Review: Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

Do you remember how it's like to be thirteen? You are neither a child nor a grown-up and you constantly try to persuade everyone that you have indeed grown. This is the age when you experience your first love, your first kiss, your first cigarette. You feel that the world is against you and you struggle to be accepted by those around you, especially if you are a boy. But if you happen to be different in some way, or possess a unique trait, you are sure to be bullied.  

This is exactly what our hero, Jason Taylor, has to face during his adventures in a year that proved to be critical for his growing up. And what a year it was! After trying so hard to be accepted by the cool and tough guys at school he ends up being bullied, turning his life at school a living hell. But he breaks through, making his friendship with the not-so-cool kid even stronger and handling the whole situation in a surprisingly mature way. Even when things get really tough, when his parents get a divorce and he has to leave the house of his childhood, his friends, his school, he tries to remain calm and finally realises that this is the road to growing up. 

The structure of this novel is simpler compared to the rest of David Mitchell's other works. It's a book containing 13 chapters and each one is a short story. In one of them we meet a somewhat familiar character, Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, a character first appeared in Cloud Atlas that introduces Jason to french literature and the Cloud Atlas Sextet by Robert Frobisher. 

My favourite parts of this novel were the most emotionally charged ones. The chapter in which Jason feels guilty about the injury of his worst bully is one of them and it's so hard not to feel bad for him, because it is obviously not his fault. How can a thirteen year-old boy react to the consequences of consequences? But the scene that made me cry was the one in which he was sitting in his empty bedroom. The memories he shared with his sister, their games of hide and seek and him thinking of another kid sitting in that very same room in the future makes it really hard not to shed a tear.

So, my advice is...

A coming-of-age journey worth taking! 

Info on Black Swan Green

Black Swan Green is the fourth novel by David Mitchell and it was published in 2006. 

Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirtheen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys' games on a frozen lake; of "nightcreeping" through summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falkland War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian immigrant who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason's search to replace his dead grandfather's irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher's recession; of Gypsies comping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons.

David Mitchell on Bookworm, 2006

Review: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas is a unique case of a novel. It's definitely a novel by David Mitchell, but the writing is even more thrilling, exploring a great range of genres. Traces of both Ghostwritten and number9dream are evident, that I clearly felt a witness of some kind of an evolution in ideas and structure. Both of those previous novels are based upon certain ideas and so is this one. Indeed, the main idea in Cloud Atlas is reincarnation.

The story begins in the 19th century, progresses through many decades we have lived, explores a future when the man is very technologically developed and ends in a post-apocalyptic distant future. In its own way, it's like a history of this world that David Mitchell has created. Most of the narrations end in despair, but there are also those who let hope crawl inside. Sonmi-451 is imprisoned and dies, but later in a the post-apocalyptic society she is worshipped like a god. 

All the characters of those six stories that consist Cloud Atlas are reincarnations of the same soul through time. The reincarnations are easily recognisable from the comet-shaped mark that they all share. The interesting fact is that the narrator of the sixth story doesn't have the mark and nothing really indicates that he shares anything with the rest of the characters, but his companion most probably is. 

It is also really interesting to discover how all those different characters interacted with each other through time and how their actions translated into a common language in order to travel from the one period to the other (in some cases centuries have gone by before the soul was reincarnated). But, no matter what the current character finds the action that reaches him is from his previous reincarnation. For example, Robert Frobisher, the composer from the second story, finds and becomes obsessed with the diary that Adam Ewing wrote on the ship the previous century, or when Luisa Rey, the young reporter from the third story discovers the correspondence between Frobisher and his friend and becomes so enthralled by him that she orders the Cloud Atlas Sextet, the only published work of the composer and so on. Every action each protagonist makes leaves a ripple in time and reaches the next one and in the end we have the echoes of all those ripples combined. I wouldn't be surprised if the author had the chaos theory in mind. 

The structure of Cloud Atlas, as I have already said, is unique. It includes six stories and the five of them are divided into two parts. This way a pyramid-shaped structure is formed where each story starts and then it continues in reverse order. For example, the first story continues last and so forth. The only story that ends without an interruption is the sixth one. Furthermore, each story is written in a different genre. This way we have diary entries, correspondence, interview, noir novel style, memoirs and folktale.

To sum things up, Cloud Atlas is a novel considered as a new classic. Personally, it's one of my all-time favourite books and I would reread it any time. I would recommend it to everyone. The stories are all intriguing, the writing is diverse and I believe that it will be very enjoyable and thought-provoking to all of you.

So my advice is...

A jewel for your bookshelf!

  

Info on Cloud Atlas

The third novel of David Mitchell is Cloud Atlas, published in 2004.

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified "dinery server" on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation - the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.

In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity's dangerous will to power, and where in may lead us.

David Mitchell in Bookworm (2005) discussing Cloud Atlas.

Review: number9dream by David Mitchell

So many stars. What are they for? 

What is a dream and what is reality? How many possibilities exist and how many of them unfold before us? How much does it cost to let go of your ghosts? number9dream explores all those questions and leaves the reader ready to experience life as a result of those endless possibilities. And the feeling is present from the very first chapter. 

Young Eiji Miyake moves to Tokyo in order to search for his father, which is a challenging quest since he doesn't even know his name. But all these weeks that the book follows his life we become witnesses to a vast change in his feelings, his thoughts, his memories, his being. At the end of the story Eiji is no longer a youth, but an adult who knows his origins, who tries to understand his mother and finally let go his idealised notion of his father and the tragic death of his twin sister. 

So long ago,

Was it in a dream?

Was it jast a dream?

I know, yes I know,

It seemed so very real,

Seemed real to me.

Took a walk down the street,

Through the heat whispered trees.

I thought I could hear.

Somebody call out my name

as it started to rain.

Two spirits dancing so strange...

I will not try to explain this book, do not be fooled, this is not one of those where everthing in the end is crystal clear. Each reader has to find its little twists and turns, to travel along Eiji and maybe learn something about himself. As Eiji at some point understands everybody has his dark secrets and we should learn to accept them in others and let the past rest within us. 

Similarly to Ghostwritten the structure of number9dream is unique, although in this book we deal with only one narrator. Each chapter has a very distinct theme, which influences the writing style accordingly. Possibilities, memories, video games, tales, card games, and even kaiten appear one after another and let us have a glimpse in Eiji's past and present. 

So, my advice is...

A jewel for your library!