"The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" by David Mitchell

In which world will we find ourselves on opening David Mitchell’s next book? In which universe? In “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet” Mr. Mitchell transports us in classic style to late medieval Japan, to that nation’s one portal to the outside world. And he takes us, his joyous, eagerly-led readers, on a captivating journey yet again.

Our eponymous clerk, Jacob de Zoet, sails from The Netherlands in 1799 to Nagasaki, or more exactly to Dejima, the one precinct where Dutch traders are allowed in Edo-era Japan. He seeks his fortune, like every other Dutch seaman, and wants to return home and marry. However good his intentions, he finds corruption, oppression, xenophobia, and violence. He remains untouched by it – or rather, he keeps himself blameless no matter what the consequences. The blamelessness endures, but events originating in the clash of cultures, the greed of everyone around him, and British ambitions in the region, soon combine to make Dejima not a trading post with its promise of enriching de Zoet, but a prison that threatens to kill him.

Tribulations include forbidden love, ritual butchery of innocents, and subtle, deadly court intrigues. Throughout it all, “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet” glitters with terrific, vivid, timeless effects. The two worlds – of Japan and Holland, of Eastern mysticism and Protestant orthodoxy, of trading aggressiveness and de jure xenophobia – our upstanding, put-upon clerk witnesses all. A fine invention is Jacob de Zoet – someone to be admired, remembered, and loved. And Mr. Mitchell earns our admiration here, too, for his full, nuanced, and yet epic story.

Mr. Mitchell masters so many ideas and details in this mighty work: intimate personal portraiture, the forbidden, torturing nature of cross-culture love, the brutal prejudices on all sides at the dawn of the 19th Century, and most of all, the strict, formalized manners and morality of late medieval Japan. All these receive the author’s deft, convincing hand, and all results in a sweeping adventure, memorable, engaging, glorious. David Mitchell reminds us once again of why we read, and especially why we impatiently await his efforts.

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"Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell

I approached “Black Swan Green” shortly after a very memorable experience with “Cloud Atlas,” so I rushed ahead breathless and excited. “Black Swan Green” turned out to be a very different experience, which proved David Mitchell’s extreme versatility, and reinforced his rank as one of the world’s greatest writers.

Mr. Mitchell creates the (autobiographical?) character of Jason Taylor, a British lad trying to navigate the shark-infested waters of junior high, or whatever the local name for those grades is. Jason struggles to push his way into the upper echelon of school society, and seems to almost make it at one point, but otherwise is one of the faceless rabble that populate all grades at all schools. This is the story of a boy just prior to coming of age. It is compelling adventure, nevertheless.

Once I accustomed myself to the slang used in the U.K. at the time, I began to keep up a little better with this memorable ride. Jason, owner of a noble and courageous heart, suffers through the constant bullying by classmates in power. He knows the microcosm of his class is corrupt, stifled by intimidation and petty extortion. The description of his bid to overthrow this tyranny enraptures the reader who’s been paying attention, and leads to Jasie-boy’s first snog at the end of the school year.

Mr. Mitchell brings a crackling diction to this boy’s laments. He demonstrates that he can wield his language to make us want the best for his hero – we root for this appealing character, and the book finishes in a grand, satisfying manner. But the trials of the journey through this school year are real and harrowing, and I thank my lucky stars and my parents’ sacrifices for private schooling. This trip has neither the innovative flair (unless one considers the very inventive language) nor the sweeping apocalyptic vision of “Cloud Atlas,” but reaches the reader on a more completely personal level. “Black Swan Green” recounts the turning of a life from dark to promising, the graduation of a soul from passive to assertive, an ascendance of merit over selfishness. “Jasie-boy” Taylor is again, just as the highly diverting plots and loops and suffering heroes in “Cloud Atlas,” a reaffirmation of the reading life, a reminder of the simple joys and edifications of reading the right stuff. Make no mistake and waste no time! Take it up!

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"Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell

“Cloud Atlas” takes us, wide-eyed and agape, through a cautionary Matryoshka doll of a novel, where hero after hero vies with and suffers from the whims and prejudices of those in power. This book stands as a brilliant testimony and reinforcement of why we take up reading in the first place. Mr. Mitchell echoes the South Seas observations of Robert Louis Stevenson, the crime mysteries of John D. MacDonald, and the dystopian future of Margaret Atwood. In each vividly wrought milieu, the author draws out the plight of a person or group as it strains against the tyranny of the day.

This innovative structure arrests any reader who expects a continuous narrative. At the abrupt conclusion of the first section, set in the 19th Century in the South Pacific, we are thrust forward to Europe, between the World Wars. From the intrigue and exploitation of an amanuensis by a famous composer, we rush forward to the 1970s and a plot involving murder as a corporate strategy by a California nuclear utility. From whence we rush to the years at the turn of the 20th to the 21st Centuries, and the tribulations of a man whom relatives want to confine against his will simply because he turned 60. Then come the futuristic visions, which turn progressively uglier and end in a post-apocalyptic world where all society and technology and culture have vanished. The ultimate of these brings us back to sailing ships on the Pacific Ocean, but without any that the race has any civilizing features, or communal practices, or hopes, at all.

Mr. Mitchell then retraces his steps back through the narratives, providing some measure of resolution for each. Certain individuals bear the exact same birthmark, showing a further continuity for the story. As the narratives build up, the theme of the downtrodden vs. powerful repeats in ever-new and cruel ways. We sense early on that the effects: these clever reiterations will leave an indelible mark on our consciousness. We get what the author wants us to have, and we admire and thank him for the multiple insights. Repetition shows itself as patently the most effective way to focus on the theme: the powerful will wreak their predation and exploitation of weaker people and groups, with never an end in sight.

This is stunning: effective, awe-inspiring, memorable, reverberating. If you are serious about reading serious fiction, read this.

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