayMay. He will marry her and let them be damned if they dinna like it. He has never met a problem that a cascade of silver won’t fix, by God!

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Joan Chen plays MayMay in the 1986 film version.

MayMay is breathtakingly lovely, descended from an honorable and rich family who made the decision to sell her to the TaiPan to have someone they trust close to the source of English power. This is 1841 and the first Opium War is in full flower. Concessions to the barbarians will have to be made (Hong Kong) and Struan, the devil man, has the ear of the English politician Longstaff or as the Chinese refer to him Odious Penis.

There is the rather odd, but refreshing character of Aristotle Quance, a man almost completely depended on the traders, mostly Struan, for his support. He is a painter, preferably of beautiful young women. He is graced with a silver tongue capable of talking them out of clothes than they areat firstwilling to part with. He has a wife who hounds him from one whorehouse to the next as he tries to stay one step ahead of her iron grip. He might be the happiest person in this new world that is about to be carved out of the coast of China.

”And he realized he was witnessing the end of an era, he was also part of a new one. Now he had new history to eyewitness and record. New faces to draw. New ships to paint. A new city to perpetuate. And new girls to flirt with and new bottoms to pinch.”

Well if he can keep one step ahead of the wife, by God!

James Clavell explores the politics of the time. He brings to light the manipulations that occur behind locked doors over a glass or two of good port or brandy with results that benefit the few over the many. Profits are king and certainly the opium and tea trade were important to the British economy. The insistence of the Chinese in receiving only silver bullion for tea actually destabilizes the British economy as silver becomes scarce and afternoon tea became jeopardized. There have been grain riots, tax riots, draft riots, religious riots, but no one wants to see a British TEA riot, by God!

We see the rise of the Triads during this time as well, and in this story, Gordon Chen, a bastard of Struan with his head for intrigue, is the head of the movement. He is a man trapped between cultures, not fully accepted or rejected by either one. Chen is torn between his loyalty to his people and his loyalty to Struan. He plans for any contingencies and shows resilience in the face of a series of setbacks beyond his control.

This is an epic tale, with Shakespearean romance, typhoons, love and malaria, incest, discord between fathers and sons, the building of a city of trade, lust, complicated characters with tangled relationships, and an exploration of the power of possession. These larger than life figures are battling on a small and large scale for what is theirs, but also for what will be their childrens and their children’s children. I was very impressed with the depth of the plot, the deftness with which Clavell pulled me into the story, and the breadth and scope he was willing to manfully shoulder to bring these characters to life.

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James Clavell based Dirk Struan on William Jardine who built the "Princely House" of Jardine, Matheson Co of Hong Kong.

Dirk Struan peers at the world through jaded eyes, but clearly and astutely. He sometimes knows the intentions of a person before they even know it themselves. He is harsh, but capable of great tenderness. He is unpredictable, but only seemingly so, because he gauges every situation by much than just what is before him. His projections become truths adding a mystical quality to his persona. He devours information and knows how to use it. While others sleep he studies. He fixes what is broke before it snaps. As unearthly as it seems to those who know him it is no mystery to me why he is:

the TaiPan.


”Man is born to die, Father. I just try to protect mysel’ and mine as best I know how and to choose the time of my dying, that’s all.”

A very interesting link that explains the history of this time period. It was so kindly supplied by Margitte. {sitelink}

ADDENDUM: I watched the movie. There is so much missing from the plot of the book that I'm not really sure how anyone can watch the movie and understand what is going on. At different points Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Steve McQueen were attached to the project, but negotiations fell through each time. Bryan Brown was cast to play Dirk Struan and actually plays the part well. Joan Chen is absolutely stunning as MayMay, but despite the efforts of the two main actors the movie proves unsatisfactory. This story really should have been a miniseries like Shogun and Noble House. Anybody who may have had thoughts of watching the movie instead of reading the book (unlikely on GR) would be incredibly short changed from the epic experience that only the book can provide.

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You can also find terrific reviews at: {sitelink} A masterful work from an extremely talented storyteller.

Truth be told, I think this was better written than {sitelink}Shōgun even though I actually liked the 1975 book set in Japan better. TaiPan is streamlined, focused on its subject and narrative.

TaiPan was Clavell’s second book, first published in 1966, and is coincidentally also the second chronological book in his Asian saga of books. (Shogun was his third published book but first in chronological order). It was an immediate bestseller and fan favorite.

Set in the budding village of Hong Kong in 1841 this is a historical fiction about that time and place, and its place in the socioeconomic world of that time, as much as it is a character study about the TaiPan – Dirk Struan.

