The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell

“If only human beings were not
masks behind masks behind masks.

If only this world was
a clean board of lines and intersections.

If only time was
a sequence of considered moves
and not a chaos of slippages and blunders.”

Plot: A young employee of the Dutch East India Company comes to 9th century Japan to inspect the financial records of the company there.  Foreigners are restricted to a small man made island, but Jacob de Zoet is interested in what lies beyond.  He becomes infatuated with a Japanese woman he briefly observes while she makes a visit to the island.  Determined to meet her, de Zoet eventually does get to go to the mainland for a short time.  The woman, Orito, is sold off by her father to a strange cult in the distant mountains.  de Zoet devises a plan to rescue her while relations between the Dutch and Japanese falter and the threat of war develops.

Why read it:  Mitchell is meticulous in his detail and is a master at exploring the mind and though processes of his characters.  This book is impressionistic and reads at times almost like poetry.  The characters are having to communicate in languages they have only a basic grasp of, yet they often have an ability to communicate on what seems to be a completely different plane of thought. 

David Mitchell can write some fairly challenging stuff.  The majority of his novels shift around it time and space and it takes a lot of work sometimes to figure out what is going on.  Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlas and No 9 Dream were that way.  I enjoyed all of them, particularly Ghostwritten, but none would rank as a personal favorite.  I'll eventually get around to writing about Black Swan Green, which is a personal favorite, and a big departure for Mitchell - I think you could easily classify it as YA.




Jacob de Zoet is a historical novel set in Japan of the 19th century, a time when it was still closed off almost completely to outside influence. The Dutch East India Company is allowed to trade with the Japanese, but are restricted to a small island, Dejima, from which to conduct all their business.  Interactions with most Japanese, other than those who work on the island, is prohibited.  This applies especially to women.  However, one Japanese woman, Orito, a midwife, is allowed to come to Dejima as the student of the Company's doctor.  Jacob de Zoet, a clerk for the company, who has been sent to Japan to investigate the financial books (which no one there really wants him to do), is infatuated with her despite her partially disfigured face. Jacob, honest to a fault, and Orito are soon entangled in a complicated web of personal and international relations.  Orito disappears, and ends up in a strange mountain temple, sold into a strange cult.  At the same time, political events are leading to a potential battle in Dejima.




While this all the elements of a fairly straightforward novel, with Mitchell that is not going to happen.  He is a superb writer, able to focus on all that is not readily apparent until he points it out. Maybe what made this book work for me was that Mitchell stays with a fairly straightforward story here, as opposed to his more freeform other works, but still uses his remarkable ability to write in an almost surrealistic manner; the two work together to give the characters remarkable depth, but I didn't get lost like I sometimes do in his work. Here, while Mitchell describes the Japan of that period very well, it still remains a mystery, much like it does to de Zoet, who despite being in Japan, is not ever really there, or able to decipher what is going on.

Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth

“Money is sacred as everyone knows... So then must be the hunger for it and the means we use to obtain it. Once a man is in debt he becomes a flesh and blood form of money, a walking investment. You can do what you like with him, you can work him to death or you can sell him. This cannot be called cruelty or greed because we are seeking only to recover our investment and that is a sacred duty.”  

Plot:  Matthew Paris takes a job as a slave ship's physician.  Silently outraged at the treatment of the crew, many of which were essentially kidnapped to serve on the ship, Paris' anger only increases once the slaves are brought on the ship.  Treated as inhuman cargo, their health and that of the crew disintegrates while at sea.  Dead bodies are thrown overboard, soon followed by sick slaves.  Eventually a mutiny and revolt occurs.  The survivors end up on the coast of Florida and establish a community of ex-crew members and slaves.  Despite living in harmony, the owners of the slave ship are determined to find them.

Why read it: Unsworth takes on so many aspects of slavery here - the brutality, inhumaneness, the greed and doesn't spare the details.  He shows us lives being ripped apart all along the process simply for money.

A book my wife bought me years ago, and which I doubt I would have ever read otherwise, which would be a sad thing.  Historical novels are not generally my thing, though there have been lots of exceptions.  This is a tremendous novel - it's dark, unrelenting and powerful in exposing the overwhelming impulse of human greed and what it will allow people to do.



