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number9dream

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 · rating details · 6,991 ratings · 591 reviews

David Mitchell follows his eerily precocious, globe-striding first novel, Ghostwritten, with a work that is in its way even more ambitious. In outward form, number9dream is a Dickensian coming-of-age journey: Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister’s death and his mother’s breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father wh...more

Paperback, 418 pages

Published April 4th 2002 by Sceptre (first published 2001)

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Mar 05, 2012 s.penkevich rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: The life of the mind

Recommended to s.penkevich by: Ian Graye

Shelves: literary-pulp, mind-and-genre-bending

'Maybe the meaning of life lies in looking for it.'
Like the song by John Lennon which inspired the title of this novel, David Mitchell plays with the fusion of dreams and reality as he sends the reader spiraling through the chimerical passages of Number9dream. This second novel is a departure from the multi-storied structure of Ghostwritten, instead closely following one character. However, it is anything but a simple linear plot and Mitchell shows once again that he can dazzle and dance throug...more

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Mar 21, 2012 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews, reviews-5-stars, read-2012, mitchell

How Will I Know?

Whitney Houston sings, “How will I know if he really loves me?”

Pop Music asks some of the most probing questions we can imagine.

Many of them are secular versions of Spirituals, Gospel Music or Hymns.

How will I know if He really loves me?

How will I know if He really exists?

How will I know if He’s really there?

What would I say if he insists?

(Sorry, that last one slipped in from my review of "Glee: How to Plot an Episode in 70 Words".)

To which the tabloid press add:

How could I tell...more

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Sep 14, 2009 tim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Number9Dream, what is a relatively administered star-rating system compared to the joy I experience while reading you? Faults and all.

I don't completely understand everything you revealed with my mind awake, but your echo resonates lucidly through my dreamtime. You say: "Time may be what stops everything happening at once, but rules are different asleep." How I know this to be true, yet could never prove.

Fantasies and dreams. Cause and effect. Repeated conclusions reveal nothing where conclusi...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Stephen M rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: The stylists not the substantists

Recommended to Stephen M by: Only Mitchell can keep me reading for 150 pages straight

Shelves: mentions-mitchell, metafictive-madness, tears-of-beautiful-laughter, thinking-of-a-dream-i-had

A Study of Tales or
“Like watching a musician play his scales very, very well”

Source

The tension between style and substance dominates a significant portion of the David Mitchell conversation. Fairly consistently Mitchell’s writing falls into the style side of this writing dichotomy. As with anything, it's an issue of taste for anyone who has dipped their hand into the creative writing pot. It splits writers of all different stripes, in genre, literature or otherwise with geniuses on both sides....more

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Jul 14, 2012 Mary rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 2012

A story about a 20 year old boy-man looking for the dad he's never met. In theory. Yawn. It's like someone said to David Mitchell "Take this cliched plot, drop some acid and see what happens."

And what happens is a lot.

The first chapter had me scratching my head. Wait no, I'll be honest, it wasn't that civilized. It had me kicking my feet and sighing and slamming down my coffee cup and internally screeching what the eff is going on here?! Not much later I realized, oh, ohhhh, this is what's goin...more A story about a 20 year old boy-man looking for the dad he's never met. In theory. Yawn. It's like someone said to David Mitchell "Take this cliched plot, drop some acid and see what happens."

And what happens is a lot.

The first chapter had me scratching my head. Wait no, I'll be honest, it wasn't that civilized. It had me kicking my feet and sighing and slamming down my coffee cup and internally screeching what the eff is going on here?! Not much later I realized, oh, ohhhh, this is what's going on. Sort of. He's doing stuff. Good stuff. Dream sequences and fantasies and what ifs and all that jazz. The result was starting to seem like Murakami - if Murakami had consumed seventeen red bulls and a baggie of speed. Chaotic and frantic and the makings of awesomeness.

By chapter two I began to think the trick to this book was to stop trying to get it and just go with it. Just let it take me at breakneck speed through the underground imaginary dreamy creepy deathly tunnels and streets of Mitchell's Tokyo. (Stop trying to make it Murakami's Tokyo Mary!) By chapter three I was immersed and thinking back to chapter one and how much fun this whole crazy book is. Escapism. I'm doing it and so is Eiji. Dozens of realities exist in our heads, hundreds of forks in the road, which would we take? How much fun is it to blow up buildings and people and be a super hero in our heads while sipping coffee in a diner and people watching?

By chapter four and five I was annoyed and slightly bored. This book is like a sugar rush and halfway through it I crashed. It was like a Monday morning at work when everything is busy and phones are ringing and corporate heads are quacking and I'm zoned out and living twelve different lives in my head, like the early parts of the story....and then mid way through the book I look up and it's mid afternoon and people are feeding quarters into the office vending machine to purchase the will to keep going and I'm spent and just wanna go home already (it's hard work pretending to work hard).

So yeah. This book is like that.

The key I think is to just not take it so seriously. There is something sterile, something detached about Eiji and his life. His world/s are cold and dark and so is this book. Yet, it downright hysterical throughout. It's creative and different and challenging - and those are all wonderful things for a book to be. (less)

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Aug 31, 2008 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: japan, fiction, read-2008

Somewhat disappointing, but only because I have such high expectations of Mitchell.

