Number9Dream [Audio Download]

Number 9 Dream is a captivating and intelligent novel, well written - as one would expect from David Mitchell, and with some deep themes. The book is about a Japanese young man who is in search of the father who abandoned his family when he and his twin sister were born. He is also haunted by another significant event of his past.

Through the book, the search for his father gradually bears fruit, but ultimately it becomes clear that this knowledge was never important, as the protagonist - Eiji - comes of age through a series of enlightening experiences.

But this is no ordinary coming of age novel as much of the action takes place in Eiji's head. His dreams are as important to the narrative as the real events - and sometimes its a little tricky to separate what is real from what is imagined.

In the end, we see that the number 9 dream is that which starts after every ending. That is, when the other issues are resolved and Eiji comes out of the dream world and seems to wake up into this world, the 9th dream begins - the beginning of Eiji's real life. (Shades of the much shorter "Dandelion Wine" here!)

Parts of this novel were gripping, and the whole narrative sweeps you along. However it is not my favourite book for various reasons - most notably that this seems to be a rather self conscious attempt to write a Murakami novel by David Mitchell. The very title hints at this. #9 Dream is a song by John Lennon. Murakami, of course, achieved fame through his "Norwegian Wood". Indeed, the dialogue in this book compares #9 Dream with the song Norwegian wood.

Eiji is also found to be reading "Wind Up Bird Chronicle" as he contemplates his death - wondering what will become to the man stuck down the dry well.

And there are many other subtle references to Murakami. The structure of the book has trademark Murakami surrealism. We have love hotels and prostitutes and bad sex. We have the multiple threads and war time reminiscences. At times I thought I actually was reading Murakami.

Anyone who has seen my reviews will know I am not actually a big Murakami fan, because of his tendency to drop all the threads without resolution. Mitchell does not do that - except for the very deliberate new thread that is dropped at the end of chapter 8. But all the same, I think I would prefer to read David Mitchell for David Mitchell. I love his humour, his power of description, his ability to write in different voices, and his understanding of how to write a good story.

This book contained all of the above, but I hope his future works are less self consciously derivative.

We all thought Mitchell's Cloud Atlas was excellent, and were keen to read more by him. This book has elements in common with that one: the interweaving narratives, the cross-connections, the allusions and the clever use of dialogue. But the subject is widely removed from there and, at first glance, looks like an advanced exercise from a creative writing class: "Imagine you're a young man looking for his father. In Tokyo. And you've come from a remote part of Japan. Describe your feelings, adventures, fantasies, impressions..."

According to the blurb, Mitchell lived in Japan for some time, but you still get the idea that he's chosen a challenging topic. It's to his credit, then, that he succeeds so well: the picture he paints of the urban compression of Tokyo is - as far as I can recall from my visits there - exact, and he subtly highlights the contempt that city dwellers have for people from the country (just like, you realise, in every other country in the world). He also makes clever use of speech patterns to distinguish between characters from different backgrounds (to give the most extreme example, he grafts cockney accents onto Yakuza thugs, which seems to be precisely appropriate). The multiple stories seen in "Cloud Atlas" appear here as well - there's a sequence describing the training of Japanese suicide submariners in WWII that's particularly effective - and they all combine together to make this a richly-faceted novel, and a deeply satisfying reading experience.

This is the last of David Mitchell's current output I have read. After being utterly enamoured by 'Cloud Atlas', 'Ghostwritten' and 'Black Swan Green' I was really looking forward to this. I'd have to say though that this is the hardest read of Mitchell's four books. The other three really WERE "unputdownable" but this one I had to give up on half way through and come back to it after a few weeks.

The central figure of the book is Eiji Miyake, a kid from the sticks, and his adventures in the Tokyo metropolis. He arrives in Tokyo on a mission to find his biological father, having lost his twin sister in an accident and been abandoned by his mother. The book tells the story of his seven weeks in Tokyo. The narrative employs Mitchell's trademark magical realism to illustrate Eiji's travails.

Like all of Mitchell's other works, 'Number9dream' is best seen as a collection of tales rather than an uninterrupted story. It flits between reality and Eiji's imagination with ease. I found this fine for the first part of the book but I got lost in the chapter "Study of Tales". For the first time reading Mitchell I didn't get the point! I still don't know what the stories Eiji was reading here were about. Perhaps I'm just not perceptive enough, but this felt like a little bit of Emperor's New Clothes. Hate to be too critical but there you are!

The rest of the book is thoroughly enjoyable and I'm glad I read it. I particularly liked the Yakuza sequences. Very violent, very Manga. The chapter describing the war diaries of Eiji's great uncle was also very well written.

A good book but not as good as the rest of David Mitchell's work. If you're coming to him fresh read 'Cloud Atlas' or 'Ghostwritten' first.