This review is part of the Literature World Tour.
Alan Spence should be getting a sales commission from the Nagasaki and Aberdeen city councils for promoting tourism.
Being a relatively new convert to historical fiction, I was delighted to get the opportunity to read The Pure Land by Alan Spence. It tells the (fictionalised) story of Thomas Blake Glover, a Scot who travelled to Japan as a young man and traded his way to fortune. He also played a pivotal role in bringing Japan into the modern age.
Those are the basic facts. What Spence has done is weave a tragic love story into the mix, as well as spice things up with tales of how Glover played the feudal clans against one another and, in the process, paved the way for the modernisation of Japan (he was one of the founders of the companies that later became Mitsubishi and Kirin Brewery).
I am full of admiration for writers who can take dry facts and dates and turn them into a story that is, frankly, quite the page-turner. Spence's words practically drew pictures in my mind (although I am blessed with quite the uncontrollable imagination) of 19th century Aberdeen and Japan. But Spence also brings us to a more modern view of Japan when he describes the bombing of Nagasaki through the eyes of Tomisaburo, Glover's half-Japanese (and illegitimate) son.
Barring a short overnight transit in Narita back in the early 80s, I've never visited Japan, but reading The Pure Land has inspired me to put Glover Garden in Nagasaki on my Places to Visit Before I Die list (visiting Glover House in Aberdeen is more attainable!).
Previously in Japan: RJI's review of Autofiction
Next in Japan: Jim Murdoch's review of The Master of Go
Next stop on the Literature World Tour: Australia!