This is a coming of age tale set in Japan. A boy sets off to Tokyo to find the father he has never known. It contains all the Mitchell elements, but just not quite at the same level of his later novels. I have not read his first novel, Ghostwritten, yet so I don't know if it is similar in that respect. However, it is still a very well written and enjoyable book...though I'll admit the plot gets a tad frustrating....more

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Mar 17, 2013 Paola (A Novel Idea) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally posted at A Novel Idea

RATING: 3/5

Tokyo is an overwhelming, perplexing, and generally strange place to Eiji Miyake, who has arrived in the city on a mission: to find his long-lost father. Eiji, a dreamer whose imaginings are often nearly seamlessly intertwined with reality, finds himself caught in something even bigger and more mind-boggling than he ever thought possible. From vivid daydreams in a crowded coffee shop to dangerous encounters with Tokyo’s dark underground, every corner h...more Originally posted at A Novel Idea

RATING: 3/5

Tokyo is an overwhelming, perplexing, and generally strange place to Eiji Miyake, who has arrived in the city on a mission: to find his long-lost father. Eiji, a dreamer whose imaginings are often nearly seamlessly intertwined with reality, finds himself caught in something even bigger and more mind-boggling than he ever thought possible. From vivid daydreams in a crowded coffee shop to dangerous encounters with Tokyo’s dark underground, every corner he turns seems fraught with disaster and even more mystery than he started with. All Eiji wants to do is find his father—or so it seems on the surface. Buried beneath it all is the fact that Eiji once had a twin sister named Anju, who drowned when they were both young, and now the quest to find his father ultimately becomes his quest to come to terms with loss itself; the loss of his sister, the loss of his father, the loss of his estranged mother. Through Eiji’s winding journey, characters both endearing and terrifying make their appearances. But where is the line between his dreaming and the life he is actually living?

This book was really, really, REALLY confusing at times. I’m not going to lie. There were moments when I fairly flew through the pages because I couldn’t fully comprehend them anyway. I would have to just skim them and kind of try to get some meaning out of it. The writing is not necessarily complicated, but the style is very contemporary and the plot is almost impossibly tangled with itself. There are moments of such amazing, unbelievable clarity, however; Eiji’s memories of the island where he grew up and of his vivacious younger sister are so alive that you could reach out and touch the leaves in the tree where they are hiding. But overwhelmingly, this book is not for the faint of heart. It requires intense concentration. And sorting out what is actually happening and what Eiji is really just daydreaming about is very difficult, so if you like things to be more straightforward, choose another book. Very similar to Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (which I read last year), you can definitely tell the author was influenced by him. I can’t even really say if I loved or hated it, to be honest; I can tell you that when I finished it, I both wanted to continue reading it and also I wanted to throw it at the wall out of sheer confusion. Which would be why it is receiving my most middle-of-the-road rating ever, but with a little bit extra.(less)

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Jan 21, 2013 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: red-queen, madhatter, dormouse

David Michell's (b. 1969) sophomore slump, written 2001 while he was still in his eight-year stint teaching English to technical students in Hiroshima, a step down from the 1999 debut 'Ghostwritten' and definitely weaker than the charmed 'Cloud Atlas,' number9dream sounds better in concept than in reality: a "dream-like montage of modern Tokyo set against a boy's search for his father." Unfortunately, while that sounds good in idea, the actual execution suffers from the irredemable flaw of "drea...more David Michell's (b. 1969) sophomore slump, written 2001 while he was still in his eight-year stint teaching English to technical students in Hiroshima, a step down from the 1999 debut 'Ghostwritten' and definitely weaker than the charmed 'Cloud Atlas,' number9dream sounds better in concept than in reality: a "dream-like montage of modern Tokyo set against a boy's search for his father." Unfortunately, while that sounds good in idea, the actual execution suffers from the irredemable flaw of "dream novels;" the non-linearity, the supposed "profound" switches between reality and daydream that amount to egotistical excess, if you really have to face it.

Redeemed by brilliant lines:
"Reflected airplanes climb over mirrored buildings."
*exactly captures Shinjuku

"'You straight citizens of Japan are living in a movie set, Miyake. You are unpaid extras.'"
*1001 expats make similar comments when drunk

"Inside, a man flies through the air, and through a mirror on the far side of the room. The mirror breaks into applause."
*enough said!

and so on.

described as England's Haruki Murakami, Mitchell's work here suffers because while Kafka of Kafka on the Shore has a distinct problem and fleeing home is a childhood dream for many, "the search for one's birth father" is a bit abstract and not really universal. Mitchell's fantastic ability to characterize modern young Japanese lives, conversations, settings, activities (the reverse, after all, a Japanese author talking about young English is a bit rare) is off-set to some degree by the relative unimportance of this topic. Which will win a Nobel? book about Red revolutionary farmers in Shandong with rape, murder, incest or Hitomi Inada, age 24, a part-time record clerk in Shibuya, Tokyo? obviously the former, and hence the continuing snobbery of China-studiers to Japan-studiers.

number9dream is not a one-star or two-star because of the technical merit in writing about foreigners, and because certain stylistic sequences; some of the dream-like fantasies, and the interplay with "letters from the past; parables recited by an author" do have some merit and power. glad to own it; glad for a several hour-vacation to tokyo, so to speak, but lacking overwhelming emotional impact

19 April 2013 follow-up

the problem with this book is that it has all the elements of the Haruki Murakami crowd-pleaser, the Tokyo setting, the surreality, the historical flashback, the lone male protagonist searching for an answer, but the combination is itself is not Haruki Murakami. actually, with regrets to the great reader crowd surrounding this work, I'm not sure I would have had this book published if I were a literary agent. (but then again, after Ghostwritten, usually second books get a more tolerant reception)(less)

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Jan 21, 2012 Shovelmonkey1 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who didn't like Cloud Atlas

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: nowt but the shiny cover and the cheap price

Shelves: bookcrossing-books, booker-prize-nominee, read-in-2011

Mild Seven
Parliament
Cabin
Peace
Kent
Hope
Philip Morris
Marlborough Light

That's the number of different cigarette brands cited and smoked in this novel. Frankly, it's a good job that this book only covers 8 weeks in the life of narrator and protagonist, Eeji Miyake, because he's unlikely to live for too much longer.

