The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel

Given that the only book by David Mitchell that I had read before was Cloud Atlas, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - I knew it was widely regarded, but little more than that, not even the setting. (And, from what I've read, it's not quite as genre-bending as some of Mitchell's other works, so it may not have been a representative choice from his works.) What I got, in many ways, couldn't be more different from Cloud Atlas, but it's no less beautiful, powerful, and astonishingly well-written, and by the time I finished it, I knew I had read another masterpiece from Mitchell. A historical fiction, Thousand Autumns details the lives of officers in the Dutch East Indies company stationed near Nagasaki right around the dawn of the 19th century. That's a wholly, utterly foreign world to most Western readers, and much of the book's first section finds Mitchell exploring the culture and society through his characters, letting the world come to life as he subtly sows seeds for the plot threads to come. And then, before you know it, you're lost in Mitchell's rich world, entranced by his complicated, utterly human characters, and caught up in his dense plotting, which involves everything from the British empire to a sect of Japanese monks with horrific beliefs. And just when you think Mitchell has lost track of everything, he pulls it together in two astonishing final chapters that left me stunned, moved, and on the verge of tears at his powerful ending. But the plotting is never really the focus of Thousand Autumns; what fascinates Mitchell, and by extension, the reader, are the characters that populate the world, and the way they're governed by their pasts, their cultures, their senses of honor and betrayal, and a desire to make the most of their lives as best as they can. What Mitchell ends up doing here is telling a story that could be told at no other time in history, but making it beautifully, wonderfully contemporary in the emotions and feelings it deals with. More than that, he succeeds in immersing you in a world that you could never experience, and makes it come to life in such a vivid way that you not only picture it, but can feel yourself getting lost in it. And that, along with Mitchell's astonishing, beautiful prose, makes Thousand Autumns a masterpiece worth savoring.

Shoving readers with frightful immediacy into a place and era that hasn't exactly been extensively portrayed in contemporary Western fiction, David Mitchell's "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" is easily the finest novel set in turn-of-the-18th-century Japan I've ever read, and should manage to equally impress both literary buffs who like the occasionally history lesson and history nerds who want to inject some fiction into their reading. Setting its human drama and occasional bawdy comedy against the backdrop of a society in flux, it takes readers back to a time before airplanes, cell phones, and the Travel Channel, when trips abroad were long and perilous and information was scarce and closely guarded. In lesser hands the novel could be a dry historical, but Mitchell shows an admirable willingness to get his hands dirty as he enlivens his tale of culture clash and forbidden love with plenty of violence, colorful language and anatomically explicit descriptions. Readers will likely be torn on the effectiveness of the various literary tricks that Mitchell employs (splicing lines of description together with lines of dialogue, especially, could strike readers as either brilliant or maddening), but there's little denying the emotional depth and attention to detail that he brings to the story. As the book's title suggests, its action is centered around the experiences of Jacob de Zoet, a young, devoutly Christian clerk who's joined a Dutch trade mission to Japan in an effort to earn his fortune and secure his bride of choice back home. Upon his arrival at the trading outpost of Dejima just outside Nagasaki, Jacob quickly finds himself plunged into a world dominated by intrigue, greed, and hidden agendas, where the Dutch and their Japanese hosts seemingly compete to see which side can be more duplicitous and arrogant. A romantic element is also introduced in the form of De Zoet's forbidden infatuation with a deformed Japanese midwife, but those expecting a standard-issue historical love story will be getting something else entirely. In spite of the tenuous moral center provided by De Zoet and a few like-minded characters, The Thousand Autumns is in many ways a deeply cynical novel, with depictions of altruism and fidelity greatly outnumbered by those of deceit, self-seeking and worse. Even De Zoet, who's so upstanding in relation to most of the other characters that he practically squeaks when he walks, harbors plenty of outsized ambitions and personal conflicts beneath the piety and rectitude on his surface. The book is at its best in its opening chapters, as it shoves together the combustible elements of a cranky, homesick Dutch trade mission reeling from years of graft and corruption and a shady Japanese contingent trying to wring every bit of money possible out of their guests. The narrative moves along at a pretty breakneck pace in these early chapters, although Mitchell does occasionally slow down to allow his characters to relate wrenching tales of brutality, deprivation, and levels of racial prejudice and hostility that would appall the average Klansman. The story bogs down a little bit in its middle section as Mitchell decides to focus on other, somewhat less interesting characters, but comes roaring back to life in its final act, shifting the focus back to De Zoet and introducing a potentially hostile British crew for a rousing final clash between would-be imperial powers. The final confrontation, along with the intrigues leading up to it, makes for a worthy ending for a book that manages to bring together a frequently bleak worldview and unflinching descriptiveness with bursts of poetic language and sentimentality that can bring a smile to even the most cynical of readers. Throughout the novel Mitchell portrays an existence that's significantly more nasty, brutish and short than in these relatively comfortable times, but he does manage to inject just enough decency and humor to keep the proceedings from getting truly depressing.

