The Single Autumn of Jacob de Zoet

Hello readers, this post's for you.

This month, my friend, Louise invited me to be a guest at a meeting of her book club.  Curiously, despite living and breathing books for nigh on...well, a lot of years...I had never previously been part of a book club, even as a guest.  I'd always eschewed what I assumed would be a formulaic approach to appreciating a book and resisted being forced to read books that didn't particularly interest me.  Or maybe, no-one ever invited me.  Whatever.  Anyway, I enjoy Louise a great deal, and when she told me which book she'd selected for the meeting - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell - I couldn't resist.  You see, as Louise has said, David Mictchell is my boyfriend.  No really, he is.  (Have I mentioned I read mostly fiction?)

I discovered David (yes, we're on a first name basis; or at least I am, with him) one July, about four years ago, when I realized I'd purchased Cloud Atlas, but had never read it.  Because I rarely read reviews of anything - yes, I know, that makes this blog somewhat ironic, if not presumptuous - among the books I buy, will be those that have been long- or short-listed for various awards (Booker, Giller, Orange, Commonwealth, Nobel, Pulitzer, Ed).  Cloud Atlas had been short-listed for the Booker in 2004.  That July, on Balsam Lake, Cloud Atlas (and the obligatory glass of Auchentoshan) transported me, and I fell in love with Mitchell and his prodigious talent.  I devoured his three other books; Ghostwritten and Number9dream, both of which were also short-listed for the Booker in their respective years, and shortly afterward, Black Swan Green, a semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman which was no less enchanting than its predecessors. 

Then I waited.  And waited.  Not patiently and insouciantly, but like a petulant, hungry child.  Mitchell was working on his new book, set in 18th century Japan, on Dejima, a fan-shaped island in Nagasaki Harbour, which was Shogunate Japan's only window of contact with the rest of the world.  That book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, finally landed in my feverish hands this past summer.  I read it this autumn.  And discussed it, after a mind-altering brie, warming glen fiddich and epicurean stew, with Louise's fab book club, this month.

And so, what about Jacob de Zoet and his Autumns?  Well, Mitchell remains a literary giant.  He's a master of description. a meticulous researcher and a consummate story-teller.  His characters - like Jacob and Uzaemon - are fully and wonderfully drawn; his dialogue - like the stilted, pregnant conversations between Jacob and Orito - is riveting; his stories - from the card game in the kitchen to the frightful reality of the nunnery to which Orito has been taken - are rollicking, evocative and sublime... Are you sensing an approaching 'but'...?    Yes...well, and it's difficult for me to admit this; as difficult as it would be for a parent of a clumsy child to admit that ballet's not in the cards.  And let me say emphatically, this is a wonderful book.  An enchanting book.  A superior book, even.  But...there it is...this is not Mitchell's best book.  Perversely, perhaps Mitchell himself is to blame.  Ironically, Thousand Autumns, a linear story and a departure for Mitchell,  lacks the thing that made Ghostwritten, essentially several separate and distinct narratives, a better book; that is, a common and defining theme.  There are hints and glimpses of one - predatory behaviour, isolation, maybe love - but they don't mature enough to connect the admittedly profound interactions between admittedly heart-wrenching characters.  A lemon meringue, this book.  Delicious, delightful, desireable...but now I'm hungry again. Petulant and hungry.