Follow Miyake as he smokes, gurns, fantasises and bull-shits his way around Tokyo trying to find his long-lost Pops and enjoy the literary games and jousting word-smithery that accompanie...more

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Jan 21, 2008 Micha rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: seekers of meaning.

“Maybe the meaning of life lies in looking for it.” “Who is right? Individually, we all are. Generally, none of us are.”

I have always been one to look for meaning in everything I do. Call me an idealist or a fool, I NEED to know that there is more, so much more. David Mitchell's book has given me hope to believe that there still is meaning in today's world. As the naive narrator, a youth from the country, journeys into the heart of the fast-paced, overwhelming Tokyo, he learns more about himself...more

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Nov 08, 2011 Patrick McCoy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, japan

About three years ago a friend gave me a copy of a novel written by an English teacher living in Hiroshima. I had expected not to like it and was pleasantly surprised and wrote a book review, which became my first professional journalistic piece (i.e. I was paid for it), it was a book review of David Mitchell's impressive debut, Ghostwritten.

It wasn't until recently that I read his follow up, number9dream (2001), I'm not sure why I waited so long, since, I, myself, had pointed out that he had en...more About three years ago a friend gave me a copy of a novel written by an English teacher living in Hiroshima. I had expected not to like it and was pleasantly surprised and wrote a book review, which became my first professional journalistic piece (i.e. I was paid for it), it was a book review of David Mitchell's impressive debut, Ghostwritten.

It wasn't until recently that I read his follow up, number9dream (2001), I'm not sure why I waited so long, since, I, myself, had pointed out that he had enormous talent and was looking forward to what he'd write next. I think the reviews of the novel's content turned me off, however, I can't say exactly what it was. But now having read the acclaimed book, which was short listed for the Booker prize, I know exactly what it is that I don't like about it.

The previous novel was a collection of stories that interconnected to form a novel. One of those stories owed a heavy debt to Haruki Murakami, as does this novel. It is a sort to of mystery (a boy searching for his father), which is one of Murakami's favorite genres. It features a female character praised for an atypical beauty point, in Murakami's case it was the ears, here it is her neck. There are elements of fantasy and science fiction, however, I can't see how they move the story along or add to it. I find it something that I usually overlooked in Murakami's work, because of all the other great qualities his novels possess. Early in the novel, the main character Eiji has several sci-fi fantasy sequences that d little other than introduce some characters and make you wonder what kind of book you've gotten yourself into. Later, there is a sequence where Eiji is hiding out reading fantastical stories by the occupant of the safe house, which almost seems like filler, and to be honest I skimmed most of those stories. And instead of naming his novel after a Beatles song like Murakami, "Norwegian Wood", he has named it after a John Lennon song, "number9dream."

Furthermore, I had trouble getting around the English slang. I know he was making an approximation of how Japanese in meaning and tone would sound in English. And he has had success with an idea that I've had as well, which is to write a typical literary story, but set it in Japan in order to distinguish it from the hundreds of other literary novels. And to Mitchell's credit, he has had a lot of success in doing so.

He seems to be dealing with some big issues like fate, the nature of evil, and man's role in society. But sometimes the story comes across like a manga (comic book) story, with every evil character being cartoonishly so over the top.

I know that Mitchell lives in Hiroshima, but must have spent extensive time in Tokyo, because he knows all the right stations and describes the city with an eye for detail. He chooses obscure areas in shita-machi (downtown) like Kita-Senju and Ueno station. That being said Mitchell is an impressive stylist. In professional terms this was a successful follow-up to his initial book. But in my eyes he is capable of more.

(less)

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Jan 03, 2009 Tara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009

number9dream was nearly as awesome as cloud atlas--and still a 5 star novel.

this book demonstrates one of the things i love most about mitchell--his ability to write in a number of different voices convincingly within the same novel (hardboiled/cyberpunk/actiony, the weird and whimsical goatwriter stories, the diary of a japanese soldier in WW2), which he accomplishes here without sacrificing the clarity and honesty of his narrator's voice. eiji miyake is one of the most likeable protagonists...more number9dream was nearly as awesome as cloud atlas--and still a 5 star novel.

this book demonstrates one of the things i love most about mitchell--his ability to write in a number of different voices convincingly within the same novel (hardboiled/cyberpunk/actiony, the weird and whimsical goatwriter stories, the diary of a japanese soldier in WW2), which he accomplishes here without sacrificing the clarity and honesty of his narrator's voice. eiji miyake is one of the most likeable protagonists i've ever met!!

