The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

David Mitchell continues his mesmerizing way with prose, telling a long tale that works on so many levels. I thought that unlike Cloud Atlas this might be a more classic, continuous narrative and it was, in a sense. But Mitchell once again glided from one world to a different one, shifting mood and voice as he portrayed first the claustrophobic Dutch trading post of Dejima, with all its characters and the main protagonist, Jacob de Zoet, and then shifted to two successive scenes on mainland Japan, and finally told the story from the point of view of an intruding British frigate and its gouty captain.

This is show, don't tell at its best, with a virtuosic command of dialogue and detail. The two main characters, Jacob and Orito, are finely nuanced and immensely sympathetic. The other characters offer a rich tapestry of late 18th century rogues, with the physician, Marinus, playing a deliciously enigmatic role. If anything, the villains -- the abbot Enomoto and the deputy chief Peter Fischer -- lapse into a one-dimensionality that fail to convince. When Enomoto's voice chills Jacob's spine, the reader does not feel that with him because the abbot's character is not sufficiently drawn to feel the threat.

But the overwhelming sense of repression and claustrophobia that characterized both Dutch and Japanese societies in this epoch is wonderfully captured in this story of a small island, cut off from the mainland by fierce cultural resistance and from its European roots by a wide, wide ocean. Jacob and Orito's heroic struggles to maintain their integrity amid truly incredible levels of corruption drive the story, along with their unlikely romance. (to be updated)

Cloud Atlas

It's hard to describe the charm that David Mitchell exerts to draw the reader along in this odd book narrating six different stories in different periods. It is probably the voice in each narrative, so distinct, so different from the others in style and tone. Even the futuristic dialect of a post-apocalyptic world, which could have become simply ennervating in less skillful hands, captivates the reader. Not to mention the pre-apocalyptic but dismal future world where more brand names are generic (all cars are fords, all movies are disneys, etc.).

The sheer imagination used in creating these different worlds, interlinked only in the most subtle way, helps carry the reader along. The individual plots, too, have their own suspense, plus, somehow, the suspense of seeing how these stories are linked.

Thematically, Cloud Atlas glorifies independence of spirit in the face of a cynical and often cruel world. The protagonists triumph in greater or lesser fashion, but they preserve their integrity against often unspeakable corruption. If you subscribe to the theory that they are in fact each one the reincarnation of the previous one, then of course it is a single protagonist who succeeds in this endeavor over the course of centuries. But that is really a superfluous consideration, because each narrative stands on its own, and, related or not, the six protagonists show different ways to maintain integrity.

I now have two further books by David Mitchell on my shelf, waiting to be read. I'm a fan.