TaiPan is a title the leader, strong man, big man on campus – of the richest trading company on Hong Kong. Struan is shown to be a master manipulator of men and a bold and clever strategist. And he was also a pirate, opium smuggler, adulterer, strong arm and all around badass. Clavell reveals our central protagonist to be an alpha male’s male that would make Ted Nugent look like Wallace Shawn.

Clavell’s narrative describes international intrigue, romance, violence and a keen eye for the historically relevant for this period piece. Like all of the Asian saga stories in his canon, the dominant element is the contrast between western and eastern cultures, with a sympathetic tone towards the oriental, and ultimately about how the synergistic combination of cultures creates a prosperous result.

Highly entertaining and recommended.

Having begun with King Rat, I proceeded to work my way through most of James Clavell's Asian Saga before running out of steam and interest with the overlylong and rather lacklustre Whirlwind; and of them all, TaiPan was my favorite. Shogun was fantastic, mysterious, complex, cruel, violent, erotic, dressed with elaborate manners and rituals, alien thought patterns, ironclad honor, smelly Europeans, the whole works but it didn't have the Struans versus the Brocks, which crackling, bloody, rollicking, cutthroat competitive maneuverings grabbed me by the collar and yanked me into this Southwest Pacific tale, hanging me on the yardarm so that I could marvel at the entirety of the colorful, frantic pageant unfolding before my young and excited eyes.

From the very opening, with a virgin Hong Kong awaiting its annexation by the British, recently victorious in the First Opium War, and the first taste of the roughandready, brutalonadime sensibilities of the coarse and cunning Brock, the somewhat subdued and disciplined Yanks of CooperTillman, and then the magnificent entrance of the swashbucklingbutpractical hero himself, Dirk fucking Struan, the TaiPan of the commercial empires, and his halfbrother Robb who so dearly wished to be like Dirk, but just wasn't all of these heads of Western trading houses and the differingindetails, but similarinspirit dreams of the almost endless potential for Hong Kong serving as a leverage point for the commercial crowbar they wished to wield to crack open the unimaginable riches of the mysterious and vast Orient everything is laid out to give the reader a taste of the excitement, the possibility that lay heavy in the humid air.

And then fate and chance work their inevitable twists and unforeseen disasters into the mix, and we are plunged into a complex, interrelated web of schemes, ploys, conspiracies, violence, lusts, and desperation, as the House of Struan strives to recover from happenstance misfortune without selling the British portion of Hong Kong's soul, whilst the House of Brock, under the glinteyed, heavyhanded leadership of Brock and the brutal energies of his hulking son, Gorth, do everything in their power to ensure that Struan and Company flounder and sink, thus enabling Brock to assume to title of TaiPan that he holds by right should be his. Into this mix the talented Clavell tosses wizened Chinese bigwig merchants and secret societies, four mysterious halved coins, stifflipped British naval officers, conniving Russian Grand Dukes, corrupt and incompetent English plenipotentiaries, Aye, matey pirates and liceinfested British rogue mercenaries, typhoons, storms, crazy oceanic currents and, topping it all, the heady and blossoming love between Dirk and his Chinese mistress MayMay, an interesting microcosm of the tentativebutburgeoning relationship between Western and Oriental civilizations, each with their own conceptions of pride, honor, barbarism, and justice; perhaps only in love do they operate on jointly familiar ground.

I have since come across plenty of criticisms of Clavell, about how much he got wrong, or mangled irredeemably in the process of crafting his complicated thrillers featuring clashing, premodern cultures. Whatever. The man could tell a tale, and one with enough recognizable features enmeshed within the exotic and the historic to propel his literary vessel across roiling, tempestuous seas. It is a magnificent and vastly entertaining book, one I've read several times, never failing to tense up when Struan is ghosting across the water, nursing his fortunesaving forty lacs of silver from a hungry Brock; or dearly wish Gorth would, at any point, receive a desperately deserved thrashing; or marvel at the longrange thinking of the wise JingQua; or cringe when MayMay, bedecked in all of the gaudy accoutrements of a European lady, earns an unexpected and humiliating look of horrified shock from her surprised lover; or feel a melancholy heaviness when the typhoon smashes the island towards the end of the book, dealing harshly with Dirk and MayMay, but opening up new vistas of opportunity for Culum to emerge from his father's formidable shadow. It's been a long time since I last cracked it open, but do I harbor any doubts that it would still prove to be a firstrate page turner? Ha!