i love how mitchell messes around with fantasy/dreamery/memory/fiction/reality, so much that in the end i still can't necessarily sort out what was really "real." eiji starts out as a self-consciously unreliable narrator, tacitly admitting he's led the reader on by presenting his fantasies as fact. but in the end, it's unclear whether he might be the subject of someone else's fantasy... he acknowledges that he's imagined himself to be the dream of the real eiji miyake... but does acknowledging that make it untrue?? once you realize you're dreaming, is it still a dream? the dream/fiction/fantasy sequences are laced with double-edged clues about imagination and reality ("How do you smuggle daydreams into reality?" "My imagination is my worst enemy--no, that is not true, but the comfort it gives me is never warmer than tepid.") ... i sensed even more crazy existential shit lurking beneath the surface (the lost property office? anyone?) but i can't figure it out without going all High School English right now, and i stopped reading this book with a pen after page 50 or so because it was just getting too insane.

much has been made of the comparison between mitchell and murakami, particularly in this book (#9 Dream/Norweigian Wood, etc.), and people have pegged it as "murakami lite" or a "murakami wannabe" sort of thing. i tend to like mitchell's books MORE than murakami--it's like, similar themes, but less abstruse and oppressive. i also think mitchell's writing style is so much more colorful and pleasing than murakami's, down to individual words. my boat is particularly floated by "mandolineering gondoliers" and "zombie spawn abseil to earth" (the NYT calls mitchell's prose "comically overripe"--but funnily enough, that review is titled "Zombie Spawn Descend to Earth"...) and i was totally tickled by the linguistic-schtick in the goatwriter tales: "I daresay you had another writing dream, sir, like the time you dreamed you wrote Les Miserables. You very nearly took Victor Hugo to court for flagellism."

i have decided that mitchell should write some children's stories. he has a tongue-in-cheek way with words and sounds that rings of Carroll, Seuss, and Snicket: "Don't you dare clomp your mucky mudluggers on my clean carpet!" and "the tracks end in this m-mulch m-mound of Stiltonic stench" ... and it should come as no surprise that i got a good giggle out of this one: "'An unwashed rodent?' verified Goatwriter. 'Bigger than a mouse? Aha! We m-may conclude, thusly, that the thief is a d-dirty little rat! We m-must apprehend this scallywag and teach him a thing or two about copyright law!'"(less)

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Feb 09, 2008 Tori rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Mitchell is definitely one of my new favorite persons. I'm no good at describing other's writing styles and therefore restrict myself to "enviable" and "perfect". Mitchell has great capacity for capturing specific voices (and time periods, which is wonderfully evident in Cloud Atlas) and for noting detail in a way that fascinates and entertains. He tends to drop the reader in the middle of things and doesn't necessarily wait for them to catch up, but it's fun picking up the metaphorical puzzle p...more Mitchell is definitely one of my new favorite persons. I'm no good at describing other's writing styles and therefore restrict myself to "enviable" and "perfect". Mitchell has great capacity for capturing specific voices (and time periods, which is wonderfully evident in Cloud Atlas) and for noting detail in a way that fascinates and entertains. He tends to drop the reader in the middle of things and doesn't necessarily wait for them to catch up, but it's fun picking up the metaphorical puzzle pieces.

Eiji reminds me a bit of the narrator in Black Swan Green; like that novel, this one is a coming of age story with a very imaginative main character. Eiji is trying to assert his own place in the world and distance himself from his past. Previous events in his life appear to have been acted upon him; he was not a force in his own life. Rather than take responsibility for himself, he lays blame on other agents, like his mother for his childhood and a local deity for the death of his sister. The novel follows his attempts to find his father, which Eiji thinks will be the beginning of a new and purposeful life. Naturally his search doesn't go as planned, but he begins to learn how to be his own prime mover.

There are many metaphysical, dream-like aspects that lead one to question which events are complete truth and which are colored by Eiji's imagination. The goatwriter portions, while amusing, I found a distraction and made a lull in the story arc slower than it needed to be. The dreams in the final chapter I'm still working out; what is their relationship with the ending pages? What does Mitchell actually want you to believe happens? I favor optimism, but then I probably ought to read it again. I believe his dreaming is a way for Eiji to shape his life, even create meaning as he's dreaming it (which might be reaching back to that whole goatwriter thing again--the writer existing in his own story, making up his own existence as he goes--who knows)? His name means "incant world" for a reason. Depends on just how metaphysical you want to get...

A standout: "Maybe the meaning of life lies in looking for it". And "You look for your meaning. You find it, and at that moment, your meaning changes, and you have to start all over again." What's Ai's role as teacher? I should definitely read this again.(less)

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Oct 16, 2007 Liz S. rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club, 2007

I probably shouldn't be giving this any stars because I didn't even finish it. This was a book club read and none of us got through it, not even the most die-hard David Mitchell fans. I guess this is proof positive that a knack for writing will not save your book if you have nothing particular to say. As one person in our group described it, reading this book is like watching a musician play his scales very, very well---but after a while, you just want to hear him play an actual song for a susta...more

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Jul 12, 2007 Andrew Tibbetts rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of originality

Shelves: english

David Mitchell is the novelist whose NEXT book I'm most excited about. What will he do next? He's such an architectural virtuoso- the complicated forms his novels take are a palpable delight. But the meat of the material is strong, too. It's not empty filigree. This book is especially powerful. It has a very simple plot- a young man from a rural Japanese island comes to Tokyo to look for his birth father. No matter how outrageous the literary hijinks it performs, the book never betrays the fierc...more

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Feb 21, 2010 Alex added it · review of another edition

