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I've been a big fan of David Mitchell since I read Cloud Atlas a couple of years ago. He's one of the most gifted of the new generation of English novelists: intelligent, witty and a master of undemonstrative, elegant prose. Mitchell might actually be the best novelist writing in English today and in only a few years he's produced an impressive body of work. It wasn't a surprise to me that of the two novels President Obama took on his Hawaii vacation, one of them was by David Mitchell. (The other was a John LeCarre).
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Thousand Autumns tells the story of a young Dutch clerk who gets posted to the tiny Dutch concession in Nagasaki. He falls in love with a Japanese girl who is the daughter of an impoverished scholar. She gets sent to a convent when her father dies intestate and De Zoet suffers a professional disaster when he refuses to take a bribe. There are many more threads to the tale, but revealing them would spoil the surprises. I haven't read James Clavell's Shogun but if you liked that you'll probably like De Zoet and if you are an admirer of quality fiction this book should be near the top of your reading list. Absolute travesty that this didn't win the 2010 Booker Prize.
34 comments:
Your experience of this sounds a bit like mine of Cloud Atlas, skeptical through some of it, but won over in the end. I actually bought this one, but haven't gotten to it.
I am about halfway through Finkler, and though not bored, really, I am not exactly bowled over. A friend tells me Kalooki Nights was better, and I wonder if it's the thing that often happens which is that people get rewarded for the book that comes after the book that should have gotten the acclaim. The Booker-Man is pretty hit or miss for me. I did like Wolf Hall, though I have to say that I would probably have read that anyway at some point. I had liked the opening before it ever won any prize.
My sister is a big Japanophile and she loves Shogun, so I'll have to remember to get her on to this one.
Loved this book. Great characters and plot and wonderful writing. Ticked all the boxes for me.
He's living down the road in Cork too. I loved Cloud Atlas, so I'll have to get my hands on this one.
I hated this book and felt gipped for reading it.
I loved Cloud Atlas so expected great things.
Harumph
Seana
I think I mentioned before that I completely cheated through Cloud Atlas, reading each story sequentially...not really the done thing.
Mike
I agree. And a fantastic operatic climax.
Conor
I like the fact that Mitchell lived in Japan for many years and then left that weird, insulat, eccentric island culture for, er...
Rob
You didnt even like the Go game?
Rob
You didnt even like the Go game?
I hated everything about it, even the game and the action scenes. Not since Jude the Obscure (the only time in my life I didn't finish a book, fact fans) have I been so furious at having my time wasted.
Saying that, I'm struggling to the end of Wuthering Heights at the moment and finding it hard not to scream
Rob
Funny that about Wuthering Heights. I liked it but it goes on about 40 pages beyond the natural conclusion. And I cant help feeling that Emily was the family genius.
Well, she wrote it, so I'm not quite getting what you're saying.
I was helped in reading Wuthering Heights by reading it while I was visiting Haworth and having a firsthand view of those bleak moors, and also by reading The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, who convincingly view the novel as the reenactment of a myth, and not a 'romance' novel at all.
As to David Mitchell, he seems to have a preference for switching things up on people, which can keep things lively, or be off putting, depending on the reader.
Seana
Yeah I'm saying that for all its weirdness and the fact that it outstayed its welcome (at least for me) Emily was (again for me) head and shoulders above the rest of her talented siblings. Her poetry and the wild, brilliant, untamed darkness of Wuthering Heights is a lot more arresting than Charlotte or Anne's excellent novels. It's heartbreaking to think what she would have achieved had she lived to say Mozart's age: 35.
I too liked The Madwoman In The Attic. A nice companion piece to the new movie version of - spoiler alert - Jane Eyre.
There's another version of Jane Eyre coming out?
Much as I love both the Brontes and Austen, it's time to move on for a decade or so. How about a new Gone With the Wind?
Seana
Yup with the actress who was the lead in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. An Aussie.
How about a new version of the Wide Sargasso Sea?
