The Pure Land

            The Pure Land is the little known story of Thomas Glover, a Scottish enterpriser who makes his way to Japan to make a life for himself. This novel is action-packed, but at the same time is very languid and smooth. The reader feels almost as though they have traveled with Thomas Glover on his life-long journey of joy and suffering, success and failure.

            Alan Spence introduces his tail with the bombing of Nagasaki in 1945, following his main character’s son as he walks through the devastation that was the atomic bomb. Tomisaburo’s reminiscence of his father opens the main story about a restless young man, ready to get out of his tiny town and see the world.

Given employment in Jardine & Matheson, Glover travels to Japan to make business. The reader follows Glover’s first days in Nagasaki, adjusting with him as he becomes assimilated into the culture. Meeting several pretty girls along the way, Glover quickly establishes himself as Jardine’s top dog. He works hard to earn respect and quickly ascends the hierarchy of power within the company, taking over his own warehouse.

The longer Glover stays in Japan, the more involved he gets with the politics of the land. The tiny archipelago is governed by the Shogun, who has illegitimate rule over the titled but powerless Emperor. Each side has its own views on foreigners and their right to trade in Japan, and both sides are willing to resort to violence. To make matters worse, Britain itself sails into the harbor to batter helpless towns into submission, demanding that the country allow foreign trade.

After losing his first wife in the unnecessary massacre of a small town, Glover tirelessly devotes himself to overthrowing the Shogun, whose policies were the instigator of Britain’s fury. Despite many words of caution against it, Glover begins dealing in arms. As long as both sides can pay, he deals with both sides. But as the months wear on, his business with the wrong side becomes more and more shady. Members of different clans approach Glover with requests to travel to England. They need to see this new world, and see it they do. The men return with tales of awe and the thirst to make their own nation as powerful and as progressive as Glover’s.

There’s a certain amount of excitement in Spence’s story. The reader is often sucked into the events, fervently glancing over their shoulder for any of the Shogun’s men as they help the rebellion. Dull fear sits in their stomachs as they read about shadows following Glover down the street and threats made upon his life. Adrenaline courses through them as they are dragged through a battle to decide the fate of a nation. And satisfaction glows within them when the Emperor is restored to his rightful throne.

Spence wraps up his main story with a journalist interviewing the illustrious Glover, now far too old to be avoiding samurais and begetting children, of which he has two who carry his name and at least one that is not officially his. The man who helped overthrow the Shogun, found Mitsubishi, and made a fortune twice has been reduced to imminent death and few manners. He looks back on his life with a sort of bittersweet reminiscence, with more than a few regrets.

Of course, Glover’s is not the only story told in Spence’s novel. The reader is soon enlightened as to the fate of the mother of Glover’s son, who disappears after Glover returns to Scotland for a brief stay to oversee the building of warships. The beautiful girl went into a nunnery, and lived out her days in peace.

Her son, however, was granted no such serenity. Always plagued by being half-Japanese, half-English, Tomisaburo is often tormented and singled out. Worse yet, he lives to see the tragedy that is the atomic bomb. Several days later he commits suicide upon his father’s samurai sword.

Despite the rather sad ending to a historical tale, Spence leaves the reader with a sense of satisfaction. So much awful things occur in order to make Glover the man he would become, and the novel is written so that the reader can take it in stride, as Glover did, and grow with the telling.