A memorable story that manages a great sense of sweep and heft even though the core of it takes place over the course of a single year (that excludes the two short sections at the end that provide closure to Jacob's extended, unconsummated love for Orito). The setting is liminal in more than one sense - 1799 in Dejima, an artificial trading island established in the bay surrounding Nagasaki as a base for the Dutch representatives of the East Indies Trading Company, during what would turn out to be close to the last gasp for the Company before collapsing under mismanagement and corruption - and it comes colourfully to life; it'll stay in the mind, I'm sure.
It's clear - and to the novel's benefit - that, whatever else, Mitchell is unashamedly committed to the pleasures of story: there's romance and adventure; piles of characters (many of whose points of views we get at various points), including seemingly upright sorts who turn dastardly and apparently villainous ones who come through in the end, and often all introduced in a single dump over a page or two; plenty of back story and world-building (often quite shamelessly delivered through dialogue of the "so remind me why X is the way that it is?" variety); humour, including via the many indignities heaped upon Jacob, from being pissed on by a monkey (during his first encounter with Miss Aibagawa no less) to banging his head on too-low entrances to rooms; chapters that tend to begin amidst action of some kind; and even ellipses at the ends of paragraphs to generate suspense that is then resolved straight after.
In different hands, some of that could easily have seemed sloppy - and, indeed, unless I missed something there were just a handful of places where that was actually the case (eg Captain Lacy's multiple belches followed by excuses based on some food consumed or other didn't seem to pay off as anything other than lazy characterisation) - but instead it contributes to a novel that is ferociously readable, aided by the frequently wonderful sentence and scene-level writing, as well as the array of themes that weave in and out. And ends on a well judged emotional note too.
I must say, I don't think The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is at the same (very high) standard as Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green, but it's still quite the feat.
It's clear - and to the novel's benefit - that, whatever else, Mitchell is unashamedly committed to the pleasures of story: there's romance and adventure; piles of characters (many of whose points of views we get at various points), including seemingly upright sorts who turn dastardly and apparently villainous ones who come through in the end, and often all introduced in a single dump over a page or two; plenty of back story and world-building (often quite shamelessly delivered through dialogue of the "so remind me why X is the way that it is?" variety); humour, including via the many indignities heaped upon Jacob, from being pissed on by a monkey (during his first encounter with Miss Aibagawa no less) to banging his head on too-low entrances to rooms; chapters that tend to begin amidst action of some kind; and even ellipses at the ends of paragraphs to generate suspense that is then resolved straight after.
In different hands, some of that could easily have seemed sloppy - and, indeed, unless I missed something there were just a handful of places where that was actually the case (eg Captain Lacy's multiple belches followed by excuses based on some food consumed or other didn't seem to pay off as anything other than lazy characterisation) - but instead it contributes to a novel that is ferociously readable, aided by the frequently wonderful sentence and scene-level writing, as well as the array of themes that weave in and out. And ends on a well judged emotional note too.
I must say, I don't think The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is at the same (very high) standard as Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green, but it's still quite the feat.