I found Number9Dream rewarding and frustrating in equal measure. The book follows a naive, video-game obsessed country boy named Eiji Miyake on his quest to find his father in a hyper-modern Tokyo. Miyake makes his way through the low-wage world of video stores, pizza delivery shacks, and love motels. In the course of his search gets mixed up with bloodthirsty Yakuza gang, falls for a beautiful waitress who also happens to be a brilliant pianist, and is taken under the wing of a debauched young...more I found Number9Dream rewarding and frustrating in equal measure. The book follows a naive, video-game obsessed country boy named Eiji Miyake on his quest to find his father in a hyper-modern Tokyo. Miyake makes his way through the low-wage world of video stores, pizza delivery shacks, and love motels. In the course of his search gets mixed up with bloodthirsty Yakuza gang, falls for a beautiful waitress who also happens to be a brilliant pianist, and is taken under the wing of a debauched young playboy who might be his brother. Mitchell also weaves new texts into the action. The search introduces the diary of a Japanese soldier in WW11 who is preparing for a suicide mission in a manned torpedo. There� s also a manuscript describing a post-apocalyptic world where Goatwriter ( a creature who may or may not be a goat, who� s maid may or may not be a hen, and who� s butler is definitely a caveman) battles with a witch and a talking rat to keep his stories of the internet. In case that wasn� t digressive enough, Miyake frequently pops into dream worlds where he gets high with John Lennon and wrestles crocodiles.[return] [return]This sort of pop, over-the-top plotting can be annoying but Mitchell has the skill to pull it off. Unlike so many hipster picaresques, Number9Dream places the cool aside long enough to let the emotional worlds of his characters emerge -- as in the heartbreaking stories involving Miyake� s relationship with his twin sister. Whenever the book seems ready to ride off cliff Mitchell introduce some truly human moment that pulls the story back. [return][return]One of the key problems with the book is its similarities, both in theme and style, to the work of Haruki Murakami. Mitchell is examining a dreamlike Japan with the same cool eye that Muyrakami has, and at times the similarities are so close it feels like imitation. At one point in the book Miyake goes so far as to mention that he read half of The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, but stopped at the part where the narrator got stuck in the well. It� s as if Mitchell is acknowledging that his characters are living in the same metaphysical loop Murakami� s do. It� s an odd moment, and it� s a little too precious to evoke a contemporary author whose work is mining the exact same vein. [return][return]If I� d come to the book fresh I� d probably have found those similarities damning, but I came to this book after reading Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell� s stunning recent novel, and that book was so good the memory of it helped me give Number9Dream the benefit of the doubt. I� m glad I did. Despite the overly dense action, and the similarities to Murakami, there are great moments in this book. The story of Miyake� s early years is beautifully told, and when we finally discover where his quest is leading, the resolution is unexpected and rewarding -- at least until he veers off again into dream world apocalypse.(less)

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Feb 08, 2013 Andrea Arbit rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book after my husband had a very strong (negative) reaction to the book's ending. We loved Cloud Atlas (the movie - I haven't gotten around to reading the book yet) and saw it twice in theatres, after which my husband began to amend his initial review of Number9Dream.

So after all that intrigue, naturally I had to read it, too.

It's not *really* sci-fi but kind of reads that way. It's not my usual cup of tea - though it never says exactly what year it takes place, the twenty-third cent...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Evelyn Rose rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

David Mitchell’s novel Number9dream sees his readers thrown head first down the rabbit hole; entering the streets of Tokyo while gasping for air as they follow twenty year old Eiji Miyake on a quest to find his father.

Yet this is not the first time that Mitchell has revealed his Asiatic inspired Wonderland: his debut Ghostwritten published in 1999 received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for writers aged thirty-five and under. Ghostwritten was praised not only for its intricate plots, but also for...more David Mitchell’s novel Number9dream sees his readers thrown head first down the rabbit hole; entering the streets of Tokyo while gasping for air as they follow twenty year old Eiji Miyake on a quest to find his father.

Yet this is not the first time that Mitchell has revealed his Asiatic inspired Wonderland: his debut Ghostwritten published in 1999 received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for writers aged thirty-five and under. Ghostwritten was praised not only for its intricate plots, but also for its weaving of East Asian geography and intertextuality, where Mitchell references works from fellow postmodern writers Paul Auster and Isaac Asimov. Number9dream published in 2001, proves to be stitched from the same thread, as alternative worlds and “serialised memories” meet the rapidity of Japanese youth culture.

The opening of Number9dream certainly delivers a punch, where an influx of multi sensorial images of city life mixed with interior monologue hit out in short and snappy sentences. This, however, can prove disorientating, for as soon as we familiarise ourselves with Eiji’s mission impossible-esque antics, from shooting drones to stealing case files, Mitchell throws us off the scent. How? Well, in the same way that the ‘cavernous…belly’ of the PanOpticon lobby swallows Eiji whole – Mitchell toys with us, only to spit us back out by blending Eiji’s fantasies with reality.

As the novel progresses, Eiji’s memories dip back and forth, and again, fuse so seamlessly with fantasy and fable, that it is often hard to differentiate from what is real and what is imagined. But this, of course, is the joy. By the end of later chapters, Mitchell has shed clarity on these dreamlike episodes and gives further dimension to Eiji’s character. When Mrs. Sasaki’s remarks, ‘all we are is our memories,’ it is a revelation that proves particularly fitting as Eiji’s recurring memories of his sister Anju effectively destabilise time and space limits.

