The Pure Land

by Alan Spence. A fictional story about a non-fictional character, Thomas Glover. He was an adventurous Scottish trader that braved the complexities of dealing in pre Meiji Japan. The main story starts during the period when Japan is reluctantly opening to the west and the environment is hostile towards the European and American “barbarians“. Thomas Glover has been called the “Scottish Samurai”. He was instrumental in uniting the enemy clans to dismantle the Shogunate and restore authority to the Emperor. While the story is fictional, it’s full of description and historical reference. What I found fascinating, and the book helps make this point, is the speed at which Japan transformed itself and embraced modernism. For a culture that’s stereotypically considered slow to change, the reality is quite the contrary. It transfigured from the medieval to the modern in a century. Adding to the drama, the story connects the tragedy of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It, and European militaristic engagements in the mid 1800’s paints a subtle and quiet reminder of all that Japan has endured to achieve it’s transfiguration to modernism.