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The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

David Mitchell

4.03 · Rating details · 52,341 ratings · 5,885 reviews

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of ...more

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Hardcover, U.S. Edition, 479 pages

Published June 29th 2010 by Random House (first published May 13th 2010)

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Jan 31, 2014 Stephen King added it

In this historical novel, an unassuming Dutch bookkeeper named Jacob de Zoet falls in love with a beautiful midwife in 18th-century Japan. When Miss Aiba-gawa is spirited away to a mountain monastery, Jacob finds the heroism in his soul. Here is a bygone secret world full of charm and horror. Mitchell is best known for Cloud Atlas, which was a literary stunt in this correspondent’s opinion. The Thousand Autumns is far better.

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Jul 03, 2010 Ken rated it it was amazing

Shelves: finished-in-2010, contemporary

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 secretive Japanese magistrates. 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 secretive Japanese magistrates. You'll do some time in Dr. Marinus's "academy," witnessing some bone-chilling turn of THAT century operations (removal of a kidney stone, for instance, in full metal graphics). You'll go up into the mountains past Nagasaki, up to a castle where Japanese women are held in captivity but told they are "nuns" worshiping an obscure goddess. Over the river and through the woods you'll go in an exciting mission with samurais bent on rescuing one very special captive in this castle. And you'll even hit the low seas (off Dejima) and join British Captain Penhaligon as he wrestles with his conscience and his wits, trying to decide whether to attack the Dutch and Japanese or negotiate with them. Nautical chess games, anyone?

David Mitchell can flat-out write. Among contemporary writers, he reigns supreme (I would say in my book, but in HIS books, actually) for his ability to turn poetry into words and to make images dance in startling ways. This is a writer's writer with imagination and skill. And what's best is how he's constantly challenging himself as well. Here we have historical fiction in one of the most unusual of settings, yet you'll feel you're there and that you actually have an understanding of the mysterious land of the shoguns as well as the nefarious intrigues of the European traders. As you'd expect from Mitchell, the allusions are rich and varied, too. Through characters such as Dr. Marinus, the surgeon/musician/man of science as well as the arts with the Dutch, you'll hear references to the Greeks, the Romans, the ancient Arabs, the Bible, mythology, philosophers, scientists, and whatnot. An irascible and complex man, Marinus was one of my favorites, though his role was rather minor.

Bigger roles go, of course, to Jacob and the disfigured Japanese midwife he falls in love with, Orito Aibagawa. Jacob De Zoet, a practical and religious man, is honest to a fault. Among the Dutch lowlifes, he is both gasoline and match, in other words, and his zealous opposition to embezzling and skimming profits and black marketing make him many enemies. Orito has her own problems. A student of Dr. Marinus's, she attracts unwanted attention from the Japanese nobles (some "noble" and others vicious) when she dallies with the pale-skinned, auburn-haired Jacob. When she disappears, the novel takes off to some of the more exotic locales mentioned early in this review.

Some readers may struggle with the number of Japanese names and characters, especially at the "nunnery," but Mitchell at least is studious in his characterization and the special quirks he bestows to his creations. At times Mitchell can overwrite, too, when he should move on, but those instances are neither frequent nor extended. The book's best scenes come at the end when the added dimension of a British frigate is provided. The match of wits between Capt. Penhaligon and De Zoet when Dejima is bottled up by the man-of-war is a joy to read. Mitchell is at his best when dealing with the psychological and the power of decisions made in moments of crisis to alter history.

If you've had your fill of beach reads this summer, THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET is your antidote. It's serious contemporary literature by one of our more gifted scribes. It's a grown-up's book that contains not only incredible description but a sound plot. And no, it won't baby you with constant, hold-on-to-your-seat action, but you can handle that and you can appreciate a novel for its construction and its grander designs as well, right?

So why not give it a places-you'll-go? ...more

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Feb 10, 2010 Ken-ichi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: snoot, japan

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 19, 2011 Cecily rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: china-japan-asia, favourites, historical-fict-pre-20th-c, mitchell-uber-book, aaabsolute-favourites, miscellaneous-fiction

A shooting star lives and dies in an instant.

I first read this when it was published in paperback, just because it was by Mitchell. I admired the craft of the writing, but overall, I did not enjoy it as much as I hoped: I’m not a huge fan of historical fiction, and this seemed a very straightforward narrative in comparison with three of his four preceding books.

