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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Winded,
By Scott G. Beckley (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Noble House (Mass Market Paperback)
This is Clavell's last book of his epic series. I am glad that I read Tai-Pan (thanks to another customer review's suggestion), so that I was able to follow the characters and historic development of Noble House. Noble House is much better than Tai-Pan and is definitely an easier read.Noble House has a pretty good plot. I found the Russia, world-domination plot a little underdeveloped and could have been wiped out entirely out of the equation, thus, saving a couple hundred pages of this lengthy 1200+ epic novel. The main characters are exciting to follow: Ian Dunross, Casey, Bartlett, Quillan Gornt, 4 Fingers Wu. Some are developed enough to recognize throughout the novel: Peter Marlowe, Brian Kwok, Philip and John Chen, Suslev. And some could have been left out: Haply, Inspector Smyth, Havergill, etc. A pretty decent read, but very, very long. This could have been shortened and still be a powerful novel - even more so. It makes sense to read these in order because of continuing saga's. I took the shortcut and only read Tai-Pan and Noble House and this was enough to follow the storyline.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Noble House,
This review is from: Noble House: A Novel of Contemporary Hong Kong (Hardcover)
As I said earlier I was very disappointed because I did not receive a new copy of Noble House, but with your recent refund of 20 % I reappraised your standing to 4 star. G.W. Sampson
5.0 out of 5 stars
A MASTERPIECE WORTHY OF THE TAIPAN!,
By NeuroSplicer (Freeside, in geosynchronous orbit) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME) (TOP 10 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Noble House (Mass Market Paperback)
James Clavell was a WONDERFUL Writer (yes, with a capital W) and NOBLE HOUSE was a gift he left to us!Through his eyes we visit Hong Kong in the 1970's. Clavell, like a virtuoso connaisseur of the human condition he is, manages to interweave a multitude of stories into a continuous carpet of a city living fast, taking risks, winning and loosing but never giving up. Heads of huge conglomerates on the verge of foundering - yet never letting go of their rival's throat; dirt-poor Chinese maids striking it rich by a sudden turn of their joss; photographer-Wo and his trophy collection; drug-running smugglers asking for favors-you-can't-refuse; cold war spy networks riddled with double and triple agents; an American stock-market runner trying his hand in raiding Hong Kong companies; ladies getting "pillowed", men getting wooed, fortunes made and lost in the 10 days these all take place. Will the Noble House survive? To quote Balzac, behind every great fortune lies crime. To prove him right, Noble House is but a thinly veiled reference to Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd, a real company. Anticlimactically, although a British company operating in China, it is nowadays incorporated in Bermuda - and trying to forget its opium-running past (like so many City of London companies respectable today yet founded on drugs and dead natives). All these stories are presented masterfully, without ever loosing the reader's interest or dropping the ball of building tension. There were less than a dozen writers who could do this - starting with Homer. My copy was so worn I had to replace it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
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