David Mitchell is one of the most talented young British writers. He has published five books, four of which have found their way onto Booker prize lists. It's very fashionable to diss him, which is a pity. Two previous novels (Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas) had clear tricks to them. Therefore, a fashionable criticism of Mitchell is that his writing is all tricks and no substance. Mitchell is also a very versatile writer; his previous works have spanned centuries and continents; he has experimented with genre; yet whatever he writes feels slick. Therefore it is fashionable to accuse him of pastiche. In Jacob de Zoet, Mitchell has written a historical fiction novel that seems devoid of trickery. It is a long and heavily detailed account of a young and honest man who finds himself posted to Dejima trading station, Nagasaki - a den of thieves working for the Dutch East India company. Divided into three sections, we follow three distinct but related stories. In Part 1, we see Jacob battling his conscience as the corruption around him becomes apparent. In Part 2, we follow a young female translator as she is sold into a convent. And in Part 3, the settlement comes under siege. The story is gripping. Perhaps Part 1 is a bit meandering and it does introduce a lot of characters. But the characters are necessary as the twisting tale unfolds. There is a layer of insight into the mind of 1799 Japan that fascinates. It is totally at odds with European or Eurocentric experience. The reader has to set aside basic assumptions of right and wrong as the Japanese protocols take over. The reader is encouraged to create a hierarchy of wrongdoing and transgression when, in reality, the European sailors have found themselves in a situation in which right and wrong are simply meaningless. It is anarchy and anarchy generates rules of its own that are essential to survival. It's difficult to say much about the story without blowing the suspense, but it is on a par with Harry Thompson's This Thing of Darkness for its intrigue and detailing. As a storyteller, David Mitchell excels. He blends the grand picture with the personal tragedy to perfection. He speaks about human weakness - and the strength of human spirit. Jacob de Zoet is not a morality story. It is not an attempt to make political points. But it does shine a light on a rather obscure part of relatively recent history and does tell a rip-roaring story. Jacob de Zoet currently sits on the Booker prize longlist - I hope it goes further.

This was a complex and absorbonh tale. The book was well constructed and written. I enjoyed learning about the early dutch colony in Japan and the interation of the inhabitants of the colony with those of the authorities in Nagasaki and Japan..

I reread this on Kindle after giving away my paperback. It is even more wonderful second time, even when you know the end. Funny sad powerful but the most amazing thing is the detail in which this other world is painted. Truly marvellous.

A book I could read again and again. His subtleties and poetic prose describe every detail of a Japan hidden from the world, yet leave you feeling as if there is much more beneath the surface, just beyond reach. The cultural significance of this work have yet to be appropriately appreciated.

Well written and well crafted tale set around 1800 in Nagasaki when the Dutch had a trading monopoly with the Japanese. Note there is a list of characters the back of the book that I did not find until I had finished it. Thoroughly recommend this yarn, a good page turner.