Now in 2014, after reading The Bone Clocks, I discover that is the second in the Marinus trilogy and this was the first. Almost immediat ...more

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Feb 18, 2014 Violet wells rated it it was amazing

Shelves: faves, contemporary-british-fiction, 21st-century

It's been a while since I read and loved this the first time and in the interim Mitchell has written two books which have caused me to think less of him as a novelist - The Bone Clocks and Slade House, both of which for me had a kind of juvenile silliness running through them. Therefore I was a bit worried of spoiling my wonderful memory of this book. Didn't happen though. I loved it from start to finish. Usually my awful memory is a cause of frustration. Only perhaps when rereading novels does It's been a while since I read and loved this the first time and in the interim Mitchell has written two books which have caused me to think less of him as a novelist - The Bone Clocks and Slade House, both of which for me had a kind of juvenile silliness running through them. Therefore I was a bit worried of spoiling my wonderful memory of this book. Didn't happen though. I loved it from start to finish. Usually my awful memory is a cause of frustration. Only perhaps when rereading novels does it become a blessing. This is very much an adventure story so prior knowledge of twists and outcomes would take away some of the pleasure.

Mitchell's ventriloquism is at the height of its ingenuity here. Language plays a big part in this novel. Mitchell is writing in English about people who are speaking both Dutch and Japanese. Translators abound. It's a kind of marvel how effortlessly he resolves the difficult problem of both dramatizing and fluidly smoothing out all the language barriers. Mitchell here is speaking up for the cross pollination of cultures, for universal inclusion rather exclusion, for the bringing down of state walls.

Hierarchies of power (bullying) are a constant Mitchell theme and feature heavily again here. We have two wholly autonomous characters, one representing good and the other evil; everyone else in the novel is a prisoner of some kind; sometimes of an ailing body, sometimes of a hopeless love and often of the master/servant social role prevalent at the time. The enclosed Dutch trading post on the Japanese coast is a prison of sorts as is the inland temple where the action sometimes takes place and as is the English ship that arrives to do battle with the Dutch enclave.

Super clever too how he often deploys haiku for ambient detail between lines of dialogue which, replacing long-winded background passages, keeps the pace of the novel urgent.

Another thing struck me and that's how rarely any author will take the side of a foreign power against his own country in a political dispute. When, in a fabulous scene, the Dutch and English stand off, each power represented by an individual, we (or me as a Brit) are very much sympathising with the foreigner. A nice knee in the groin to sweeping nationalist conceit.

While reading I began thinking there's something quietly revolutionary about how this novel (and Hilary Mantel's Cromwell novels) tackles historical fiction. I was recalling a couple of 20th century historical fiction novels I've recently read that were so weighted down with detailed research, with the strain of evoking authenticity, that they were like overloaded ships struggling to keep afloat. But I couldn't quite put my finger on what new quality this novel has. After all, there have been mischievous, free-flowing, almost cinematic forays into historical fiction by great authors of the past. One thinks of Tolstoy and Dickens, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. So how to describe the exciting freshness and vitality of Mitchell's storytelling techniques? I'm not sure I can! ...more

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Jan 26, 2010 tim rated it really liked 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 compelling ...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Paul Bryant rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

THE APPRENTICE

WEEK 6 - THE SEMI-FINAL

Voiceover : Lord Sugar is looking for a historical novelist to invest in. He scoured the country for the very best. Twelve were selected to begin the process. After six weeks of hard battling, only three are left.* It's the Apprentice Week Six!

(We see a montage of the three remaining contestants, David Mitchell, Hilary Mantel and Sarah Waters frantically typing away on laptops).

This week's task : to write a complete historical novel in only seven days. All th ...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Richard Derus rated it it was ok

Rating: two headachey stars out of five

The Publisher Says: 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 the outside world. A junior clerk, his task is to uncover evidence of the previous Chief Resident’s corruption.

Cold-shouldered by his compatriots, Jacob earns the trust of a local interpreter and, more dangerously, becomes intrigued by a rare woman—a midwife permitted to study on Dejima under ...more

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Apr 30, 2014 Samadrita rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: britain, human-drama, behemoth, nihon-ga-suki, cherished, european-literature, man-booker-shortlist-longlist, bygones-are-never-bygones, don-t-melt-my-melting-pot

A transient, dubious point of intersection with a secluded, floating world. Two disparate spheres of influence navigating a treacherous turn of the century wherein the actions of either will determine the course of future events. A clash of civilizations where all involved parties are unwilling to cede even something as basic as acknowledgement to the other. Races laboring under the virulent delusion that skin color predetermines superiority or inferiority. Love in the time of prejudice and mutu ...more

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Mar 05, 2011 Kinga rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pub-2010

David Mitchell and I had not been introduced before. I knew he had written something about clouds and dreams and this looked pretty so I took it home with me.

