Shogun is a historical novel set in early 17th-century Japan, telling the story of one western man who ends up there by accident. The man is pilot John Blackthorne, known in Japanese as Anjin-san (anjin apparently means pilot), and the accident taking him there is quite literal, as his ship is wrecked just off the Japanese coast.

We follow his struggle to survive Japanese politics, as he gets involved in the complex and complicated relationships between “traditional” Japanese, Portuguese traders, Jesuits, Japanese Christians etc. This was certainly a tumultuous time in Japan, ending with a reunification of Japan, as well as a turning-inwards which severely restricted contact with the outside world, leading to centuries of seclusion.

The book is based on real historical events: there was a real English pilot and a real Japanese lord who reunified Japan, even though the names were different. Apparently it is retold somewhat inaccurately, which I cannot judge. I would guess that some simplifications were necessary in the 1970s (such as referring to chess instead of go). And heck, it’s a novel, fiction, so I don’t mind if some of the details are off.

It’s a romanticised adventure story with fair amounts of action and lots of intrigue, plus a bit of romance – reminds me of The Three Musketeers. (I wonder if it will stay popular for as long as Dumas’s books.) And just like the Musketeers, Shogun has more intrigues than I can keep track of. I find political intrigues hard to relate to, and can never keep the relationships straight – who is betraying whom, and who else knows about it, and who is trying to convince whom to switch sides.

Much of Anjin-san’s attention is understandably focused on Japanese / samurai culture, with its well-known components: feudalism, honour, the importance of birth and ancestors and kin (where a whole family can be killed for the father’s misdeeds), and a closeness to death. In great contrast to European culture at that time, there is great focus on politeness, cleanliness and harmony; indeed Europeans are seen as barbarians. But there were also other differences that I wasn’t really aware of: more freedom for women, more “rational” marital relationships allowing divorce and remarrying, and “eta”, a kind of untouchables who work with dead flesh: as tanners, executioners, gravediggers etc.

And of course Anjin-san in turn sees the Japanese as barbarians, too. He starts out feeling superior, seeing the Japanese as incomprehensible barbarians with no respect for human life. Yet he gradually becomes more and more Japanese – acquires honor, learns to appreciate harmony and cleanliness, develops self-control, loses his fear of death. Still, to the end he remains appalled by how easily the samurai can decide to kill.

While most of the book is from Anjin-san’s point of view, we also get to be inside the heads of other characters. It is fascinating to see how an action can be seen as totally barbaric by one side, and yet make complete sense to the other.

Blackthorne’s character is very believable and easy to sympathise with. He must have felt more alien than anyone could feel today: nowadays everybody is more exposed to other cultures than anyone would have been back then. And he had effectively no way of contacting home or family: a letter sent by ship would have taken years to get to England and back.

It’s harder for me to judge the Japanese characters, but they are certainly well depicted and deep.

Shogun is an utterly fascinating read, a fabulous book with really no significant shortcomings. It was hard to put down, and every time I did I longed to pick it up again. Despite its 1100 pages I was sad when it ended. I am sure it will be equally enjoyable next time I read it: there is so much in this book that it can be re-read numerous times. I hope Clavell’s other books are as good.

Amazon UK, Amazon US.

How to know an interesting blog from a superficial one

Rule #1: if the blogger posts blog memes, which are basically a blog version of chain mail, it’s a superficial blog. When a blogger takes a break from whatever they normally post about just to gigglingly follow the latest, coolest meme about something completely inane, such as “5 things you didn’t know about me” or “13 strange things I own” etc etc, I drop it from my list of blogs. It tells me that the blogger is more concerned with what other bloggers think about them than with their topic. I don’t want to read an overgrown teenager’s scrapbook; I want content.

Of course, a blog that specialised in memes would be a different thing. Same for a blog specialising in daily revealing new strange things about the writer. Basically, a good blogger is consistent: decides what s/he wants to write about, and then sticks to that.

And again I have to admit I don’t do that myself, but on the other hand I don’t write for my readers. (Sorry.) I mostly write for myself. This post is a case in point; this whole meme thing has been irritating me for a while and I just wanted to get it off my mind. So there.

Ingrid has crossed that vague line between “tiny baby” and “big baby” and established herself firmly on the other side. She no longer looks or feels fragile. Even her skin appears to be less sensitive: there’s no more crying when she’s naked for a moment after her bath, or for a nappy change. She stays awake a lot longer than she used to, and spends a significant portion of that waking time on her tummy – sometimes up to 20 minutes. Her neck is strong so she is now working on the arms and upper body, trying to push herself up further from the floor. But she is still wobbly as jelly when I hold her in a sitting position.

She is clearly more aware of the world and the people around her. She looks at me, and at things in front of her, and not just lamps and windows. She responds to smiles by smiling and “talking”, and sometimes greets me with a spontaneous smile. She seems to actually experience boredom, and “asks” to be turned or moved when she’s spent too long in one place.

She continues to grow as if planning to beat some kind of record – when we last weighed her she was over 7kg which puts her above the 98th percentile. All of her 0-to-3-month clothes got packed away in the attic around New Year’s Eve when she was about 2.5 months.

After my two-week Christmas holiday with Eric at home, I started this year rested and with lots of energy. (Relatively speaking.) I was determined to get more done – to get out more, to have more fun during the days, and generally just try to avoid getting stuck in a rut.

It is very easy for me to get worn down by the endless repetition of small stuff, and lose all ability to take initiative. After a few rounds of breastfeeding, nappy changes, and slinging Ingrid to sleep, my brain just slowly shuts down and I let the rest of the day pass by without doing anything much. Even though I like to read, I can’t be bothered to pick up a book. Even though we have lots of good movies at home, it’s easier to simply surf the web for an hour.

