The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet in On Paths Unknown

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

Shelves: china-japan-asia, favourites, sea-islands-coast-rivers, miscellaneous-fiction, mitchell-uber-book, landscape-location-protagonist, historical-fict-pre-20th-c, aaabsolute-favourites

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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Apr 05, 2012 Nandakishore Mridula 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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Jul 24, 2011 Jan Rice rated it really liked it · review of another edition

At the beginning I couldn't quite believe we were talking 1800, and then I fell right into the book and I did believe. This one was the proverbial heart-breaking book of staggering genius. The seemingly ordinary people who turn out to be heroes. A young man sails with the Dutch East India to make his fortune in Japan so his potential father-in-law will let him marry his fiancee, and life happens. The beautiful and intelligent Japanese woman with the burn on her face, the chivalrous and doomed in ...more

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May 11, 2010 Emma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historical, diaspora_migrants, unputdownable, post-colonial, islands, globalisation, 2010, asia_japan, seafaring

This is just a wonderful book, I love that Mitchell can jump so effortlessly from genre to genre, you never know quite what 'kind' of story you're going to get from him, but you know it will be thrilling, tense, page-turn-y, intelligent, and written in his wonderful prose. I read the first chapter, and I was so, so in. It's just so rich I don't know where to start. He puts stories within stories within stories, and manages to make this story about the Dutch in Japanese Dejima in the (I think) se ...more

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Jul 30, 2013 Xandra rated it did not like it

Shelves: british, 2000-present, z-m, booker-wp, european

A case of "it’s not (entirely) you, it’s me", I suppose? ... Other reviewers see a cohesive universe rich in detail and originality, I see a poorly stitched quilt that talks too much. Mitchell has obviously done his homework and I applaud him for it, but it was hard to ignore the feeling that he can’t let his extensive historical research go to waste and needs to cram it all into one book. It’s like he’s got a million ideas and pieces of information that he sticks together with the cheapest glue ...more

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Jun 05, 2010 Catherine Mustread rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical, japan, 1800s

Kept thinking I would get the book to read and refer to while I kept listening to ALL of the 17 CD's and never found a copy of the book to check out of the library. Enjoyed this historical novel greatly though, as the author describes a Dutch trading post on a Japanese island, in Nagasaki Harbor, over a two year period of 1799-1801. The protagonist, Jacob, is an honest bookkeeper/clerk who clashes with his superiors who wish to make more money than the "books" will allow. There is also a love in ...more

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