It is a book about Jacob de Zoet, who in 1799 arrives as a clerk on Dejima, an artificial island near Nagasaki and the only point of contact between Japan and the outside world. It is also a book about an English ship and a mountain shrine and secret religious cult. It is a book about Orito, Japanese midwife whose face is half burnt but the David Mitchell and I had not been introduced before. I knew he had written something about clouds and dreams and this looked pretty so I took it home with me.

It is a book about Jacob de Zoet, who in 1799 arrives as a clerk on Dejima, an artificial island near Nagasaki and the only point of contact between Japan and the outside world. It is also a book about an English ship and a mountain shrine and secret religious cult. It is a book about Orito, Japanese midwife whose face is half burnt but the book's most noble characters seem to fall in love with despite that. This book is about so many things in so many different ways that it is rather hard to write anything coherent about the plot. Mitchell has one hell of imagination (and patience for research) and I was left in awe. “The Ten Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet” is tour de force, and unlike the blurb writers, I don’t use this term lightly. Writing this novel must’ve been a massive undertaking but I am not sure regular human beings like you and me can keep up with Mitchell as he jumps around like a flea.

The opening chapter blew me away and the first part of the book promised a solid historical novel. Then everything was turned around and we found ourselves in a Japanese shrine taken out straight from an airport bookshop bestseller. It was mysterious and romantic and a little bit silly. I thought: “David, really? I know that authors think they can get away with just about anything in the middle of the book but don’t you think you are pushing your luck a little bit here?”. David took my advice and abandoned the shrine plotline halfway through and took us back to Jacob de Zoet just when we forgot he was supposed to be the main character and stopped caring about him altogether. After an episode on an English ship starring a captain suffering from gout we get to the epilogue with Jacob de Zoet, as though Mitchell was convinced we needed a closure. As far as epilogues go this one was as unnecessary as the epilogue in the last Harry Potter book.

I really don’t know what to make out of this book. It read easily even if Mitchell has the most bizarre writing style ever. Oh boy, does he love his suspension points... They are everywhere... Sometimes to say that many things happen at once... she looked outside the window... As if we didn’t know that many things can happen at once... the washing machine started the spinning cycle… And on page 383 Mitchell uses suspension points 21 times... My flatmate’s alarm went off but he is still sleeping...

There was just too much of everything in this book and in the end it seems that all these things have cancelled each other out. Just what was I supposed to get out of this novel? What point (if any) was it trying to make?
Don’t get me wrong. I did enjoy it, at times I enjoyed it a lot, even the airport paperback bits, but I think Mitchell’s imagination can be put to a much better use... Someone flushed the toilet... ...more

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Sep 11, 2018 Phrynne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 5000-books

So far my experiences with this author:
* Cloud Atlas 3 stars. I found it well written, interesting but ultimately confusing.
* The Bone Clocks 4 stars. I enjoyed this one very much.
* Slade House 5 stars. I loved this one totally!

Now what do I say about The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet?
Firstly can any one tell me what the title is supposed to mean?

Quick summary of my feelings about the book - beautifully written, perfect descriptions of the settings, interesting characters, a good story somew ...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2014, mitchell, reviews-5-stars, reviews

Exit Only Through the Sea Gate

"The Thousand Autumns" is set in Nagasaki over a period of almost 20 years beginning in 1799.

Dutch traders are restricted to an island in the harbour called "Dejima".

From the Japanese perspective, its name reflects the fact that it is an "exit island". Dutch ships arrive at and depart from the sea gate, while the Japanese officials and traders access the island through a land gate.

The Dutch are not permitted to enter Japan proper under the isolationist Sakoku pol ...more

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Nov 13, 2011 Whitaker rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-published-1950-and-after, japan, z_2011-read, zz-box-06

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 it rather c ...more

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May 13, 2018 Peter Boyle rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

I almost gave up on this one. If I hadn't read and loved all of David Mitchell's other novels, I think I'd have abandoned ship after the first hundred pages. But I'm glad I stuck with it, even if I do have some reservations about its sprawling story.

