After quite a hiatus, I finished Noble House by James Clavell. I had some personal matters interfere with my progress in it mid- to late last year. I was reading the entire Asian saga in chronological order. I realized that, somehow, I had previously and egregiously overlooked Noble House thinking I had read it before though I never had. So, although I'd read all of the other Asian saga entries, some of them multiple times, I had never read this one.
I grabbed a used hard cover copy off of eBay for a few bucks. It was sitting in its chronological place on my bookshelf until I finally got to it after having read the books preceding it.
And reading it was a treat. I loved it, though, as a great book, there are greater ones in the Asian saga than this one. It was a lot of fun, though, and, indeed, made me want to visit Hong Kong someday. Even more so than Tai Pan had. Noble House is set in the sixties and involves only a week or so of action, despite weighing in at a hefty twelve hundred pages. The action centers around a potential transaction between Hong Kong's Noble House, then ran by Ian Dunross, and an American firm called Par Con, ran by Linc Bartlett. There is a lot of action in this book. It's a busy week. It unfolds delightfully though.
One of the things I just adore about James Clavell's work is that his characters consistently have depth, even if their role in the book is relatively minor. Faulkner does this well, too....so does Tolstoy....I suppose it is a hallmark of exceptional writing, but it still impresses me when I witness it. This book sports betrayal, gambling, smuggling, murder, and plots within plots within plots. Schemes within schemes. Everyone has an agenda and is being pushed and pulled by the environment and the events surrounding them. The book is so alive.
I had read somewhere that this is one of the three Asian saga books that are best suited for those intent on reading all of Clavell's works. The other books often noted that way are Whirlwind and Gai Jin. I agree on the latter, but I believe Noble House is worth reading on its own merit by people who enjoy good books. Whirlwind, my favorite of the Asian saga, even more so. But I'll talk more about that book when I read it again. Nobel House gets dinged often for being too busy and having too many loose ends. I think, along with character depth, the loose ends add another dimension of appeal to the book's qualities though. Again, the book is so alive. Life consistently has an abundance of loose ends here and there and that is a natural and appropriate thing to present in a realistic book.
I'll get to Whirlwind later....I've got some other books queued right now before I get to it. I had originally intended to read the entire Asian saga within a year and had made good progress on it for the first half of the year, but, again, got distracted and lost track. I understand Noble House has been adapted to television (or is it to film? Or both?) and I'll certainly be picking out some version of it on Amazon Prime to watch with my wife soon.
Good times...good times...
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