From the earliest days of my life, even before I learned how to read properly, I was conditioned by my parents towards the specific view of Japanese culture. You see, it was still before the event of the Round Table discussions, and the life in Poland was circulating around the Central European style, with scarce amount of western culture influences. As rich as the culture is (1000+ years of literary and art history of Poland makes it one of the culturally richest countries in Europe) the exposure to western or far eastern lifestyles was limited.

Being in the Warsaw Pact had one drawback – everything that was from the “imperialist” zone of influence was considered inferior. Literally: “why are you using this west-german junk, buy Soviet Junost TV set instead” was a common discussion between tech-savvy people for some time. Everything was political. The point of view also included Japan (although I’ve seen one or two Hitachi radios at the time..), with its culture alien to Poles for a long time. That was about to change…

About the Polish-Japanese relations. After II World War Poles knew Japanese were an Axis power, and therefore, an enemy. Before that, there were some diplomatic relations that did not fruit any cultural exchange. There was one Japanese person and a one Pole that made some difference.  Major Fukushima Yasumasa was probably the very first Japanese to ever visit Poland, and he composed the “Porando kaiko” (“The memory of Poland”) popular poem and later a song,  known to this day. The second, was a brother of marshall Józef Piłsudski – Bronisław Piłsudski, the man that saved the Ainu people of Hokkaido culture from extinction. Nothing more than that.

Akira Kurosawa was well known, shown in the old movie block of Polish TV (“The Pearls of Old”) which had only 1 channel at the time (2nd channel was added some time after the 1st), but the ideas presented by Kurosawa were sometimes too alien to understand for a viewer, even though Kurosawa used also Shakespearean storylines in his works (“Ran”, “The throne of blood”).

And then, in the 80s, someone decided it’s a good idea to show a TV show “Shogun” to the Polish receiver. No one could foresee what impact it had on an unknowing viewer. After the emission almost all magazines started publishing ladies in kimonos, which were carefully cut out with scissors and used do decorate one’s kitchens (I remember my grandma doing this). Everyone was talking about samurai.

And this caused to yours truly, 4 years old Northon, to be dressed by his parents for a kindergarten ball (during which everybody else was either a princess, a cowboy or an American Indian archer) like this:

Yeah, I am saying I might be biased a little while talking about the “Shogun”. The TV series was (and stil is) a magnificent show, but it’s the book that matters for me. I started my first reading of the “Shogun” around 1995 and it was so immersive and so consuming, I remember just sitting there during school holidays and reading the thing, heavily supplied with delicious Kuyavian bread with butter and plum marmelade and a teapot with Indus tea, to eat something from time to time while reading.

I might be more than biased, because even now when I think of the book I can remember the taste of that delicious marmelade…

The book tells the story of an English sailor John Blackthorne (lossely based on the historical figure of Will Adams), one of the leaders of the expedition to find the western route to Japan. After landing he and the Dutch crew find out Japan is heavily influenced by Portugese Jesuit monks, which immediately leads to imprisonment of the protestant crew for piracy. John, being a brave and a very intelligent person, manages to convince the daymyos (lords) one by one that he can be a valuable asset,  a wildcard in the domestic war of Sengoku Jidai. Kasigi Yabu, the bloodthirsty daymyo, wants to gain superiority by naval power and he wants to use Blackthorne, an excellent pilot and shipbuilder, as an asset. But then, Toranaga Yoshi, based on Tokugawa Ieyasu, appears, claiming Blackthorne from Yabu. Toranaga is a patient sage, not only a lord an a warrior – he’s a person Sun Tzu would think of as of a perfect pupil of his works. The moment in which Blackthorne boldly expresses to Toranaga, that there’s one excuse for rebellion against a liege lord – a victory over him, is the moment Toranaga sees Blackthorne in a different light. Blackthorne becomes an Anjin-san, a Sir Pilot of Toranaga. More than that, the relation between Toranaga and Anjin-san becomes more and more…friendly. They dance together, swim together and speak together.

Then there are Ishido, the Toranaga’s nemesis, Portugese with their political and religious schemes, christian daymyos… The war is bloodthirsty and lasting for decades now, so expect many heads falling down from their necks.

Oh, there are ninjas there too. Did I mentioned the ninjas?

Initially Anjin-san doesn’t know Japanese, so everything is translated by a Portugese monk (and Blackthorne’s nemesis) Tsukku-san, until Anjin-san protests against biased translation. Then Toranaga introduces Mariko-san, a beautiful lady of the court, a catholic, as his translator.

Mariko-san forever changed my view on women. The thing is she’s a Japanese woman as Japanese society expects her to be (calm, and bowing always..), but only as her tatemae (the facade). Truth is, she’s a last member of a rebellious family, that never forgiven for her family’s demise and the loathing she received after the rebellion. She’s strong and magnificent. She’s uncontrollable and brilliant. Toranaga sees that, and he makes her his most important asset.

That’s also why Blackthorne finds her mesmerizing. That’s why she, the only Japanese person in the book, is able to understand the western idea of love.