The year is 1799. Jacob de Zoet, an eager and resourceful young clerk, arrives in Dejima, a tiny trading outpost in the bay of Nagasaki. Back in the Netherlands he became engaged to the beautiful Anna, and intends to earn his fortune with the Dutch E ...more

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Jan 23, 2011 John rated it it was amazing

Shelves: japan, the-sea, 2011, historical-fiction

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:

Sugatami Bridge, Omokage Bridge, by Utagawa Hiroshige

Sugatami Bridge, Omokage Bridge, by Utagawa Hiroshige

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 to the period of Jap ...more

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Jul 10, 2010 ·Karen· rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, brits

Is there anything David Mitchell can't do? Dazzling is the word for this. Fizzing with life, it appears at first to be a conventional historical novel, but then swoops into speculative fiction that is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood or Kazuo Ishiguro, with human babies being 'farmed' for nefarious reasons, then back to the historical world and a wonderfully exciting naval stand-off, where Our Hero is saved by his red hair. (You'll have to read it to find out). James Wood, a critic who I admire gr ...more

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Oct 06, 2015 Scott rated it it was ok

Right in the testicles. That's where this book kicked my suspension of disbelief, landing a crunching, foetal-position-inducing blow that was all the more painful for being unexpected.

I'm a big fan of David Mitchell's work. I love Cloud Atlas and I've given it as a birthday gift to several friends. Ditto for Ghostwritten, a book I greatly respect for it's blend of narratives and voices, and genres. I enjoyed Numberninedream, and thought Black Swan Green was, well, OK. I dig Mitchell's ability to ...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Nandakishore Varma rated it liked it · review of another edition

The story of star-crossed lovers on two sides of a divide during a turbulent historical period is the staple of many an historical novel. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, at first glane, is just that: however, the author has entered uncharted waters by venturing into an area which is seldom explored in historical novels, by choosing Japan during her international isolation as the venue and making the clerk of the erstwhile Dutch East India company, the unlikely hero.

Jacob de Zoet has joine The story of star-crossed lovers on two sides of a divide during a turbulent historical period is the staple of many an historical novel. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, at first glane, is just that: however, the author has entered uncharted waters by venturing into an area which is seldom explored in historical novels, by choosing Japan during her international isolation as the venue and making the clerk of the erstwhile Dutch East India company, the unlikely hero.

Jacob de Zoet has joined the Dutch East India Company as a clerk, due to reasons common to many young men of his generation: in the hope of making a quick fortune to marry the girl of his dreams. But all too soon he discovers that to proceed in his career, he has to sell his soul to the devil. He is that anomaly, an honest man in a European commercial enterprise in a corrupt era. Jacob refuses to do this, and falls afoul of his superiors, ruining his bright career chances: to compound his woes, he falls in love with Orito Aibagawa, a Japanese midwife with a burn disfiguring half her face. His already hopeless suit becomes even more impossible when Orito is sold into virtual slavery at the Mount Shiranui shrine to pay off her dead father's debts by her stepmother. Deliverance comes for Jacob and Orito, however, at the end, but not in any way envisaged by them.

Mitchell's novel is panoramic in sweep and flawless in execution. His technique is cinematic: sentences follow the principles of montage, so that each thought process of a character, each speech is interspersed with happenings in the surroundings (in fact, all the while I was reading this novel, I was running a movie in my mind: especially part two in the Shiranui shrine which was in Multicolour and Panavision and directed by Kurosawa). This, along with the fact that it is written entirely in the present tense, gives a sense of immediacy to the narrative. The characterisation is also terrific; especially the villain, Enomoto, is worthy of Amrish Puri!

Then why the three stars? Well, IMO, what the novel provides in technique it misses in substance. For all its page-turning suspense and colourful background, I found the story to be rather lacking in a central focus. I was confused at the end on what the author was trying to say through this novel. After rising to a satisfying plateau through parts one and two, part three was a partial let-down: and the resolution was totally unsatisfying. Let us just say that Mitchell raised my hopes only to dash them to the ground.

Maybe my high hopes at the beginning made my review a trifle harsh. But don't be put off, it's a good read anyway. ...more

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Dec 11, 2010 Sue rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2011, historical-fiction, japan, favorites

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 always had a f ...more

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Jul 24, 2019 fourtriplezed rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: david-mitchell, my-fiction

I found after finishing this terrific fiction I was looking to read about the events that this book was based on. I came away impressed that David Mitchell could turn an historical event as was a small trading depot on a man made island called Dejima in the middle of Nagasaki harbour in the late 1700’s into such an epic but subtle fiction. No Hollywood ending! Fantastic.