Matthew Paris, who was spent time in prison for some heretical writings on the age of the Earth (this is 1750's England), and whose wife died while he was in prison, takes a job a ship's surgeon on his cousin's slave ship.  Unsworth goes into great detail about how the crew for the ship is secured; mostly by tricking or kidnapping the local poor.  This leads to a less than stellar crew, but once at sea, they have little choice.  Paris is completely out of his element on the ship. He argues with the ship's captain, who is motivated only by profit (sacred hunger) and treats the crew as almost subhuman.  Paris, as the surgeon, gets better treatment, but is morally outraged at what is happening.




The situation only gets worse when they get to Guinea.  The ship captain deals with the local population to obtain slaves to buy.  They abduct slaves from tribes further inland in exchange for cheap British goods of little value.  Back at sea, conditions are deplorable, the slaves crammed into a space far too small for them.  The torture is not just physical however; many of the slaves attempt suicide and the crew spends much of their time trying to prevent them from doing so.  Illness is common and bodies are thrown overboard.  Rations to the crew and slaves get cut to save money, and illness hits, leading to an increasingly uneasy voyage.  Eventually the captain decides to throw all the slaves overboard, as so many have died or become ill, that an insurance payment is seen as more profitable than the slaves will be.  This leads to a full scale revolt of both crew and slaves.


Eventually, the ship ends up in Florida and is presumed lost.  The slaves and remaining crew establish  a new home, their version of Utopia where everyone lives equal. 


Unfortunately, Paris' cousin, who has held a lifelong grudge against him, and is now the owner of his father's shipping business, is determined to track down the lost ship, whatever it's fate.  The twin stories of Paris and his cousin are presented alternately throughout the book, as their fates come closer and closer to meeting.


The descriptions in this book of the slave trade are unflinching and graphic, as is the lust for greed evident in many of the characters, which allows them to think of other people as merely a means to more money.  Given the time period this book was written 9 (published in 1992) it has parallels to the money driven attitudes of the 1980's.  This is a powerful book; simply written, though in great detail and not afraid to show the depths of our weaknesses.

Madeline's Ghost - Robert Girardi

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"Stones are falling from the ceiling of my apartment.  First one, then two, then dozens.  I take refuge beneath the kitchen table as the bounce and dance across every surface, denting the toaster, gouging into the old linoleum of the floor.  The falling stones are like a rain of hail, so absurd in this setting that I want to laugh."


Plot:  Historian gets hired to research potential miracles of a long dead and forgotten nun in order to elevate her to sainthood.  His research eventually leads him back to New Orleans, where he once had a brief relationship with a beautiful, troubled rich girl he has never gotten over.  They obviously meet up again and his research into the nun takes some unexpected turns in which we learn her backstory and her connections to all involved in the present day.

Why read it?:  The storyline is very good and there are some really good, well written sections in this book.  It's not a masterpiece but it is inventive and keeps you guessing.


A book that succeeds far beyond what it probably should.  This kind of reads like a adolescent male fantasy where the nerdy guy chases after the rich, wild beautiful girl.  But it works, and the surrounding story makes it all the richer.






The quoted section, which is the start of the novel, is really good, and that helps.  Our hero Ned Conti, a research historian, lagging in finishing his dissertation and in need of money, takes a job with a Brooklyn rectory to do research and search for possible miracles by a long dead Brooklyn nun in the hope of elevating her to sainthood.  Eventually this will lead Ned back to New Orleans, where his old love, Antoinette lives.  There will be three different stories going on - Ned and Antoinette's affair in the past, Ned's search for the mystery of the nun, and a story of forbidden love, treachery, revenge, and redemption in 19th century New Orleans.  And somehow it all gets tied together in what could be a really cringe worthy mess, but that doesn't happen.  Some of the hammy bits, a séance that goes wrong, a back history that may remind you of watching Mandingo, and a few very convenient coincidences, may make you wince, but overall they didn't detract too much.  Antoinette is a fun character (at times you wonder what she sees in Ned, but, hey, it's a guy fantasy more than anything), and the ghost parts work well.

Gold Bug Variations - Richard Powers

“The loss of a great library to fire is a tragedy. But the surreptitious introduction of thousands of untraceable errors into reliable books, errors picked up and distributed endlessly by tireless researchers, is a nightmare beyond measure.”  


Plot:  Research scientists (geneticists even) in love!  My kind of story. it doesn't work out and one half ends up in a dead end programming job years later.  What happened?  A lapsed ph.D. student (what other kind is there?) whom he works with wants to find out.  Enlisting the help of a librarian with whom he will fall in love with, he sets out to crack the code, as it were. It does help to recall that DNA is composed of two strands of interlocking chains. 


