In 1799, Jacob de Zoet disembarks on the tiny island of Dejima, the Dutch East India Company’s remotest trading post in a Japan otherwise closed to...
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Dec 11, 2011
tim
rated it: 
Since discovering David Mitchell a little over a year ago, I have devoured all five of his novels to date. Yet I still cannot say what it is that keeps me impatiently coming back for more.
He is a master of voices. He breathes life into characters quickly and effortlessly. He is not afraid to dive into the unknowable mysteries embedded within us. Time, life, dreams, death. Without the crutches of belief or disbelief, he dances around questions of the soul. His villains are ofttimes as More...
He is a master of voices. He breathes life into characters quickly and effortlessly. He is not afraid to dive into the unknowable mysteries embedded within us. Time, life, dreams, death. Without the crutches of belief or disbelief, he dances around questions of the soul. His villains are ofttimes as More...
8 comments
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(36 people liked it)
Apr 14, 2011
Newengland
rated it: 
Remember Dr. Seuss's words, children: "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" In the case of wunderkind writer David Mitchell's THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET, you'll set your time machine dial for 1799 and a makeshift Dutch port called Dejima on the shores of Nagasaki, Japan.
But let's take it down another level. You'll start at the port and live with old salts that'll make the Pirates of the Caribbean look like so many Lord Fauntleroys. You'll visit the homes of the secreti More...
But let's take it down another level. You'll start at the port and live with old salts that'll make the Pirates of the Caribbean look like so many Lord Fauntleroys. You'll visit the homes of the secreti More...
12 comments
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(53 people liked it)
Dec 07, 2010
Ken-ichi
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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17 comments
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(47 people liked it)
Dec 04, 2011
Whitaker
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On Mitchell's Writing
Mitchell is one of my favourite writers, and I really have to squee about how masterfully he uses words. Here’s an example of his writing in this novel. Mitchell is setting a scene where Jacob is waiting in the antechamber to his new boss’s office. Along the walls of the antechamber are displayed specimens of exotic animals preserved in formaldehyde. As he looks at the specimens, Jacob recalls the events that led him to this place. Now Mitchell could have written More...
Mitchell is one of my favourite writers, and I really have to squee about how masterfully he uses words. Here’s an example of his writing in this novel. Mitchell is setting a scene where Jacob is waiting in the antechamber to his new boss’s office. Along the walls of the antechamber are displayed specimens of exotic animals preserved in formaldehyde. As he looks at the specimens, Jacob recalls the events that led him to this place. Now Mitchell could have written More...
10 comments
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(19 people liked it)
Nov 08, 2011
Sue
rated it:
I really enjoyed this book immensely, probably a 4.5 of 5. It's so close to a 5 and someday I may return and decide it is.
The story grabbed me from the start and I believe that has to have some connection to Mitchell's skills as a writer and story teller as well as the story itself as tales of the sea and exploration are usually of no interest to me. His picture of the cultures of the time, both Japanese and the transplanted Europeans, captured my interest from the first pages and al More...
The story grabbed me from the start and I believe that has to have some connection to Mitchell's skills as a writer and story teller as well as the story itself as tales of the sea and exploration are usually of no interest to me. His picture of the cultures of the time, both Japanese and the transplanted Europeans, captured my interest from the first pages and al More...
6 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Aug 04, 2011
Steve
rated it:
I was happy to see Mitchell try his hand at historical fiction. While he’s always been considered an immensely skilled writer and a superb storyteller, it's his inventive structuring that seems to bring forth the highest praise. Read Cloud Atlas to see if you agree. With this most recent work, as he said in a post-publication interview, he was trying a more straightforward narrative form – one without gewgaws (I think that was the word he used, or maybe it was “jiggery-pokery”). I’m pleased
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32 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Aug 04, 2011
Audrey
rated it:
David Mitchell makes a worthy entry into the literature of clerks with The Thousand Autumns. I've puzzled before about why clerks make such good protagonists. I think now it's because they witness misdeeds petty and grave in the course of their duties. Everyone else considers them too powerless or worn down to do anything or doesn't consider them at all because they're invisible. And then, they record accounts and aren't we all keeping accounts in our lives, hopefully of something higher and mor
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4 comments
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(5 people liked it)
Jan 24, 2012
Frank
rated it:
A nice and entertaining novel. To me it feels more like literary entertainment than a serious masterpiece; maybe I already had that feeling with Cloud Atlas; but there's nothing wrong with solid entertainment.