David Mitchell is a great story teller and a great writer. I have read his oeuvre in order and have yet to not be anything but ...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Steve rated it really liked 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 to r 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 to report that he succeeded beyond all expectations, even with the ropes of convention constraining him.

Jacob was an earnest young Dutchmen amongst the motley assemblage at a remote trading post on Dejima, an island near Nagasaki. The story began in 1799 at a time when Japan was a very closed society. In fact, the isolated post offered the only real exposure to the Western way of life. Unfortunately, honor was scarce on all sides of a typical Dutch East Indies Company transaction. Jacob, a junior clerk at the time, did meet some virtuous people, though. Foremost among them was a midwife named Orito Aibagawa who was studying medicine under Marinus, the highly skilled, highly evolved physician on the island. Orito was a promising student, empathetic, and attractive despite a bad burn mark on the side of her face. Young Jacob was smitten.

Romance wasn’t easy, though, for reasons the reader soon discovers. Jacob had other travails, too, when he refused to falsify one of the shipping documents. He was demoted and made to report to a conniving, downright scurvy rival. Then Orito was sent away. And it sure didn’t help matters when the language and culture were so different and there were so few people he could trust.

I’d rather not get too deep into the plot (though it’s a worthy one) and instead focus on the book’s other qualities. I’m convinced that David Mitchell is incapable of committing a bad sentence to paper. He’s also very good with character development as we see with Jacob, Orito, and various translators, magistrates, and seafarers. And that rare storytelling ability I mentioned, it takes the action well beyond the island. He leads us up a mountain to a nunnery harboring secrets and to treacherous parts of the Japanese shogunate.

I was already a big Mitchell fan so it was interesting to me to see the contrasts with his earlier works. One thing that was different was the immense amount of research involved in putting a book like this together. In fact, there is a section at the end where Mitchell appends a short essay on the topic of historical fiction. He said he’d tried earlier to apply the antiquated language of the times, making “extensive word lists to incorporate into [his] text—and ended up with Blackadder.” He also mentioned the danger in showing off his recently acquired scholarship at the expense of narrative flow. Even so, one criticism of the book was that he may have gone a little too far with his descriptive passages. Once the story gained momentum, though, that was no longer an issue.

I wanted to give this the full five stars, but in the end couldn’t quite do it. My problem was with Jacob. He seemed a tad too forthright, at times, with a lack of people smarts. We admire his integrity and hard work, but can’t always see his human aspect. Maybe it’s just that I’m so used to really liking (or at least understanding the frailties of) Mitchell’s main characters and had been hoping to do so again. Overall, though, this was a great reading experience. And my view of Mitchell himself is still as high as any cloud in the sky, mapped or otherwise.
...more

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Oct 06, 2016 Sam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2016-reads, all-time-favorites

One of my favorite books - this was my third or fourth reading of Mitchell's wonderful work that is historical fiction, but also entirely transcendent of the genre.

Set in Nagasaki, Japan on the artificial island of Dejima, the plot revolves around the titular Jacob de Zoet, a clerk with the Dutch East India Company, and Orito, the slightly scarred midwife whose beauty and intelligence captivate Jacob (and other characters besides). But the secondary and peripheral characters are all deeply and c ...more

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Oct 24, 2010 Emily rated it liked it

Shelves: 2010

Giving this book three stars doesn't adequately represent its melange of 1-star and 5-star elements. The prose here walks a line between vivid and so purple that it's gushing persimmon juice over your lips... no, that's not quite a direct quote. The romance between two of the characters hangs on just a few meetings, one of which is an awful scene where they teach each other the words for "dew" in their respective languages. The entire middle section of the book rests on a fantastical plot elemen Giving this book three stars doesn't adequately represent its melange of 1-star and 5-star elements. The prose here walks a line between vivid and so purple that it's gushing persimmon juice over your lips... no, that's not quite a direct quote. The romance between two of the characters hangs on just a few meetings, one of which is an awful scene where they teach each other the words for "dew" in their respective languages. The entire middle section of the book rests on a fantastical plot element--an evil religious sect that kidnaps one of the main characters--that is never explained, in the sense that I expected some sort of author's note at the end. Why on earth does the author do so much research and make the Dutch-Japanese trading milieu so realistic, only to take this weird detour? I read a review that ascribed it to magical realism, but I didn't find it whimsical or particularly metaphorical, more crass or exploitative.

