If ever a historical figure was the right man at the wrong time, Yoshinobu Tokugawa - the last Shogun - must be him. In Ryotaro Shiba’s novelistic history, “Keiki”, as he is most commonly referred to in this book, was an intelligent, articulate, charismatic leader who would have been a great Shogun; at any time other than that at which he assumed the office. 

Keiki was born into an offshoot of the Tokugawa family that made his chances at birth of later becoming Shogun extremely small. However, succession was more flexible than simple primogeniture, and Keiki’s adoption into another branch of the family and the deaths of other contenders made him the logical choice for Shogun when the vacancy arose in 1858. Pressured by foreign forces and internal dissent, at that stage there was still probably an opportunity for a strong Shogun to reunite the country and secure the future of Tokugawa rule. But the Shogunate advisors feared Keiki’s very strength, and opted instead for his malleable teenage cousin. After eight years of civil strife and poor leadership, upon the cousin’s death the advisors turned in desperation to the candidate they had previously stymied, but it was too late. Not only was it impossible by 1866 even for a man like Keiki to maintain the status quo, but a strong Shogun such as Keiki paradoxically ruled out the House of Tokugawa playing some reduced role in the new constitutional arrangements that followed the restoration of Imperial rule in 1868. 

Shiba is seen by the Japanese as one of their best writers in any genre, but sadly not many of his books are available in English. While at times his playful style does feel very much translated in this English edition, he has a talent for character that will engross anyone interested in the fascinating period that was the end of the Shogunate and the birth of modern Japan. Ryotaro Shiba vividly captures both Keiki’s greatness and his contradictions. Highly recommended historical biography.

The next installment of the “Milligan” novels may not quite rank up there for expectation with the return of the Son of God or even The Stone Roses’s follow-up attempt (vaingloriously and gloriously entitled The Second Coming), but it is quite a big thing in my little world. So at this very early stage of writing my new novel I thought I would share a few observations on what is, or at least seems different this time around.

1. The pressure of the first time is gone. As with other activities, the first time can be daunting. Performance anxiety seems to diminish.
2. There’s a fear instead that maybe the first time was as good as I’ll ever get. Plenty of writers’ first books were their best. Joseph Heller was once asked by a mean-spirited journalist how it felt to have failed to write anything as good as “Catch 22” in the years that followed that book’s publication. “Not so bad” he replied, “I mean who has?” Great retort, but I fear that the quality of “Milligan and the Samurai Rebels”, proud of that novel as I am, is not sufficient to allow me to paraphrase Heller if my next books disappoint.
3. My planning has become more structured. I now have a better idea what ingredients are needed to make a story come together. Less time is needed to fret over writing style and characters, since those questions were mostly answered with the first novel. Instead I can worry about the story arc, the balance between the true history and the fiction, and how I’m going to get enough sex into the book.
4. I’m doing less editing as I go along. All the guidance says something along the lines of “don’t obsess about the editing as you write it, just bash on through to the end and then edit”. Sorry, couldn’t do it. For my first novel, the first page was the only page of my creative writing in existence (or at least since ‘O’ Level English classes) so I couldn’t cope with it being imperfect. I spent months on the first thirty pages, and the final version bears only a passing similarity to the first stab. And I don’t think this was a mistake; I needed to find a writing style and get the character of Milligan right. Bashing on through to the end of the plot would have been a mistake. That doesn’t apply this time, so bash on I will.

The stuff that stays the same? Mainly not having enough time to write the bloody thing.