Mitchell's talent seems to me narrative rather than stylistic. Managing narrative tension, that's where his genius lies. I wonder if he's ever studied any of the Hollywood screen writing guides, because his novel meets all the requirements of the standard suspenseful Hollywood f More...
Mitchell's talent seems to me narrative rather than stylistic. Managing narrative tension, that's where his genius lies. I wonder if he's ever studied any of the Hollywood screen writing guides, because his novel meets all the requirements of the standard suspenseful Hollywood f More...
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(3 people liked it)
Jan 16, 2011
Paula
rated it:
In many ways, this is a conventional historical novel with a lot of narrative push. It's hard to put down, a quality that generally puts me on guard. The story proceeds in linear fashion, after a brief introduction to Orito the midwife, with the arrival in 1799 of clerk Jacob de Zoet at Dejima, a Dutch East Indies Company trading outpost on an island in Nagasaki harbor. The novel ends with the death of Jacob de Zoet, approximately 40 years later, and approximately 20 years after his return to t
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4 comments
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(5 people liked it)
Jan 31, 2011
John
rated it:
Last month I was visiting the MFA in Boston. After an hour or two of wandering through rooms sporting giant, bombastic 19th century American paintings, I came upon a dim hall with small, colorful prints hanging from the wall, like this one:
This was my first taste of Utagawa Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, and I was immediately transfixed.
Although the Edo referred to in the Hiroshige prints is a place (a city later to be renamed Tokyo), Edo also refers More...
This was my first taste of Utagawa Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, and I was immediately transfixed.
Although the Edo referred to in the Hiroshige prints is a place (a city later to be renamed Tokyo), Edo also refers More...
6 comments
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(13 people liked it)
Nov 17, 2010
Teresa
rated it:
David Mitchell's forte is the creation of full-formed worlds with numerous living, breathing characters, all written in beautiful, engaging prose.
I didn't think the subject matter of this novel would interest me at all (a trading post? a naval battle? not for me) but I was happy to live in this world with these characters while I was reading it. The plot is intricate but not cumbersome; details have meaning.
As in Cloud Atlas, there are recurring phrases and images that More...
I didn't think the subject matter of this novel would interest me at all (a trading post? a naval battle? not for me) but I was happy to live in this world with these characters while I was reading it. The plot is intricate but not cumbersome; details have meaning.
As in Cloud Atlas, there are recurring phrases and images that More...
12 comments
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(7 people liked it)
Oct 01, 2010
Shane
rated it:
I picked this book as I am currently writing a novel about the VOC (Dutch East India Company) set in the same time period, albeit in Ceylon, so my preference is partial to this rather obscure subject matter.
That said, the novel is very well researched on trading, political, social, and cultural relationships within and between Japan and Holland at the dawn of the nineteenth century. In the story of Jacob de Zoet—a clerk who comes out east to earn his fortune so that he can return in More...
That said, the novel is very well researched on trading, political, social, and cultural relationships within and between Japan and Holland at the dawn of the nineteenth century. In the story of Jacob de Zoet—a clerk who comes out east to earn his fortune so that he can return in More...
4 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Jul 27, 2010
Showing a pre-publication copy (thanks, Jason!) to a friend, I surprised myself a little by saying “Greatest living author.” My wife is fond of pointing out how fatuous such pronouncements are (thanks, Mary!), but I maintain they’re for the sake of discussion, not objectively verifiable claims.
David Mitchell, 41, has only written five novels, but they show enormous range, from the astonishing metafictional fireworks of Cloud Atlas, to Black Swan Green, his character-driven, semi-aut More...
David Mitchell, 41, has only written five novels, but they show enormous range, from the astonishing metafictional fireworks of Cloud Atlas, to Black Swan Green, his character-driven, semi-aut More...
0 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Jul 26, 2010
Sandybanks
rated it:
Dejima, 1799. The Napoleonic Wars are raging in Europe, changing political loyalties seemingly overnight. The venerable VOC is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Dutch East Indies is about to fall into British hands. Japan has been isolated from the world for more than a hundred years.
This book seems like a conventional historical fiction at first --- the premise sounds similar to An Insular Possession. And hasn’t Japan been done to death with Shogun and Memoirs of a Geisha? But r More...