I found the voices linguistically muddled. Someone warned me that I would be driven up the wall by the lower-class Dutch characters' Cockney accents: true. But consider also that when the Japanese interpreters are speaking Dutch, they are depicted speaking pidgin English, but when Jacob de Zoet is shown speaking Japanese, his dialogue is perfectly normal although his mastery of Japanese is much less. Then for a while we have a section that's told by a slave called Weh, which is in the first person for no apparent reason (since the third-person sections are plenty omniscient when it comes to Jacob's and Ogawa's private thoughts). And that leads us back to the endless pages of anecdote-telling by the various salty men of this story, which were sometimes related in so heavy an accent that I was tempted to nod off.

This makes it sound as though I hated the book, but it had redeeming qualities. I found de Zoet's meandering path through life to make for interesting reading, and the parts of the book that aren't overwritten are well-written. The cross-cultural suspicions and friendships were more interesting to me than the attempt at romance, especially all the details of the ways the Japanese and Dutch bent, oh so slightly, to accommodate each other's culture. The atmosphere of the Dejima factory, in sounds, smells, and resentments, was palpable.

People who enjoyed these aspects of the story would probably enjoy the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, but since those books contain dragons and are thus tainted by association with swords-and-wands epics, I can't always persuade people to try them--your loss! ...more

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Dec 21, 2015 Maxwell rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own-it, 2015

3.5 stars A fascinating historical novel centering around the idea of translation and the suspension between two cultures, two worlds, two loves. I thought it excelled, as Mitchell always does, at witty, realistic dialogue. What it lacked in movement, it made up for in deep character study and a compelling main character. Not my favorite Mitchell, but certainly not my least favorite.

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Jun 20, 2019 Edward rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, 2019

Mitchell chose a perfect location for his novel. Dejima, a place largely forgotten by the world, is an apt distillation of the insularity and xenophobia of the “Cloistered Empire”, fearful of external influence and resistant to change (This attitude would later see an abrupt reversal, leading eventually to Japan’s imperial aspirations in the 20th Century, culminating in the atomic explosion over almost this exact location. I’m sure this is not a coincidence - the seeds of necessity which precipi Mitchell chose a perfect location for his novel. Dejima, a place largely forgotten by the world, is an apt distillation of the insularity and xenophobia of the “Cloistered Empire”, fearful of external influence and resistant to change (This attitude would later see an abrupt reversal, leading eventually to Japan’s imperial aspirations in the 20th Century, culminating in the atomic explosion over almost this exact location. I’m sure this is not a coincidence - the seeds of necessity which precipitate this later drive to modernity are planted here, in this story). The time and place are wonderfully evoked, as is the interplay between the two cultures.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is slow to start, only really opening up as the story of Orito Aibagawa develops, around half way through. But the second half of the novel is a wonderful experience, exploring ideas of love, honour and duty as well as the decay and death of the old world. Throughout, the focus remains on the personal, the cultural differences highlighting the universals of human experience. In both cultures we see the same hypocrisies beneath the professed values of duty and honour. These are often a façade, a tool which can be utilised by those in power. Human history is messy, and the striving for even simple pleasures is often interrupted, or rendered impossible by one’s relationship with power. The interactions between people are never to be taken at face value, and true motives are often hidden. In this novel, the fraught nature of human relationships is frequently contrasted against the simplicity of a game of Go:

If only, Shiroyama dreams, human beings were not masks behind masks. If only this world was a clean board of lines and intersections. If only time was a sequence of considered moves and not a chaos of slippages and blunders.

My main criticism of the novel is stylistic - I find such extensive use of dialogue to be quite draining. But this is a personal preference. Mitchell’s use of language is otherwise excellent, and the story is lush, enchanting and surprising. ...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Erik rated it it was ok

Shelves: detailed-review, bepretentious

Despite my great love for Cloud Atlas (also by Mitchell), The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet did not quite do it for me. I might even go so far as to say that, at times, it felt like The Thousand Visits to the DMV, if the DMV were staffed by highly literate history professors who accompanied every eye-exam and form signing with an exhaustive digression into various arcane automemorabilia that may or may not be quite interesting, excepting the fact that it's the DMV, a successful attendance of Despite my great love for Cloud Atlas (also by Mitchell), The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet did not quite do it for me. I might even go so far as to say that, at times, it felt like The Thousand Visits to the DMV, if the DMV were staffed by highly literate history professors who accompanied every eye-exam and form signing with an exhaustive digression into various arcane automemorabilia that may or may not be quite interesting, excepting the fact that it's the DMV, a successful attendance of which can best be summarized as "wham bam thank you ma'am."