Why read it?:  Stuart Ressler, one of the 4 main characters, is a great creation.  We never know of how a good part of his life transpires as their is a big chunk of it that is never explained.  Even so, we can fill in the blanks quite easily based on what we discover before and after.  Considered a scientific dropout and footnote, he instead has realigned his life to a more personal study of life.
Plus, Powers sees how so much of life is interconnected.  Ressler learns to hear life in music, in the stories of his colleague's past.  The title of this book has so many allusions, and they all matter.


Richard Powers is obviously a really intelligent person.  He received a MacArthur fellowship in 1989, has a MA in literature, has studied neuroscience, worked as a computer programmer, and is apparently an accomplished musician.  What I find best about his work is his ability to see connections among disparate aspects of life, and then ponder what those connections mean.  I have read several of his books (Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance, Galatea 2.2, Plowing the Dark and The Echo Maker); to be honest, most of them haven't stayed with me too well - they tended to get a little too much into the head of the characters and I couldn't figure out exactly what they were really seeing too much of the time.  However, Gold Bug Variations, written in 1991, is an exception.


This might be because the subject is in the same general subject area that I did my dissertation research on.  The book involves two parallel love stories, one in the 1950's, and another in the 80's.  That they are parallel is only fitting as the book winds around the search for how the structure of DNA functions in heredity.  Stuart Ressler, a brilliant young post-doc, is working on that question.  Initially incredibly devoted to his work, Stuart enters into an affair with a married coworker.  Years in the future, Stuart is an anonymous night shift computer programmer.  A fellow programmer (and fellow academic dropout, but this time in art history) Franklin Todd wonders what happened to Stuart.  If you have much knowledge of the history of DNA research, it isn't too hard to figure out where Franklin got his name.  He enlists the help of Jan, a local research librarian, to help in his quest (the title of the book should give you the idea that there is a mystery inside), and these two fall in love, despite Jan being involved with someone else as the story begins.


Thrown on top of all this is the music by Bach, and done by Glenn Gould - Gould never actually gets mentioned by name in the story, but he is there all the time.  The inherent formal, mathematical structure of the variations provides the structure for the novel (the number of chapters, the way the book ebbs and flows in action, etc), while Gould seems to represent the emotion that is hidden inside it.  Gould being such a immensely weird person who ran to his own peculiar rhythm also provides a bit of a thing to consider.  While Stuart Ressler is searching for the essence of life and heredity in science, he becomes aware and immersed in the emotional aspects of life which he had ignored most of his life.  gain, the parallel structure of the stories (and DNA guide what goes on.  In one pairing, we have a woman who desperately wants children but is unable to do so; in the other a woman who has chosen not to have children and the complications that ensue from that. 


In the end, we find that as much as we can, and should, attempt to understand the physical complexities of life, we can't control much of it, particularly that which is in our hearts.  This is a great book to read over and over, although its fairly hefty.  You can always find something you overlooked before.  This book is written from Jan's point of view, which seemed a bit odd at times, as Powers is not at his best writing from a woman's point of view, I think, but it wasn't that distracting.  Maybe because Jan is a bit of an odd person anyway. 
One of the overarching ideas is that no matter how hard we look for the essence of human existence, science will never give us the final answer, because human emotion and love are unknowable.  And perhaps our DNA knows this.  While we view it, and rightly so, as an incredibly efficient system for allowing life to continue and evolve, it is, like us, a system replete with errors.  And not incidentally, the title also is an allusion to one of Poe's works, which as I recall, is considered among the first detective stories ever written.


Highly recommended.

Netherland – Joseph O’Neill

"That low-slung, scruffily commercial thoroughfare that stands in almost surreal contrast to the tranquil residential blocks it traverses, a shoddily bustling strip of vehicles double-parked in front of gas stations, synagogues, mosques, beauty salons, bank branches, restaurants, funeral homes, auto body shops, supermarkets, assorted small businesses proclaiming provenances from Pakistan, Tajikistan, Ethiopia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Armenia, Ghana, the Jewry, Christendom, Islam: it was on Coney Island Avenue, on a subsequent occasion, that Chuck and I came upon a bunch of South African Jews, in full sectarian regalia, watching televised cricket with a couple of Rastafarians in the front office of a Pakistani-run lumberyard."