This book seems like a conventional historical fiction at first --- the premise sounds similar to An Insular Possession. And hasn’t Japan been done to death with Shogun and Memoirs of a Geisha? But r More...
15 comments
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(8 people liked it)
Nov 27, 2011
Andy
rated it:
This just reaffirms my love for David Mitchell. This novel was not what I expected, although I wasn't sure what to expect to begin with, within the milieu of an East India Trading Co. clerk on a tiny island on the shore of Nagasaki, in 1799. Even outside of his time living in Japan, this had to be extensively researched, and Mitchell continues his habit of including Easter eggs for those who have read his other novels with the appearance of a younger version of one of the characters from a cha
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0 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Jun 13, 2011
Woodge
rated it:
I've been doing a lot of genre reading lately; lots of fantasy, the occasional crime story -- and a non-fiction title here and there. With this novel I got back into a big, meaty, literate tale. You know, high-brow stuff. I'd almost forgotten how captivating that can be and this one did captivate. This story is about a Dutchman, Jacob de Zoet, who travels to a small island called Dejima located across a small bridge outside of Nagasaki in Japan. The year is 1799 and the Japanese do not allow f
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0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Mar 24, 2011
Bettie
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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18 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Dec 11, 2011
Kelly
rated it: 
"A Dutch trader walks into a bar..."
That's not how the book begins, but it is written in present tense, just like a joke or a teenager's anecdote ("And then Becky goes 'Whatever.'")
Perhaps the tense is to give a sense of immediacy, but I just found it irksome, and it further disconnected me from a story I found difficult to enjoy.
Cloud Atlas is a favorite of mine, and maybe 18th century Dutch trading just isn't my thing. Usually, though, I'm thri More...
That's not how the book begins, but it is written in present tense, just like a joke or a teenager's anecdote ("And then Becky goes 'Whatever.'")
Perhaps the tense is to give a sense of immediacy, but I just found it irksome, and it further disconnected me from a story I found difficult to enjoy.
Cloud Atlas is a favorite of mine, and maybe 18th century Dutch trading just isn't my thing. Usually, though, I'm thri More...
0 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Aug 05, 2010
Michael
rated it:
By far the best novel I've read this year. Nobody writes like David Mitchell. I'm rubbish at talking about complex books like this, so go read all the glowing reviews from Entertainment Weekly to the New York Times Book Review. I just want to add that there is a lot to like here for a genre reader. Imagine the plot of a potboiler thriller executed in the most precise and delicate language. Highly recommended.
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(3 people liked it)
Jul 25, 2011
Joanna
rated it:
There is so much to talk about with regard to this book. It is a wonderful and egaging read with elements for everyone - love, adventure, history, language, violence.... What particularly caught my attention was the description of how medical knowledge was transferred at the turn of the 18th century. Translators were relied on to develop a language to talk about new concepts for (in this example) the Japanese and the learned Dutch doctor. They really had so much power! It is evident in their eff
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(1 person liked it)
Feb 16, 2011
Jan
rated it:
This is a book that I was longing to read, as all the reviews were so ecstatic.
Yes, indeed. It is wonderful and I understand the ecstatic reviews. This is literary fiction at its best. The prose is lyrical and breathtaking. The story is a very unusual and fascinating story that brings together elements of unrequited love, political chicanery, ethics, the collision of cultures, and the cost of imperialism. Those are just a few of the themes that make this book complex and very re More...
Yes, indeed. It is wonderful and I understand the ecstatic reviews. This is literary fiction at its best. The prose is lyrical and breathtaking. The story is a very unusual and fascinating story that brings together elements of unrequited love, political chicanery, ethics, the collision of cultures, and the cost of imperialism. Those are just a few of the themes that make this book complex and very re More...
2 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Nov 01, 2011
Abby
rated it:
I finished this book weeks ago but have been uncharacteristically disinclined to tackle the review for fear of lacking the skill to adequately describe it without simply stringing together a list of admiring adjectives. Epic, engrossing, suspenseful, moving, enlightening, exciting, superb, the best book I've read in years....I could go on. This is one of those rare books that we passionate readers hope for every time we crack a book but that comes along only too rarely.[return][return]Who knew t
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Mar 18, 2011
Mary-Beth
rated it:
Culture clash
In most of his previous books, Mitchell has turned the old architectural maxim that form follows function on its head; he has written novels that have fascinating characters and plot wrapped up into stylized, post-modern structures (vis a vis "Cloud Atlas," "Ghostwritten," and "Number9Dream"). This was less true in "Black Swan Green," an evocative bildungsroman and semi-autobiography, and now in "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet," More...