While a successful book reading would certainly not be characterized similarly, the general feeling of thwarted expectations is the same: I approached this book seeking to achieve something - some resonance with the story and its characters - and went away disappointed. What it ultimately came down is that I didn't understand the... hm what to call it? The drive, the gist, the point, the moral? No, not moral. Consistency, perhaps? Yes that's a good word for it.

Thousand Autumns is not consistent - it is a cheesecake filled with too many rich, wonderful, exotic ingredients, and then improperly baked. It's got anardana, wattleseed, sumac, mace (nutmeg shells), juniper, mahlab, kaffir lime, etc, etc. While any given bite may be bursting with flavor, the overall taste lacks consistency. To some, such a gleeful mixture of ingredients may signify great and wondrous Literature, but, to me, signifies someone who attempted to write great and wondrous Literature and failed and therefore should have made sure they understood how to bake a simple cheesecake - that is, write a good story - before adding in the complexifying spices.

In a good story, a Dutch clerk named Jacob de Zoet stationed in the Japanese port of Nagasaki would not have fallen in love with a woman for no reason whatsoever. A good story-teller wouldn't have done this because he would have known that to build a character's motivations upon a love that happens magically and without due process would cause the entire story to ring with a false note. A good story-teller would also probably not randomly switch narrative points of view - it goes from Jacob de Zoet to a Japanese NINJA (not seriously but... yeah, actually, pretty much) to an English captain and to a few others and back, without bothering to establish any sort of tempo in the rise and fall of suspense and intrigue.

If David Mitchell had been interested in telling a good story, he would not have done this. But he was more interested in writing Literature. Which is fine, okay. Not every book needs to be a "good read" to be a, um, good read. But Thousand Autumns is not good Literature, either. Such tomes have a haunted quality, infused with the whispered dreams and nightmares of fictitious characters. Their ideas sneak in and possess us like ghosts, bubbling to the surface of our thoughts at odd times, when writing a love letter or closing our eyes for a quick brain break or tucking in our children or watering our garden or taking a dump. I really really wanted this book to have such a quality, which is why I gave myself three weeks between finishing it and writing this review. I gave it time for the ideas to bubble up to the surface. However, no such thoughts ever arose, and so I had to conclude: this book had no haunting quality and it is not Literature. It is mediocre.

So to return to what this book lacked: vision. It lacked heart. It was written to be clever and exhaustively researched, first and foremost, and somewhere along the way, in David Mitchell's editing kitchen, the damn fool forgot to add the heart of the book, he forgot to add the cheese to the cheesecake. ...more

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Jul 30, 2013 Beth rated it really liked it

Shelves: ylto-2017, around-world-13

David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas was perhaps my favorite book from last summer. It was an ambitious effort, with multiple genres interwoven, and some really marvelous writing within each segment. It was brilliantly executed, and made me a big fan of Mitchell. Hence I was eager and curious about this novel.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is nothing like Cloud Atlas. It is simply a wonderfully crafted piece of historical fiction, set in a small trading post of the Dutch East Indies Company on a David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas was perhaps my favorite book from last summer. It was an ambitious effort, with multiple genres interwoven, and some really marvelous writing within each segment. It was brilliantly executed, and made me a big fan of Mitchell. Hence I was eager and curious about this novel.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is nothing like Cloud Atlas. It is simply a wonderfully crafted piece of historical fiction, set in a small trading post of the Dutch East Indies Company on a constructed island in the Nagasaki harbor. It's the late 1790s, and Japan is closed to the West. It is ruled by the Shoguns and their allies. Jacob de Zoet is a Dutch clerk arriving on a ship from Europe with a superior from the company intent on assessing the corruption occurring in Dejima. Before he has arrived on land, he already has a broken nose, and he is paralyzed with anxiety that his talisman of good fortune, a family psalter, will be discovered and confiscated by a regime hostile to all foreign religion. Soon he has met and become enamored of a disfigured Japanese midwife, whom he meets through circumstances too delightful to ruin by previewing them here. Meanwhile he is making no friends among the other Westerners on Dejima, as he is the one who must comb through the records of several years of trading to identify incidences of corruption, of which, of course, there are many. He also meets a mysterious monk who offers to buy the medicinal mercury he has personally brought to trade here as a means of making a small nest egg with which he can marry his fiancee back in Holland. The plot is thick with adventure, international conflict and diplomacy, lots of political maneuvering, and, of course, the complicated love interest. The writing works well, and Mitchell does a marvelous job of creating characters of all sorts through their dialogue. I will give you a view of the setting as Jacob first sees it coming ashore:

"Nagasaki itself, wood grey and mud brown, looks oozed from between the verdant mountains' splayed toes. The smells of seaweed, effluence, and smoke from countless flues are carried over the water. The mountains are terraced by rice paddies nearly up to their serrated summits.

