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The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet [Paperback]

David Mitchell (Author)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (214 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Release Date: 17 Mar 2011

Be transported to a place like no other: a tiny, man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki, for two hundred years the sole gateway between Japan and the West. Here, in the dying days of the 18th-century, a young Dutch clerk arrives to make his fortune. Instead he loses his heart.

Step onto the streets of Dejima and mingle with scheming traders, spies, interpreters, servants and concubines as two cultures converge. In a tale of integrity and corruption, passion and power, the key is control - of riches and minds, and over death itself.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } Be transported to a place like no other: a tiny, man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki, for two hundred years the sole gateway between Japan and the West. Here, in the dying days of the 18th-century, a young Dutch clerk arrives to make his fortune. Instead he loses his heart.

Step onto the streets of Dejima and mingle with scheming traders, spies, interpreters, servants and concubines as two cultures converge. In a tale of integrity and corruption, passion and power, the key is control - of riches and minds, and over death itself.

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Product details

Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: Sceptre; First Thus edition (17 Mar 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0340921587
ISBN-13: 978-0340921586
Product Dimensions: 13 x 19.8 x 3.6 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (214 customer reviews)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 6,051 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

Compared with almost everything being written now, it is vertiginously ambitious - and brilliant (The Times)

Spectacularly accomplished and thrillingly suspenseful (Sunday Times)

Unquestionably a marvel - entirely original among contemporary British novels, revealing its author as, surely, the most impressive fictional mind of his generation (Observer)

A world of stories in prose that brings a lump to the throat...David Mitchell has done it again. (Independent on Sunday)

Arguably his finest...It will doubtless earn Mitchell his fourth Man Booker nomination and, if there's any justice, his first win. (Sunday Telegraph)

However densely charted and richly sketched, this sumptuous imbroglio never drags...Mitchell flexes his prose virtuosity. More than before, those muscles do the heart's work. (Independent)

Hugely enjoyable...the descriptions of Dejima and what life there must have been like are extraordinarily accurate (Literary Review)

David Mitchell is back with a bang...superb (Irish Independent)

A masterpiece (Scotsman)

For a tour de force, it's surprisingly nimble, emotionally complex and simply unforgettable. (Scotland on Sunday)

'Ambitious and fascinating...Comparisons to Tolstoy are inevitable, and right on the money.' (Kirkus Reviews)

Confirms Mitchell as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive (Dave Eggers, New York Times Book Review)

spectacularly accomplished and thrillingly suspenseful...a narrative of panoramic span. Mitchell fills his pages with a medley of accents, idioms and speech habits. Prodigiously researched, his book resurrects a place and period with riveting immediacy. ...it brims with rich, involving and affecting humanity (Peter Kemp, Sunday Times)

My favourite new novel of the year, by a very long way . . . People will still be marvelling at THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET decades after last year's award winners have been forgotten. (Gary Dalkin, Vector, Books of the Year)

About the Author

David Mitchell's first novel, GHOSTWRITTEN, was awarded the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His second novel, NUMBER9DREAM, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2003, his third novel, CLOUD ATLAS, was shortlisted for six awards including the Man Booker Prize and won the British Book Awards Best Literary Fiction and South Bank Show Literature Prize. His previous novel, BLACK SWAN GREEN, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award.

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399 of 427 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "The thousand autumns of Jacob De Zoet" - David Mitchell's intriguing novel on traditional Japanese society 13 May 2010

By Red on Black TOP 50 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Some gentle advice imparted through bitter experience, don't ever read an introductory chapter of a book on Amazon before it is published. I opened the PDF for the first chapter on David Mitchell's monumental new book "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet" some two weeks ago and have wished my life away ever since waiting for its full publication. A warning in addition the first chapter based on the birth of a child is quite graphic but it drags you into this complex, beautiful, intriguing, funny and brilliantly written work from the author of that masterful Russian Doll of a novel "Cloud Atlas" and possibly the finest young British writer of recent years.

The story is set on the man made Island of Dejima a remarkable place built by the Japanese in Nagasaki Bay in the 17th century as a small and heavily restricted "point of entry" into the country for Western foreign merchants. This enclave was a conduit between the thrusting mercantile empire of the Dutch (the origins of which are so brilliantly captured in Simon Schama's "The Embarrassment of Riches") and the traditional, secretive society of Japan with its doctrine of Sakoku ("closed country"). An isolation intended by the Shogunate's to create uniquely homogeneous culture which still has resonance today.

