
Noble House (novel)

Noble House is a novel by James Clavell, published in 1981 and set in Hong Kong in 1963.
The novel is over a thousand pages long, and contains dozens of characters and numerous intermingling plot lines. In 1988, it was adapted as a television miniseries for NBC, starring Pierce Brosnan. The miniseries updates the storyline of the novel to the 1980s. The Noble House also is a nickname of Struan's, the trading company featured prominently in most of Clavell's novels.
Plot summary.
"Noble House" is set in 1963. The tai-pan, Ian Dunross, struggles to rescue Struan's from the precarious financial position left by his predecessor. To this end, he seeks partnership with an American millionaire, while trying to ward off his arch-rival Quillan Gornt, who seeks to destroy Struan's once and for all. Meanwhile, Chinese communists, Taiwanese nationalists, and Soviet spies illegally vie for influence in Hong Kong while the British government seeks to prevent their actions. Anyone seeking to stop them cannot do so without enlisting the aid of Hong Kong's criminal underworld. Other obstacles include water shortages, landslides, bank runs and stock market crashes.
In "Noble House", Dunross finds his company the target of a hostile takeover at a time when Struan's is desperately overextended. He is also embroiled in international espionage when he finds himself in possession of secret documents desperately desired by both the KGB and MI6. The novel follows Dunross' attempts to extricate himself from all this and to save Struan's, the Noble House.
Background.
Struan and Company is based on Jardine Matheson & Company, which continues to exist as an Asian trading company. The chief character, Ian Dunross, is believed to be a composite character of two real life Jardine Matheson tai-pans, Sir Hugh Barton and Sir Michael Herries.
Rothwell-Gornt is based on Butterfield and Swire, now known as Swire Pacific. Quillan Gornt is based on two Swire tai-pans, John Kidston "Jock" Swire and William Charles Goddard Knowles.
Unlike the other Asian Saga novels, "Noble House" is not closely based on a specific series of events, but is more a snapshot of the 1960s in Hong Kong, serving as a capsule history of Jardine Matheson against the backdrop of the impending Vietnam War and the recent Kim Philby defection. Though the prologue is set on June 8, 1960 against the backdrop of the real Typhoon Mary, the story opens on Sunday, August 18, 1963, and runs through the days immediately preceding the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. In 1961, Jardine Matheson became a public company, with the initial offer oversubscribed over 56 times, which is attributed in the novel to tai-pan Ian Dunross. In 1963, the Hongkong Land subsidiary of Jardine Matheson (fictionalized as Asian Properties) opened what was then the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which has today become one of the world's leading hotels. The Dairy Farm subsidiary of Jardine Matheson moved into the supermarket sector in 1964 with the acquisition of Wellcome (fictionalized as Hong Kong General Stores). A Jardine Matheson representative office was established in Australia in 1963 (fictionalized as the next assignment of Linbar Struan). The Ho Pak bank run storyline mirrored the real Hang Seng Bank run in 1965. The two primary banks, Victoria Bank and Blacs, were the fictionalized HSBC and Standard Chartered respectively. The big set-pieces — the fire on the boat and the landslide — are also closely modeled on real events (the Jumbo Floating Restaurant fire in 1971 and the Kotewall Road disaster in 1972). The Macau businessman who controlled the gold trade in partnership with Struans, Lando Mata, is based on a composite of two famous Macau businessmen, Pedro José Lobo and Stanley Ho. The Noble House compradore family the Chens are based on the Hotung family. The American-Chinese scientist who defected to China and helped develop the first atom bomb for China, Dr. Joseph Yu, is a fictionalized version of renowned Caltech scientist Dr. Qian Xuesen. Sir Dunstan Barre is based on Sir Douglas Clague.
A major difference between the original novel and the later miniseries adaptation is that the television version changes the setting from 1963 to the late 1980s, and updates visible technology and the general atmosphere accordingly. The looming return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 is frequently mentioned, which was not a major concern in the 1960s.
Writing.
Clavell's first novel, "King Rat" (1962), is set in 1940s Singapore. His second novel, "Tai-Pan" (1966), is set in 1840s Hong Kong. After visiting Hong Kong to research "Tai-Pan" in 1963, Clavell returned regularly to the island. He wanted to write a novel about modern day Hong Kong which used some characters from "King Rat" and descendants of characters from "Tai-Pan". "Noble House" was the first of the "interlocking novels" he planned to write as part of the Asian Saga.
Clavell says he "wanted to write a story about two Americans who go Hong Kong to try and usurp Noble House and have a lot of adventures. That's all I knew I was going to do beforehand. In the old days—say, "Tai-Pan"—when I got myself in a hole I could always kill somebody. It wasn't that easy in "Noble House"."
He started in April 1978 but was interrupted by the filming of the novel "Shōgun" (1975). Clavell says "Noble House" took him three years to research and write. He would write every day, five pages a day. He used old newspapers and court records, as well as research he had done for "Tai Pan". The character Peter Marlowe was a surrogate for Clavell himself. Clavell said he made one of the American female characters Armenian because it was "the unexpected thing" and because his friend David Hedison was Armenian.
"I think it's one of the best things I've done", said Clavell in a 1980 interview. Clavell described his process:
The novel was 1,200 pages. It had been reduced 30% with the help of Clavell's editor, Jena Bernkopf. "These things go on until they end", said Clavell about the length. "My secret is I never know what's going to happen from day to day. The last page is all that matters. The rest of it is wind. I only know that once I start, I will finish... People now tell me it ends too soon."
Clavell dedicated the novel to Queen Elizabeth II because "she owns Hong Kong. It belongs to the and she has my admiration. You see I was born in the heyday of the British Empire and it's with me forever." Clavell said any film adaptation of the novel "needn't be set in 1963. Modern day Hong Kong will do. As De Mille said, a tree is a tree, a jet is a jet." The novel retroactively connects an obscure western movie Clavell wrote and directed to the Asian Saga. The film, "Walk Like a Dragon" (1960), starred Jack Lord as Linc Bartlett, who is established as an ancestor of a similarly named character in Clavell's novel.
Reception.
The initial print run of 250,000 copies of "Noble House" was the largest in the 17-year history of Delacorte Press. The initial order of 75,000 copies by Waldenbooks was a record for that chain.
Alvin Rabushka of the Hoover Institution said that the novel so well depicted Hong Kong that non-experts would not notice its accuracy.