Number9Dream
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
David Mitchell's second novel, number9dream, uses a similar episodic format to his brilliant but fragmentary debut Ghostwritten to create a more coherent and assured narrative that is part detective, part coming-of-age, story. Eiji Miyake, 20, naïve and wholly loveable, encounters a frantic, exotic world when he comes to Tokyo from his small island home to find the father he has never met.
Pin-stripped drones, a lip-pierced hairdresser, midday drunks ... Not a single person is standing still ... a thousand faces per minute ... oven-hot ... ready to buckle under the weight of cloud at any moment.Eiji is a dreamer, a Billy Liar for the Cyberpunk generation. His fantasies structure this frenetic kaleidoscopic narrative, conducting the reader on an exhilarating, disorientating tour of metropolis and mind. One minute Eiji is contending with arcade-game cybourgs, the next caught up in a Blue Velvet-type nightmare with real-life (perhaps) gangsters: "dragged into a turf war between wolves with rabies". So what was crazed and charming becomes dangerous and gripping.
This exotica and cyber-unreality allow more traditional novelistic concerns--a boy's coming of age, the exploration of ethical responsibilities or the great human universals of love and duty--to creep up unobtrusively. Pretty soon the realisation dawns: this isn't just fun, this isn't just clever, this is a great, perhaps a very great, novel. A Joycean delight in language and parody combines with affectionate characterisation and an impressive narrative control to make number9dream an extraordinary and rewarding experience. --Robert Mighall --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'Even more dazzling than GHOSTWRITTEN' (Matt Thorne, Independent on Sunday )
'I haven't enjoyed a novel so much in ages; wild, bristling with strangeness' (Independent Books of the Year )
'Exceptional . . . more than a surreal detective story or coming-of-age novel, more than a portrait of Tokyo or stream of adolescent consciousness, it is unique: clever, unusual, gripping and beautifully written' (Literary Review )
'Resounds to the same marvellous chatter of voices that marked out GHOSTWRITTEN, his outstanding first novel' (Observer )
'Spellbinding' (Boyd Tonkin, Independent Books of the Year )
'A delirious mix of thriller, tragedy, fantasy, video games and a portrait of uneasy modern Japan . . . A deserving Booker nominee.' (Guardian )
'Wildly inventive' (Sunday Times )
'Captures aspects of modern Japan with a compelling authenticity and beauty' (Daily Telegraph )
'I haven't enjoyed a novel so much in ages; wild, bristling with strangeness' (Independent Books of the Year )
'Exceptional . . . more than a surreal detective story or coming-of-age novel, more than a portrait of Tokyo or stream of adolescent consciousness, it is unique: clever, unusual, gripping and beautifully written' (Literary Review )
'Resounds to the same marvellous chatter of voices that marked out GHOSTWRITTEN, his outstanding first novel' (Observer )
'Spellbinding' (Boyd Tonkin, Independent Books of the Year )
'A delirious mix of thriller, tragedy, fantasy, video games and a portrait of uneasy modern Japan . . . A deserving Booker nominee.' (Guardian )
'Wildly inventive' (Sunday Times )
'Captures aspects of modern Japan with a compelling authenticity and beauty' (Daily Telegraph )
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
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.
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An unusual book
I chose this book having read another of Mitchell's books and because it was short listed for the Man Booker Prize.
After the first few pages I almost gave up on it. Read more
After the first few pages I almost gave up on it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Red
KINDLE EDITION - atrocious typesetting
number9dream is one of my favourite books. It is definitely a modern classic - a wonderful road movie of a novel, where the protagonist doesn't travel, yet goes everywhere his mind... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Richard Cosgrove
disappointed
having read and enjoyed Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas, I looked forward to reading this. However, I gave up half way through: I think you have to understand and be a fan of Manga to... Read more
Published 4 months ago by chesters
A huge disappointment
I was expecting great things from this book. I love books about Japan. I love Japanese authors and I love David Mitchell. I took this on holiday with me as a treat. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mrs. K. A. Wheatley
Disjointed
I found this book in a charity shop in Wales and abandoned it in a holiday cottage in Cornwall after I'd finished it. In a way I think that reflects my attitude to it. Read more
Published 8 months ago by John W
Complete and absolute tosh
An extremely thin storyline plumped up with self-regarding prose and jarringly irrelevant dream sequences. Reviewers who consider this "a 21st. century classic" etc. Read more
Published 10 months ago by dw1000
Deeply Entertaining
I really enjoyed this book. Amazing characters, incredibly vivid descriptions. I honestly thought the first 50 pages were some of the best I've ever read. Read more
Published 19 months ago by JS
A game of two halves...
At points beautifully written, there are two books here, battling for space - one is breezy and exciting, a 'fish out of water', where learning to walk isn't an option, nor a... Read more
Published 24 months ago by M. D. Sayles
Wonderful, totally engaging read
I very, very much enjoyed this novel. It is a wonderful escape read : I live in 'old Europe' and through this novel (which I devoured in a few afternoons in the spring sunshine in... Read more
Published on 27 April 2010 by Anthony Peter Swallow
Entertaining and disappointing
This is the story of Eiji Miyake, a young man searching for his father. This narrative is interspersed with fantastical interludes of magical realist style. Read more
Published on 8 April 2010 by Little Miss Average
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