The book centres on a range of very strong characters (I particularly enjoyed the "old sage" of a physician Dr Marinus) but obviously the main protagonist is Jacob De Zoet a Dutch clerk arriving for a five year posting to work for the East India Company. Young De Zoet is a rather pious and anxious individual dedicated to his work and his love of the psalms coupled with a desire to make money and return to Holland to wed a future bride.... He is a typical "innocent aboard" but thrown into circumstances that are from simple not least the Japanese hostility to Christianity and the inscrutability of a closed society.

In a short review I am desperately trying to capture the richness and breadth of Mitchell's work without giving too much away. One of the essential features of the story centres on the fact that his fellow workers at the East India Company outpost do not play it straight and corruption is rife. Compounding this is the fact that Dejima despite the influence of Japanese traditionalism is a port and not surprisingly has its own exotic dimensions and distractions. And then there is the giant shadow cast by Japan itself a mysterious and secretive society and a world that Mitchell teases you to glimpse into and discover. It is also not without its pleasing attractions in this case the facially scared but alluring midwife Orito Aibagawa. Then there are a range of other key plots and developments not least the role of a very strange convent, the trajectory of Jacob as a character, the despicable Lord Abbot Enomoto and the introduction of the British here represented by a deliciously bad tempered sailor.

There is something for everyone in "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet" a book that is a sprawling cocktail of love, treachery, power politics and brutal violence. Throughout Mitchell writes brilliantly and his sharp turns of phrase are a joy. A baby is described as a "boiled pink despot" while De Zoet is warned at one time of the dangers of foreigners succumbing to the charms of Japanese women as finding themselves "mired in the same syrupy hole".

This book is narrated in the third person and despite the compelling subject matter it is possibly a more straightforward book than "Cloud Atlas". It certainly does take a while to grasp the varying characters and you have to cross reference and return to parts of the book to keep apace. Sub plots abound and with concentration these evolve brilliantly particularly as you devour the second half of this longish but very manageable novel. By the time I reached Chapter 36 "The room of the last Chrysanthemum at the magistracy" I was so fatigued that I was injecting black coffee but the last 60 pages whizzed by.

All in all Mitchell has produced a book of which makes your imagination leap and like all great fiction the sense of satisfaction at finishing the book combines with the slight regret that despite the opportunity for a second or third read it has disclosed its key secrets. "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet" is ultimately the dazzling product of a writer already at the height of his powers and if there is a finer novel to be published this year then a "hat" will be devoured in this part of the world. If you disagree before you press the negative vote button please tell me why as I would be delighted to hear from you. Read more ›

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but not great 5 Jun 2011

By Oracle VINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a patchy novel, shifting between the tedious and the inspired. I'm not surprised to see that several readers gave up during the first third of the book as this is by far the weakest part. It's little more than a series of anecdotes and overwrought scene setting and you need some patience to get through it.

However, the book really picks up in the middle section, when Aibagawa Orito takes over from Jacob as the central character, and the ending is also strong. The problem is by the time you reach it there's just been too much meandering and you can't help but feel that Orito would have been a far more interesting character to focus on than Jacob.

The novel is almost like a draft of a much better book that needed a thorough revision by the author before reaching the shelves. It didn't stay with me and a couple of weeks after finishing it, it certainly hasn't stuck in my mind.

Should it have made the Booker shortlist? It's a better novel than some that did, but it certainly isn't the classic that Cloud Atlas was. It's a good read about the era, but ultimately I much preferred Alessandro Baricco's magical Silk on a similar subject.

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104 of 117 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars big bold brain-teaser 28 Jun 2010

By mfl VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

There's little doubt that David Mitchell is one highly special author whose leaps of imagination, literary wit and challenges have found him many fans. And long may he continue to delight and prosper. The literary world needs writers like Mitchell to keep pushing the boundaries. Whether you're going to enjoy the ride is another matter.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a big complex novel that takes some commitment to savour. Indeed it's just as likely that you'll be struggling to get to grips with it after three short chapters as equally half way through - though by then you may just have learnt to live with all its machinations. Part of the problem for the naysayers is Mitchell's master intelligence packing to the paragraph rafters; characters, ideas and historical tributaries. It's like being in a room where everyone's shouting to themselves when all you want to do is find a quite corner for a chat with someone you find interesting.

