Reddit reviews The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, A Novel

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet - David Mitchell

In 2007, Time magazine named him one of the most influential novelists in the world. He has twice been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. The New York Times Book Review called him simply “a genius.” Now David Mitchell lends fresh credence to The Guardian’s claim that “each of his books seems entirely different from that which preceded it.” The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a stunning departure for this brilliant, restless, and wildly ambitious author, a giant leap forward by even his own high standards. A bold and epic novel of a rarely visited point in history, it is a work as exquisitely rendered as it is irresistibly readable.

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.

Not exactly what you're looking for, but this book is getting some good reviews and might be of interest to you.

David Mitchell's new book The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is great - set on the tiny artificial island Dejima off the coast of Nagasaki, where Edo-era Japan traded with the Dutch in ~1750.

Thank You for your response.

I picked up on the "best read as a young man" element. We'll try Kafka on The Shore at some point in the future. Ironically, the ability to 'write beauty' is part of what I felt was missing. I never saw any of the scenes he was creating. They seemed to lack dimension. The closest he's come so far was the night of Naoko or the moonlight shadows. There may be something to reading rather than listening in this book. Normally -for me- print or audio are equally effective but the narrator for Norwegian Wood is inept.

As for an example of an enticing narrative. Two recent works of excellence: "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet" and "The Gift Of Rain". Both offer insights into the human character with a Japanese perspective.

Thank you again for a wonderful response.

EDIT and PS: A review on Audible nailed it: "...this recording is awful. This recording severs all connection to the paragraph or chapter, where the real meaning of Murakami's text lies, and leaves you with broken sentences. Yaegashi's voice has a good tone, but his reading of a sentence is as a Jr. High schooler reading the text for the first time. The tone of each sentence is nearly identical, starting with a stark emphasis, following the same pitch arch to the end of the sentence, without emotion or connection to what was spoken before, or anticipating what comes next. The sentences are 'read' rather than performed, with very frequent awkward pauses that do not flow with the grammar. Seriously lacking in performative quality, like a student in a classroom assigned to cold reading a passage that they hadn't seen before.

The result leaves Murakami's language sounding shallow and inane, rather than simply unpretentious. After 10 minutes, you feel the pattern may be intentional. At 30 minutes, this predictable pattern looses all connection with craft, and grates on the ears, and one looks for the ice-pick to relieve the pain."