Aside from Mitchell’s interwoven narrative style, what is perhaps most impressive lies in his rich portrayal of Japan. As Tokyo, we soon learn, is to Mitchell what New York is to Frank O’Hara. His crystallised depictions of various Tokyo jaunts, from the Jupiter Café to the Shibuya bar in the depths of the pleasure quarters, hold an enigmatic quality and yet retain something eerily familiar. Ultimately, while at times you can feel yourself spiralling a little too out of control, where you catch yourself losing footing, just ever so slightly, it is still an astonishing novel.
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Jan 21, 2013 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in June 2002.

It is, apparently, common for children who have never known a parent to weave fantasies about who they might be. Eiji Mayake is no exception, and as his twentieth birthday nears, he sets out for Tokyo to discover his identity through the only clue he has, the name of a lawyer. He is obsessed with John Lennon (which is one reason for the title) and his only skills are guitar playing and fruit picking, neither in much demand in the big city.

At the...more

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Nov 04, 2012 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So normally I’m not so interested in dream sequences in books. I find them distracting, or a sort of discount warehouse for the novel’s symbols. But the opening dream sequences of David Mitchell’s number9dream, and every dream sequence that follows, so blurs the line between dream-reality and so thoughtfully provokes questions about the purpose of dreams in our lives (dreams here as both our aspirations and our night time wanderings) that rather than sighing and soldiering through the sequences...more So normally I’m not so interested in dream sequences in books. I find them distracting, or a sort of discount warehouse for the novel’s symbols. But the opening dream sequences of David Mitchell’s number9dream, and every dream sequence that follows, so blurs the line between dream-reality and so thoughtfully provokes questions about the purpose of dreams in our lives (dreams here as both our aspirations and our night time wanderings) that rather than sighing and soldiering through the sequences I found myself relishing them.

Our protagonist’s - Eiji - quest to find and meet his father ostensibly structures the book in a quest narrative that involves the usual host of demons to slay (in this case those in the Japanese mafia), helpful collaborators, and distracting side-adventures. While I’d rather not give much away in terms of the climax, I will say that it is not - as one might realize early on in the novel - a climax of plot, and more a climax of character, as Eiji comes to realize what is expected of him as a son, a brother, a lover, a man.

On this subject - the slippery roles of Eiji-as-man - I issue one of my few complaints about this book, and that is that intimate relationships aren’t consummated in a described physical encounter. The long anticipated reunion with Eiji’s mother, for instance, is only narrated after the fact (and briefly) in a way that makes this reader wonder whether it ever happened. And the intimate - or potentially intimate - relationship between Eiji and Ai is similarly evanescent. So in writing this complaint I realize that it should perhaps be better put as praise, as once again Mitchell adds a layer to the question of what we can know for sure in this text - what we can know for sure in our lives and relationships. Are these ephemeral relationships not the perfect representation of how we know and interact with one another? through declarations, through descriptions and narrations of the story of our relationships - the story of our lives - and perhaps only ever in the remembrance of the physical, the memory of once having touched. Hmm.

So my other minor complaint (which I am happy to have resolved by a more attentive reader): what’s the deal with the computer virus/mafia organ/corruption plot line?

As for the ubiquity of the number 9 in the text - it really is everywhere - and its supposed ‘unluckiness’ (wikipedia tells me that it is unlucky because of its similarity to ‘pain’ or ‘distress’) I can’t say that 9 operates consistently as an either lucky or unlucky symbol, more as a kind of anchor that reminds the reader both to pay attention, and that these kinds of superstitious or serendipitous (so much of the plot relies on unlikely encounters) may be all that can be relied upon in a reality as slippery and unpredictable as ours.

So the first book of 2012 is a triumph of gorgeous language: Mitchell consistently delivers beautiful writing that really does make this reader feel X - nope, just feel. number9dream reads, as a whole, like a dream itself - the unexpectedness of events, the sharpness of some details and the opacity of other major events, the acceptance of the illogical without demand or want of explanation, the fleeting appearance of characters, the lingering feeling on waking - or closing the book - that something significant just transpired, but the reluctance to say just (or only) what.(less)

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Aug 15, 2012 Kiran Watwani rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Read this book. What A Ride! a bunch of genres rolled into the fantastic story of one Mr. Bad Luck and his friends Cat, Cockroach, Goatwriter (my favourite) and so so many more. God on a surfboard too! Everytime things appear to be heading in a certain direction BOOM! This David Mitchell has really played with my emotions. He gives you a fragment, gives you hints to figure it out, then you do or you think you do, and then again BOOM! You don't get to feel like a sappy romantic for too long, he g...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Holly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In traditional quest fashion Eiji moves to Tokoyo to find his father who left his mom before he and his twin sister were born. Eiji is young and on his own for the first time in a huge city where he knows no one. He knows only details about his father (he doesn't even know his name) and tries to piece together a meeting, bumping into a series characters whose crime-riddled escapades pull Eiji into violent altercations.

Rollercoaster ride of a novel; many if not all of the nine chapters have dual...more

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Nov 07, 2011 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

You know those compound German constructions, like schadenfreude, comprised of dissimilar single words? Well, I’ve got a new one that ought to exist if it doesn’t already. It’s schadenselbstungeduld, which translates roughly to “the sadness of your own impatience.” Maybe you can guess why I’m bringing this up. I’ve had a bad case of it since last month when I joined the ranks of several Goodreads friends who have read all five of the David Mitchell books. We’re now waiting long days, weeks, or,...more

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Feb 15, 2011 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

David Mitchell makes it easy for readers to compare him to Haruki Murkami, what with his inventive storytelling, pop cultural flow, and expert unraveling of a mystery. Number9dream ups the Murakami ante by being set in modern Japan with a 20-something protagonist, somewhat resembling Kafka on the Shore (hell, Eiji the protagonist even laments the fact that he couldn't finish a certain book about a man stuck in a well). Number9dream, however, beats Kafka on the Shore in enjoyability.