That analogy makes some sense when there is much reading pleasure to be had here but the best description is that joy only comes in waves: of wonderment and loud sticky trudge. Oh for more of those quiet colourful corners to relax in. The plus, of course, is for those that relish a challenging and undoubtedly intelligent read but that still shouldn't undermine those that do, but fail to grasp Mitchell's multi-layered rooms.

Complex books can often seem a little cold and unforgiving and though there's much delight in having conquered, there's an equal frustration in having been defeated. Yes there is a poetic and beautiful heart beating inside this novel and some will see a lithe and energetic body running with it; others may struggle to get past the supposed blubber.... Read more ›

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Irritating and disappointing 16 Oct 2012

By M de Bethlen

Format:Paperback

This book definitely needed some very ruthless editing - it does not know whether it is a thriller or a history book. There are many unneccessarily gruesome passages, straight from the beginning. There are interminable stories narrated usually pointlessly by random unimportant characters. All this is incredibly irritating in an author who clearly can write excellently and has the talent to write well. After all the boring sub stories and endless historical detail, after all the unengaging foul mouthed characters and gratuitous gore, I finally thought I saw the light at the end of a very unappealing tunnel in the shape of a very exciting thriller plot. At it's most exciting point it goes out like a damp squid, simply vanishing. In it's place up come a whole host of new unknown characters with all their intricate stories. Surely we'll go back to the thriller? At long last we do - kind of. But again up comes the damp squib. And the main protagonist of the thriller part, again at the most exciting point - simply disappears. But lo and behold, where it all looked hopeless, suddenly everything is OK! With no explanation! This is pointless and smacks of someone who has spent too long at something throwing it together randomly and not bothering to work out how the ends will tie up. This is not a case of subtlety, of purposefully acknowledging the uncertainties of life - it is pure shoddy workmanship. Editors need to get over their starry eyes and pull their swords out next time. Personally I think I'll be giving David Mitchell a wide berth in future.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Stick with it

I chose this rating because this book gives you and in site in to Japanese time in the 18th century when trading with the the Dutch but it is also a love story you may find it hard... Read more

Published 4 days ago by Sylvia Lavender

3.0 out of 5 stars Dialogue?

This is the first book of David Mitchells that I have read. I thoroughly enjoyed it, loved the shifting narrative and felt very much drawn into it's 'world'. Read more

Published 9 days ago by rabain

5.0 out of 5 stars A thousand congratulations

An enthralling read. The Eighteenth Century east west culture clash provides a fascinating backdrop to this story of failed romance. Read more

Published 26 days ago by Ms J Martin-Greathead

3.0 out of 5 stars The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

Having thoroughly enjoyed 'Cloud Atlas' I was keen to try out another title by the author and while I didn't enjoy this book as much as 'Cloud Atlas', it still certainly has a lot... Read more

Published 1 month ago by L. M. Cowan

5.0 out of 5 stars Mitchell's finest yet

I found this book eminently readable. It took me two days despite the fact that I haven't been reading that much lately (compare to more than a week for Cloud Atlas). Read more

Published 2 months ago by RML Franklin

2.0 out of 5 stars Verbose and predictable.

Bought this book as an impulse after a friend recomended it.
The story is interesting, the ambientation is diffrent from the usual, but the style is dull and verbose. Read more

Published 2 months ago by gina

4.0 out of 5 stars A Multi-layered Epic

This is quite a difficult review to write. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a long book and it could be argued that not a great deal happens within its pages. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Grooydaz39

4.0 out of 5 stars Takes a while

Took a long time to get into this book. Didnt know where it was going or who the hero was. But then it got me and I couldnt put it down. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Annie Harris

5.0 out of 5 stars Spellbinding read

David Mitchell's unique style weaves a fascinating story with any twists and turns which keeps the reader hooked to the very end!

Published 2 months ago by E. N. Taylor

4.0 out of 5 stars Competent, well written and researched, enjoyable historical novel

I decided to read this because a reviewer of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall had written that this book was at least its equal. It is not. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Epe4436

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