Remod

Is it in the States too?

I think the US release date is early June, but it shouldn't be long.

Mmm. David Mitchell hardcover...

So far it's not as dense as Ghostwritten or Cloud Atlas (no weird layering yet, just regular narrative) but the characters in this absolutely rock. Jacob de Zoet is a clerk for the Dutch Trading Company and while he's likable enough (basically he's not a racist fuck like everyone else in the book) the rest of the cast is really fun. From japanese shogunal lords to shady interpreters that translate the kanji for "hundred" into "thousand", including a batshit doctor (he WON'T use leeches on people! the gall!), a love interest with half a burnt face, a prussian rival and the island of Dejima as the stage, with the Dutch forbidden to cross into main-land Nagasaki and the Japanese forbidden from leaving Japan, it feels like more of a historical novel than anything else. I'm still enjoying it and anticipating a twist any minute now.

Still reading this, narrative just shifted to the Japanese side. I'm loving it so far. I just hope it has a cameo from another book.

If there isn't an awesome cameo from another book I would be very surprised...this is David Mitchell after all.

It could just be a break from that, this book is very different from his others. Then again, every book he makes is completely different from the rest so yeah.

You should get this btw.

Finished it. It's not a bad book, but it's not a spectacular one. It's a fantastic work of historical accuracy and research and a complex web of interwoven cultures, personas and intrigues but it lacks forward momentum for most of it's duration. It has severally brilliantly written setpieces, including word exchanges, raids on shrines, and a re imagining of the bombardment of Dejima by the HMS Phoebus and consequent hara-kiri of the current Nagasaki Magistrate and but it also has quite a lot of fluff. Well written, entertaining fluff, but fluff nonetheless.

It's somewhat of a mix between the usage of the multiple viewpoints in Ghostwritten and the personal voyages in number9dream and Black Swan Green, creating a very ambitious world pulsing with interesting characters.

The biggest shame is that Jacob de Zoet himself isn't all that interesting. He is immediatly established as a "good guy" who opposes slavery and lives an honest life and, apart from a brief moment where he ponders if loving a woman in that land means betraying his Dutch wife, he doesn't evolve much as a character. By the end of the book he's aged but that's pretty much it. Everyone else around him seems to shift and change like quicksilver, either being kidnapped, killed, betrayed or betraying, overcoming actual personal obstacles, but de Zoet is there merely as the reader's window into the world of the book. Well he would be, if 50% of the book wasn't narrated by someone else's viewpoint.

Grievances with plot development and de Zoet aside, the book ends up being great, explaining just enough to let you imagine what the unexplained part is like (much like real life) and crafting memorable characters. Above all that, it bombastically succeeds as an historic novel, a clear view into the abnormality that was the artificial island of Dejima and Japanese and Dutch life there in the 18th century.

Overall, better than number9dream and Black Swan Green, as good as Ghostwritten, but not as good as Cloud Atlas. Mitchell has yet to surpass himself.