In most of his previous books, Mitchell has turned the old architectural maxim that form follows function on its head; he has written novels that have fascinating characters and plot wrapped up into stylized, post-modern structures (vis a vis "Cloud Atlas," "Ghostwritten," and "Number9Dream"). This was less true in "Black Swan Green," an evocative bildungsroman and semi-autobiography, and now in "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet," More...
Aug 22, 2010
Bookmarks Magazine
rated it: 
Despite some complaints of theatrical plot twists, unwieldy exposition, and weak characters, most critics enjoyed Mitchell's latest novel, a fairly conventional page-turner that represents quite a detour from his earlier adventures in style and form. Once the action-packed plot hits its stride, Mitchell's sizzling prose and keen eye for detail plunge readers into the fascinating world of feudal Japan. However, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet surpasses the typical historical thriller throug
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(2 people liked it)
Feb 12, 2012
Boris
rated it:
Mitchell, David (2010). The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. New York: Random House. 2010.
Secondo Wikipedia, David Mitchell è nato a Southport (Merseyside), è cresciuto a Malvern (Worcestershire), ha studiato all’università del Kent, ha vissuto per un anno in Sicilia, nel 1994 si è trasferito a Hiroshima in Giappone. Attualmente vive a Clonakilty, sulla costa meridionale dell’Irlanda, con la moglie Keiko e due figli. E questo mi fa piacere, perché mi piace sentirmi un po’ vicino, anc More...
Secondo Wikipedia, David Mitchell è nato a Southport (Merseyside), è cresciuto a Malvern (Worcestershire), ha studiato all’università del Kent, ha vissuto per un anno in Sicilia, nel 1994 si è trasferito a Hiroshima in Giappone. Attualmente vive a Clonakilty, sulla costa meridionale dell’Irlanda, con la moglie Keiko e due figli. E questo mi fa piacere, perché mi piace sentirmi un po’ vicino, anc More...
Feb 03, 2012
Mary
rated it:
Chapter one gets us off to a dramatic start with a Japanese midwife in late 18th c. Japan accomplishing a concubine's difficult delivery, helped along by her knowledge of European obstetrics. This chapter pulled me in, but the next hundred pages or so defaulted to life in the Dutch East India Company outpost of Dejima, near Nagasaki. More difficult names than a Russian novel, but I have plenty of them under my belt and know that if one perseveres the cast becomes clear. Besides, I had hopes o
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Feb 03, 2012
Kris
rated it:
I read the book in essentially one sitting, a New York to Beijing flight, with connection. A strange experience, the structure seems much clearer when you're finished, and you really feel like you're holding the whole of it in your head when you're done. Jacob's character was one of the most compelling I had read in a while, and despite a surprisingly action-packed plot, the sense of passing time is very well created. There's also a nice running theme of futility in spite of high hopes and plent
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Jan 30, 2012
Clay
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jan 30, 2012
Claire
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You are probably familiar with those *masterpieces* of modern literature that are pretty unreadable (VS Naipaul I'm looking straight at you) - the intimation is that it is YOUR fault NOT that of the masterpiece. Well, I'm happy to report that David Mitchell's work, whilst containing literary allusions, beautiful prose and depth of meaning, is definitely extremely readable and probably therefore doesn't count as literature according to some tenets. Indeed I can picture Naipaul sneering about Mi
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Jan 17, 2012
Janet
rated it:
First a thank you to my nephew who purchased this book for me for Christmas. I'm not really a fan of historical fiction, so was a little worried that I'd end up telling him it wasn't for me. Then the book turned out to be pretty amazing.
Thousand Autumns is a remarkable tale of the Dutch/Japanese trading partnership, centered in Nagasaki, in the early 1800s. Jacob, an accountant, is sent there to help unravel the Dutch company's books, which as we say, "have been cooked" for More...
Thousand Autumns is a remarkable tale of the Dutch/Japanese trading partnership, centered in Nagasaki, in the early 1800s. Jacob, an accountant, is sent there to help unravel the Dutch company's books, which as we say, "have been cooked" for More...