First, it is...more

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Sep 01, 2010 Parksy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Love his writing style, but he can be a little scattered in his plot devices and themes. Still very readable.

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Amazon.com
David Mitchell's second novel, Number9Dream, tells the story of Eiji Miyake, a young man negotiating a hypermodern and dangerous Tokyo to meet for the first time his secretive and powerful father. Naïve and fresh from the Japanese countryside, Eiji encounters every obstacle imaginable in his quest, from his father's--and in-laws'--reluctance for the enco...more Love his writing style, but he can be a little scattered in his plot devices and themes. Still very readable.

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Amazon.com
David Mitchell's second novel, Number9Dream, tells the story of Eiji Miyake, a young man negotiating a hypermodern and dangerous Tokyo to meet for the first time his secretive and powerful father. Naïve and fresh from the Japanese countryside, Eiji encounters every obstacle imaginable in his quest, from his father's--and in-laws'--reluctance for the encounter to occur (Eiji is the bastard son) to fiery entanglements with yakuza (the Japanese mafia) to the overwhelming size and anonymity of Tokyo itself.

The novel is cartoonish in that Eiji has a vivid and violent imagination that fills the book with daydreams. When not chain-smoking, forlorn Eiji wanders the city following vague or cryptic leads that invariably dead-end or land him back among yakuza. Mitchell (author of the critically acclaimed Ghostwritten) has a smart, eclectic writing style that seems foreign, and the novel is well paced, but the yakuza encounters are too cinematic, complete with unusual torture and pyrotechnics. Moreover, in addition to Eiji's daydreams, the last half of the book contains excerpts from the diaries of his great uncle's World War II naval heroics and bizarre short stories that Eiji reads while hiding--the latter of which make for tedious reading.

Number9Dream is crafted from too many disparate components; it does not seem to be a full expression, but an overly crowded one. Readers will sympathize with Eiji and his search, but in the end will wonder what effect, if any, all the extraneous forces had on him. The book provides many fun moments, but ultimately it doesn't really add up to the sum of its parts. --Michael Ferch --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
A young Japanese man's quest to find his estranged parents throws him into a bizarre world of mobsters, dream villains and cyber-tricksters in Mitchell's second novel (after Ghostwritten), a hyperactive, erratic sprawl of a book that begins when narrator Eiji Miyake finds himself out on his own after his twin sister, Anju, dies: his alcoholic mother had had a nervous breakdown and left her two children with their grandmother when they were very young, and they have never met their father. Miyake makes the move from rural Japan to Tokyo to stake out the company where his father is a powerful executive. But his search lands him in a nebulous yet dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with an equally powerful Japanese mobster who uses Miyake's need to find his parents to kidnap and threaten him in a series of malevolent and nearly inexplicable scenes. The most coherent sequence in the narrative takes place when Miyake is contacted by his grandfather, a former seaman who gives Miyake his diary, a poignant account of his stint on a submarine in the final days of WWII, as the Japanese frantically scrambled to deploy a new undersea warhead. Miyake eventually manages to meet his parents, but those potentially affecting scenes are overwhelmed and overshadowed by Mitchell's relentless tendency to spin out futuristic, over-the-top scenarios in which Miyake is whisked away into strange settings and then abused as if he were the hero in a deadly video game. Mitchell showed considerable promise in his highly acclaimed debut, but his sophomore effort is so chaotic that it will test even the most diligent and devoted reader. (Feb. 26)Forecast: Rave reviews from the British press, a Booker Prize nomination and a five-city author tour will give this challenging novel a needed boost.(less)

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Sep 01, 2010 Lee rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

The books is about a young man trying to find his father. What happens along the way is what makes up the crux of this book. Reading it reminded me of the phrase, "It's not the destination, but the getting there." On the "getting there" to find his father, the protagonist endures some horrific things.
Eiji Miyake, now 20 years old has left his sleepy island town and has come to Tokyo in search of his father. Eiji's only connection is a lawyer working at the large Pan Opticon building. The digre...more

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Jun 01, 2010 Ryan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. David Mitchell's second novel, number9dream, is one of those books you dream of being able to write. He seems to have read every major novelist of the last 100 years and absorbed them all completely into his own aesthetic; while you can see traces of the influence of Borges or Joyce or Murakami, he never seems to be aping them but is instead writing in his own style. He playfully switches between genres -- borrowing from sci-fi, true crime, children's lit, fantasy, and more -- but never comes of...more David Mitchell's second novel, number9dream, is one of those books you dream of being able to write. He seems to have read every major novelist of the last 100 years and absorbed them all completely into his own aesthetic; while you can see traces of the influence of Borges or Joyce or Murakami, he never seems to be aping them but is instead writing in his own style. He playfully switches between genres -- borrowing from sci-fi, true crime, children's lit, fantasy, and more -- but never comes off as playing literary games, as everything fits together perfectly and of necessity. The story is as exciting as a potboiler without pandering, and Mitchell can write profundities without seeming pretentious. While my personal favorite is his 3rd novel, Cloud Atlas, this one is, really, just as good.

