Tai-Pan

I have a new favorite author. After some twenty years, James Clavell has displaced Margaret Mitchell atop my personal pantheon of authors. Last fall I fell in love with Shogun; my concerns as to whether Tai-Pan could live up to such lofty expectations were unfounded.

The Tai Pan is Dirk Straun, a Scottish trader who has risen to become the most powerful trader in Hong Kong, which in the midst of the Opium Wars is on the verge of the becoming a prosperous and beloved jewel among British colonies. To reach the apex of trade society, Tai Pan has had to fight not only other European and American traders to build The Noble House - sometimes in the literal sense of the word - but he's engaged in his fair share of politicking and intrigue with both the Chinese and the British. On the eve of unparalleled success, his future plans are sullied when he learns that his wife and most of his children have succumbed to one of the many epidemics that swept England in the early nineteenth century. Now he must recalibrate and bring his young son, Culum, into the fold earlier than he anticipated while ensuring the future of all of Hong Kong.

Like Shogun, James Clavell does an absolutely remarkable job of creating authentic characters in original settings. His description of the trade routes and wars, the history of the opening of China, and the early days of the settlement of Hong Kong are lovely to read. I also loved the juxtaposition of Straun's English and Chinese families and the dialects that practically call out from the pages. Clavell's characters are complex, multifaceted beings, and the experience of reading Tai Pan is enriched by the conflicting emotions each of the characters is able to generate in the reader. If it's true that the Russian sub-plot was slightly far-fetched, it's also true that it's the only questionable or ham-handed aspect of the book.

Five stars.