Their romance is one of the most beautiful and emotionally engaging romances in literature, and they are probably the best written couple ever in my eyes. Oh the sweet drama! She has a bloodthirsty elite samurai husband who beats her and looks for an occasion to slaughter Blackthorne, Japanese society doesn’t look kind to barbarians, and yet they are together, against all odds. The Japanese concept of sex and how important it is in social terms only spices up things. Then there’s a number of dramatic events during which a reader would just like to drop the book and somehow go and hug them/pat their backs.

The thing is Clavell’s experiences with Japan are complicated. He was an Allied soldier, captured by Japanese during II WW and imprisoned in Singapore in P.O.W. camp, which caused him to write his bestseller “King Rat” (tbh whatever Clavell wrote was a bestseller, really..). Yet he was able to write about Japanese like no other western author. With amazement and the need to explain their culture and motives. And he succeded.

The “Shogun” is a novel about Japan and the Japanese, and reading it made me enter the path of slowly understanding the people – the path I follow to this day. This was probably one of Clavell’s masterplans – force reader to follow Anjin-san on his mentality-changing experience and become less gaijin and more – samurai.

But most of all – it’s one of the most important books of my life.

The problem of being overwhelmed by the information chaos these days affects literature (and the whole storytelling world) deeply. Never before in any age of humankind were humans so exposed to the neverending flow of information. The stream of data no human being is able to fully grasp and process. Being overwhelmed with the news coming in from various sources (often contradictory), publishers flooding the market with new movies, games, books, we engage our defense mechanisms to remain sane. We start to filter everything with the coinstrain of the smallest amount of energy needed for that filtering as an expense. In other words – we became lazy and picky.

The problem is even bigger when one notices the quality of the works today is worse than several decades ago. From the publisher’s point of view though, times never been better because for them quantity trumps the quality – it’s easier to manipulate the prices in the world of information chaos, and if you have big data tools like certain companies, then you already have won the race.

Far to often I pick the book praised by the sellers and readers alike these days, to find out it’s shallow, made entirely of well known and worn off tropes, using combinatorics as a way of developing a story and completely unworthy of my time. For example, in the current world overflood with zombie content, there are only 2 zombie related titles in all industries (game, movie, book, comicbook etc) that are worth something in my oppinion. And I am not talking about the “Walking Dead” here – this one is as bad as the others.

You know what? I think I’ll start describing the whole problem as a “zombie effect of storytelling” from now on.

In such perilous times I tend to look back at the books I read before and those I missed. I turn to classics for a solution for my hunger.  And in the most perilous times, when I need the immediate storytelling injection I tend to re-read the stories that proven valuable and worthy.

Roger Zelazny’s “Amber” saga is one of safe bets here.

Zelazny was a very known author in my salad days. He was considered to be one of the masters of the fantasy/sci-fi genre. It’s kinda sad to see him today known by many only as “G.R.R. Martin’s friend from the Santa Fe writing circle”.  It’s probably also because Zelazny created many of those tropes freely used these days in “zombie effect” affected works, and it’s really hard to distinguish the originality of his works.

The “Amber” saga is epic. It’s a story of intertwining worlds, a multiverse of realities , but fake realities. There is only one true reality there, Amber. All others are but a reflection, combinatorics affected constructs, a “zombie effect” worlds if you will. Of course these are sometimes interesting, sometimes ridiculous, but the point is, they exist. And they seem to becreated and  governed by some cosmic order there.

Nothing further from the truth. It’s chaos that rules everything here. Or rather, Chaos I should say, because Chaos itself becomes entity in the saga. The mathematical idea of fractal functions affects also these story deeply, and one of the most important points in the story is the inability of the protagonist to understand the patterns the Chaos is generating. Or rather, a Pattern – an incomprehensible fractal knowing and understanding which promises godlike powers.

It’s not that our protagonists are without powers – in fact they are almost gods. They are immortal, and even unkillable at times. And they are filled with a hunger of power. In fact, the “Game of Thrones”, the overhyped (the book has a  great writing style, kudos to Martin, but the contents are just pointless, soap opera style pointless!) bestseller of the last decade, takes a lot from “Amber” (and remember Martin and Zelazny were buddies).  But when it comes to the story, “Amber” is much. much better in my eyes, to this very day.

The power struggle between the ruling family of “Amber” (including our main proagonist Corwin and later, Merlin) spreads across said realities, making the resolution of the conflict complicated. Defeated can retreat to some safe reality, regroup and plan a counterattack with usage of newly acquired resources. But that’s only the facade of the real conflict in the background and the real question arise the deeper one delves into the story. What at start is yet another fantastical conflict of demigods becomes a philosophical dispute.

Did you notice that every mythology constructed around gods, if consistent and complex enough, has to become a philosophical dispute?

I must say, that uncovering the layers of depth of the “Amber” saga is very rewarding, especially today, in the Age of Mediocrity.

Today, when we stumble upon magic in literary works, it just serves as a tool. We got used so much to fireballs, lightning bolts and adava kedavras there’s no more amazement, no more magic in magic. Harry Potter’s magic is just another way of shooting from AK-47 or using a pitchfork…

Heh, the “zombie effect era”, the Age of Mediocrity is also the “age of trivial fireballs”.

The “Amber” revives and keeps the magic alive.