The story is of Eiji Miyake, a young man from rural Japan come to Tokyo to find his father; Eiji's mother had been his mistress, and was discarded after she gave birth to Eiji and his twin sister Anju. Eiji's straightforward quest becomes infinitely complicated by the strange machinations of Tokyo itself, a confusing and sometimes malevolent character with its own inaccessible logic. Eiji finds himself stymied at every attempt to contact his father, discovers the hidden stories of the seemingly inane and boring people around him, and, most fantastically, gets caught up in a violent conflict between the rival Yakuza leaders who pull the strings of Japanese society. The story itself constantly flirts with the unbelievable, seeming to run by a sort of dream-logic where minor coincidences carry great significance and transform the world around Eiji. Eiji is the perfect avatar for the reader; he's a smart but simple human being, haunted by guilt over his sister's death, feeling helpless in the face of the things going on around him but still trying to complete his quest. Like him, we constantly wonder, "Can this really be happening? Is this even possible?" But just as Eiji is inexorably drawn into the strange world behind the scenes of Tokyo, we too are drawn into the fantastic plot and carried along.

As with Mitchell's other books, number9dream is marked by its stylistic and structural innovations. Each chapter follows Eiji's journey, but his story is interwoven with other texts, including his fantasies and dreams, memories, a series of children's tales, video games, a WWII-era journal, etc. Mitchell's virtuoso writing abilities come out but never overpower the narrative itself, as each generic excursion both advances and comments on Eiji's story. And, also like Mitchell's other books, number9dream bears re-reading. Besides the sheer pleasure of Mitchell's storytelling, small details that you skim over become important later; as Eiji himself finds out at some point, a book isn't the same book after you've read it. (less)

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Feb 03, 2008 Martha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own

Another fantastic book from David Mitchell. This one is told by 20-year-old Eiji Miyake as he begins the search for his father in Tokyo. Mitchell uses day dreams, diaries, letters, short stories, phone calls and more to tell the story. I suppose you would call it a coming of age tale, but it is like no other story in that category. Mitchell gives Eiji such a terrific voice and he paints such a vivid picture of Tokyo and the characters that live there. I highly recommend it!

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Oct 16, 2012 Fritz van Deventer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: manbooker

This book is a tantalizing ride through many dreams and realities experienced by Eiji Miyake. A 20 year-old looking for his father, who he has never met, in the bustling city of Tokyo. Which is of course a demanding task in a city so big and with all kinds of people distracting one from their initial mission.

David Mitchell is quite a genius and in my opinion one of the best contemporary writers the Commonwealth has to offer. He should be awarded a Man Booker in stead of just being long and short

...more This book is a tantalizing ride through many dreams and realities experienced by Eiji Miyake. A 20 year-old looking for his father, who he has never met, in the bustling city of Tokyo. Which is of course a demanding task in a city so big and with all kinds of people distracting one from their initial mission.

David Mitchell is quite a genius and in my opinion one of the best contemporary writers the Commonwealth has to offer. He should be awarded a Man Booker in stead of just being long and short listed. It is clear he has submerged himself in other cultures (apparently living in Japan for 8 years),moving through different cultures and times as well as places in his novels. If you like intricate webs of stories within stories and different writing styles in one book you'll enjoy this book thoroughly.

afterthought:

I'm not sure but I think it is an homage to Haruki Murakami. The book title is a reference to a song by John Lennon and is according to one the protagonist's many dreams a sequel to Norwegian Wood (Norwegian Wood is a song by the Beatles and a book by Murakami). But I cannot be sure, as I have never read anything by Murakami (but am sure to do so quickly).

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Jul 04, 2011 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: in-japan, surreal, david-mitchell

I'm going to agree with several other reviewers that this book kind of got off to a slow start, but ultimately I ended up loving it. I want to say that I really could have done without the "goatwriter" character and that I felt his appearance really disrupted the flow of the novel, but suspect that maybe I didn't quite get the symbolism.

As N9D was labeled a coming-of-age story, I could only associate the fantastic tone of the goatwriter passages with a regression to childhood comforts and imagin...more

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About David Mitchell

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

David Mitchell was born in Southport, Merseyside, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent. He received a degree in English and American Literature, followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature.

He lived for a year in Sicily, then...more Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

David Mitchell was born in Southport, Merseyside, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent. He received a degree in English and American Literature, followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature.

He lived for a year in Sicily, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England. After another stint in Japan, he currently lives in Ireland with his wife Keiko and their two children.

In an essay for Random House, Mitchell wrote:

"I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to live in 1994 I was too easily distracted to do much about it. I would probably have become a writer wherever I lived, but would I have become the same writer if I'd spent the last 6 years in London, or Cape Town, or Moose Jaw, on an oil rig or in the circus? This is my answer to myself."

Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), moves around the globe, from Okinawa to Mongolia to pre-Millennial New York City, as nine narrators tell stories that interlock and intersect. The novel won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for best work of British literature written by an author under 35) and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.

His two subsequent novels, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2003, he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. In 2007, Mitchell was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.

Mitchell's American editor at Random House is novelist David Ebershoff. He lists John Banville, Muriel Spark, Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Russell Hoban, Italo Calvino, Peter Carey, George Orwell, Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, Richard Wright, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Ursula K. Le Guin among his many literary influences.(less)

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“A book you finish reading is not the same book it was before you read it.” — 119 people liked it

“Dreams are shores where the ocean of spirit meets the land of matter. Dreams are beaches where the yet-to-be, the once-were, the will-never-be may walk awhile with the still are.” — 49 people liked it

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