One of the changes I’ve made – probably the most important one – is to go out for a long walk every afternoon, as long as the weather isn’t atrocious. This one change alone has worked wonders on my energy level, and that in turn has led to more good changes. Mental energy, unlike the physical variety, generates itself like a perpetuum mobile – you really can get more energy out of an activity than you put in.

I am also trying to find regular activities that I could commit to. It’s easy to skip a walk because it’s drizzling outside, but if I was signed up for a course, for example, I would be more likely to ignore the weather and go anyway. Now that I think about this, the best kind of activity would be something where others depended on me – I have such a strong sense of responsibility that I would make a real effort to do what I have promised. Hmmm… something to ponder.

Anyway, I have only found one weekly activity thus far – a local NCT coffee group, i.e. a group of local mothers who get together and drink coffee (or pomegranate and raspberry juice) and eat cookies and talk about their babies.

I went to a coffee group for the first time last week. Most babies there were older than Ingrid, around 7 to 10 months, but there was one other 3-month baby there. And she was so tiny next to Ingrid! She looked no larger Ingrid did at 1 month. And she also seemed about as strong as Ingrid was then. Ingrid looked like a pro wrestler in comparison, with her ability to lift her head and wave her legs around and all that.

I couldn’t help feeling really proud of my baby. I know that most probably very little of her rude health is due to anything I have done, and she would probably look and be as robust if someone else was taking care of her. She happened to be of slightly above-average weight at birth, and happened to be good at eating and growing. The other baby happened to be born small, and possibly grow slower. There’s not much a mum can do about this. But still, I couldn’t help it. I was inordinately proud of my big strong beautiful baby, and still am.

Look, world, this is my baby! I created this lovely creature! It came out of my body! And it’s my milk that’s made her so strong!

This is something my hormones do to me, I’m convinced, to make sure that I take good care of her. It’s a bunch of selfish genes wanting to survive and procreate and then in 20 or 30 years’ time they can make her feel the same so the genes get to go another round. And every other mum’s genes do the same to her. Doesn’t matter. I’m still so proud of my baby.

English medicine for baby tummy problems:
Comes in a heavy glass bottle that is unstable, slippery, impossible to open or close with one hand, and impossible to pour slowly without spilling more than you pour. And the medicine tastes bad so Ingrid hates it, and when she spills some her clothes stink for hours afterwords, and it doesn’t work either.

Swedish medicine for baby tummy problems:
Comes in a light plastic bottle that is easy to open and close with one hand, has a drop opening, and definitely won’t break if it falls. And the taste is such that Ingrid doesn’t mind it at all, and it actually works.

Baby medicine the English way	Baby medicine the Swedish way

Well, the miracle didn’t last… She woke 40 minutes later and wouldn’t settle, so she’s back in the sling.

Still, that definitely counts as progress! And it meant that I could eat dinner without her on my chest – which was very good since dinner was soup, and otherwise I would have worried all the time about letting hot soup drip straight on the top of her head.

Wow. Something incredible just happened. I moved Ingrid from the sling, where she’d gone to sleep, to her Moses basket. She woke halfway, and I sighed and started putting the sling back on, but she WENT BACK TO SLEEP! This has never ever happened before.

The last couple of nights I have also managed to settle her when she has half-woken by just laying a hand on her chest. That has also never worked before.

Maybe all that was/is needed for better sleeping habits is just time for her to grow a bit.

For your pleasure and convenience, I have now added a link from the blog front page (top right) to my photo album.

Underneath the link you will also find the date when I last uploaded a photo (which I haven’t been doing as regularly as I first planned).

After smiling, Ingrid has learned to use her face for other expressions too. Ingrid and I now have a game we play: I make a face and she mimics me. We’re limiting ourselves to faces that require no fine muscle control (no wiggling of eyebrows) – just simple things like smiling, opening the mouth wide and saying aaah, sticking out the tongue, or pouting.

Sometimes she gets so excited by this game that she fires on all cylinders at once: I stick out my tongue, and she responds by first saying aah, then sort of sticking out the tongue, and then smiling as well, all within a few seconds.

Our current challenge is to stick out the tongue from one corner of the mouth. She sort of seems to get the point – I can see the tongue tentatively edging towards one side of the mouth – but she hasn’t quite gotten there yet.

And when I try to get her to say aah, she actually manages to produce a strained, gargling “ngaah” sort of sound! I think she’s starting to realise that she can make more varied sounds than just crying.

The two most common questions I got while pregnant were “When are you due?” and “Do you know what you’re having?” (i.e. boy or girl).

The birth changed nothing, apparently. The two most common questions I get when I’m out with Ingrid are the same: “How old is she?” and “Is it a boy or a girl?”.

The third most common question (but far less frequent than the first two) is “Is she a good baby?”. I don’t like that question at all. I take it the asker wants to know whether she is easy to take care of – does she cry a lot, does she sleep all night, etc.

Firstly, I dislike the way this all gets summarised as “being a good baby”. Is the opposite an evil baby? a naughty, spiteful baby? She’s just a baby! Every baby is a good baby. If she cries, she does it because something is wrong, not because she is being bad and actively trying to make my life miserable.

Furthermore, I don’t understand what business it is of theirs! I get this question from total strangers – at the supermarket checkout till, on the bus, in the street… I’m pretty sure they don’t really want to hear me report on her nightly wakings. Do they secretly hope to hear that my baby is being “bad”, in order to gloat, or what?

I’ve been very tempted to reply “No, she’s totally evil, like the baby in The Omen, you know.” Thus far I’ve held my tongue and simply politely said “Yes”.