There was a good Wide Sargasso Sea done by the BBC a while back with Rebecca Hall.
The problem I've got with Wuthering Heights is twofold.
First, I'm being forced to read it for university,
Second, I can't stand the fact that everyone is furious with everyone else all the time.
And I've just got to Linton's arrival. He needs a good kicking.
There's a thing for a blog. Top 10 Fictional Characters That Need a Slap
Rob, write the list, why don't you? I think our host would like it, though he would probably try to top it.
Yes, I was thinking there'd been a Masterpiece theatre on Wide Sargasso, but that's not the same thing as big screen movie, is it?
It's a good direction to go, in any case.
Trollope's overdue for another venture as well.
Rob
Wait, doesn't he get a good kicking? I'm pretty sure Heathcliff goes all mentalist on him at some point.
Seana
I'd say ban the whole nineteenth century but then they'd just do the thirties.
Saw The King's Speech today. It was very well made. A perfect script, perfect acting and yet...there was something a little too perfect about it. Let's make ourselves a tasty piece of Oscar bait everyone seemed to be thinking to themselves. Of course in S Florida they were playing to the choir - people errupted in applause at the end.
You might be giving something away.
Linton-Heathcliff is a bit like Walter-Richard in Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom, I'm realizing. Which is a bit of a problem, as it makes it hard to care about what happens to Walt. Who does get a bit of a kicking along the way.
Also, to go all mentalist now means to become more like Simon Baker, which in my book and many others can only be a good thing.
I was going to go see the King's Speech today, actually, but got sidetracked. I'm sure the movie is good, but the timing of the release seems very calculated.
A propos of something...I loved reading Shogun but have so far have not seen the tv show - or was that the movie? Wasn't David Carradine the actor for a Shogun?
I'd like to see the list of fictional characters to slap too.
Seana
I liked it and I think you'd like it too, but man the screenplay does make you feel manipulated.
Sheiler
I saw bits of it. I'm pretty sure it was Richard Chamberlain. Always seemed a bit on cheeze side for me.
Here's the best Kings Speech review I've read.
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2011/01/09/the-sunday-review-the-kings-speech/
Full disclosure: I used to work for Sion Simon and found him as much of a CAUC as this review suggests
I didn't watch it, but it was Richard Chamberlain.
Over at Do Some Damage, Jay Springer mentioned an interview with the screenwriter of The Kings's Speech. I wasn't able to get it open, but you can try it here.
Rob
Good piece and I agree with a chunk of it. The S Florida audience here also lapped up the same bits. Oooh there's the king with his missus - hilarious.
Seana
I'll read that tomorrow. He did a very a professional job: he manufactured conflict where there was none, he gave the royals wit when there has never been any evidence of it, he included Churchill when Churchill really wasnt involved, all the characters had an arc and there was a nice dramatic conclusion about something which actually had consequences. That's scripting 101.
It was good, but as an American I think I can say that we enjoy movies about British royalty and aristocracy much as we would any good fairy tale. It's not that we have no class system, but it's very different.
I actually don't like movies about the British class system or aristocracy, with one exception--Helen Mirren as "The Queen." Superb.
And I don't like books with these characters either, which is why I shy away from some mysteries, which focus on the wealthy. Not interesting to me.
The U.S. class system is more subtle, more behind the scenes, not quite as in-your-face. There isn't a monarchy nor landed gentry.
Wealthy families tend to be more in the background, unless a scandal breaks in the press. How hedge-fund and Wall St. CEO's live tends to be a bit behind the scenes.
Former Labor Sec. Robert Reichs does say that it is very hard for anyone in the U.S. to climb beyond the class they were born in, although that is the American Dream. That Dream is facing for many due to unemployment, loss of income, houses, medical care and pensions for many.
Errata: Meant to say that Dream is fading...
Kathy
The acting though is uniformly excellent.
This is an excellent article on The American Dream
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/04/american-dream200904
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