A madman, Jacob supposes, might imagine himself in a half-cracked jade bowl.

Dominating the shorefront is his home for the next year: Dejima, a high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island, some 200 paces along its outer curve, Jacob estimates, by eighty paces deep, and erected, like much of Amsterdam, on sunken piles. "

This is a great book, and I highly recommend it!

First read summer 2013 reread fall 2014 ...more

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Nov 07, 2010 Teresa rated it really liked it

David Mitchell's forte is the creation of fully 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 echo poetically througho ...more

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Aug 09, 2015 Paul E. Morph rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2016

I enjoyed this one; I definitely preferred it to Cloud Atlas, the only other Mitchell novel I've read. It's certainly more straightforward, structurally speaking; there is no jumping about in the timestream here. The Thousand Autumns of Jacon de Zoet is simply the story of the titular character's time spent in Japan, set at the turn of the 19th Century.

Mitchell's writing is engaging. There is romance, scandal, action, adventure, betrayal, conspiracy, corruption, heroism and loss to be had here; ...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Darwin8u rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2011, aere-perennius

He's got the precision of Roth, the bigness of Tolstoy, the ventriloquism of Pynchon and the heart of ... Hugo perhaps. IT is rare for me to find a book that hits me as hard as this one did. A near perfect novel.

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About David Mitchell

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David Mitchell was born in Southport, Merseyside, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent, studying for 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. Afte ...more

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“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.” — 226 likes

“Gulls wheel through spokes of sunlight over gracious roofs and dowdy thatch, snatching entrails at the marketplace and escaping over cloistered gardens, spike topped walls and treble-bolted doors. Gulls alight on whitewashed gables, creaking pagodas and dung-ripe stables; circle over towers and cavernous bells and over hidden squares where urns of urine sit by covered wells, watched by mule-drivers, mules and wolf-snouted dogs, ignored by hunch-backed makers of clogs; gather speed up the stoned-in Nakashima River and fly beneath the arches of its bridges, glimpsed form kitchen doors, watched by farmers walking high, stony ridges. Gulls fly through clouds of steam from laundries' vats; over kites unthreading corpses of cats; over scholars glimpsing truth in fragile patterns; over bath-house adulterers, heartbroken slatterns; fishwives dismembering lobsters and crabs; their husbands gutting mackerel on slabs; woodcutters' sons sharpening axes; candle-makers, rolling waxes; flint-eyed officials milking taxes; etiolated lacquerers; mottle-skinned dyers; imprecise soothsayers; unblinking liars; weavers of mats; cutters of rushes; ink-lipped calligraphers dipping brushes; booksellers ruined by unsold books; ladies-in-waiting; tasters; dressers; filching page-boys; runny-nosed cooks; sunless attic nooks where seamstresses prick calloused fingers; limping malingerers; swineherds; swindlers; lip-chewed debtors rich in excuses; heard-it-all creditors tightening nooses; prisoners haunted by happier lives and ageing rakes by other men's wives; skeletal tutors goaded to fits; firemen-turned-looters when occasion permits; tongue-tied witnesses; purchased judges; mothers-in-law nurturing briars and grudges; apothecaries grinding powders with mortars; palanquins carrying not-yet-wed daughters; silent nuns; nine-year-old whores; the once-were-beautiful gnawed by sores; statues of Jizo anointed with posies; syphilitics sneezing through rotted-off noses; potters; barbers; hawkers of oil; tanners; cutlers; carters of night-soil; gate-keepers; bee-keepers; blacksmiths and drapers; torturers; wet-nurses; perjurers; cut-purses; the newborn; the growing; the strong-willed and pliant; the ailing; the dying; the weak and defiant; over the roof of a painter withdrawn first from the world, then his family, and down into a masterpiece that has, in the end, withdrawn from its creator; and around again, where their flight began, over the balcony of the Room of Last Chrysanthemum, where a puddle from last night's rain is evaporating; a puddle in which Magistrate Shiroyama observes the blurred reflections of gulls wheeling through spokes of sunlight. This world, he thinks, contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.” — 119 likes

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