Plot: A Dutch immigrant learns to drive in New York?  Let's build a cricket field?  The plot is rather obtuse here, but you don't really notice.  9/11 hangs over this book, but always at a distance.  A family breaks apart and the father is forced to actually live a life for possibly the first time in his life.  And he succeeds.  And along the way he sees America, just not the one we think we live in.


Why read it?:  Because it is simply fantastic.  Beautifully written, the 9/11 novel everyone was always looking for.  A land of immigrants, the signs and clues to their existence are still everywhere, and underneath a sea of white, they remain to make America run.

It is hard for me to imagine a more beautifully written book than this.  The way O’Neill puts words into phrases and sentences is truly remarkable, and with that he has put together the most brilliant take on 9/11 that I have ever read.  O’Neill comes at from the view of a foreigner and focuses on immigrants who seem to be on the margins of American society, but are, in fact, an integral part of the fabric that makes America what it is.

The novel is narrated by Hans, a Dutch equities analyst, who along with his British solicitor wife Rachel and their young son, is living in Manhattan when the Towers fall.  Forced to leave their luxury apartment, they end up somehow in the Chelsea Hotel.  The marriage deteriorates there and Rachel, increasingly uncomfortable in Bush’s America, soon leaves for England with their son.  Hans has difficulty fitting in under the best of circumstances, and his current situation has left him at a loss.  Alone, unsure of how he feels politically, or if he even feels that way at all, he finds solace in the game of cricket, which he played when he was younger back home, and had found it a way to meld into British society when he was there.  However, cricket in the US is a different fish;  played on makeshift fields and involving predominantly Caribbean and Asian immigrants, Hans is the odd man out here.   But he is welcomed into their world, and guided by Chuck Ramkissoon, a native of Trinidad, who has dreams of uniting the world through cricket.  It doesn’t take much to find the commonality with Jay Gatsby here; O’Neill makes the link fairly obvious. While the shattered American dream in Netherland is not the same as Fitzgerald was writing about, the characters in Netherland like Chuck are seeking one for their own.  Chuck, unfortunately, for all his optimism and visions of a better future, has like Jay Gatsby, a darker side that will eventually consume him.

This is a story that motors along at its own pace; often I was unsure exactly where it was headed.  But even then, it is utterly brilliant.  The Chelsea, no longer inhabited by Patti or Robert or even Sid and Nancy, nonetheless is home to a bevy of interesting characters, most notably one wearing angel wings.   And Hans gets to see more real people that have been hidden from him his while life; And Hans never lets go of the connection to his wife and son; he spends most of the novel unsure of how even to approach reconciliation, but it remains a green light he can always see. 

Things Invisible to See - Nancy Willard

''We're losing. Can't you see? Do you think Gehrig and Waddell and McGinnity and Jennings couldn't hit if they wanted to? . . . They want the living to win. Even the umpire wants the living to win. They remember how it was. All the pain, all the trouble - they'd choose it again - they'd go extra innings into infinity for the chance to be alive again.''  


Plot:  Boy hits baseball, ball hits girl in head, causes her to become crippled.  Boy feels guilty (girl is unaware of who hit ball), visits girl, they fall in love.  Boy goes off to war.  Time passes.  Boy's ship is sunk, he is alone in Pacific on raft.  Death visits.  Makes deal.  Baseball game back home for soul vs. life.    


Why read it?:  I was a bit skimpy on the plot - this a fairly short book but full of life.  Magical realism meets sports novel.  There a few books that are able to bring in such various pieces and have them all work together.  Angels and God, weird families and their pets, baseball, small town America.  A unique book.


I read this book as a graduate student in Virginia back when it first came out in the 1980's (I searched around for a photo of the cover from the edition I had.  I'm sadly not sure what happened to my copy).  I had assumed it was long out of print, which apparently it was for many years, but now it has been reprinted.  I don't think it was a particularly big seller and isn't likely become one now, but it is an inspired piece of mystical writing about baseball, love, fate, and faith.


This all takes place around WWII.  The hero, Ben, playing with friends one evening, hits a baseball that travels beyond the playing field and hits a young girl, Clare in the head, leaving her unable to walk.  Clare is unaware of who hit her with the ball, Ben is not.  Despite being advised against it by his morally challenged brother Willie, Ben strikes up a friendship with Clare out of guilt, and the two eventually fall in love.  There's a lot more going on here - Ben's relationship with his twin brother, which dates back to before they were born, as well as Clare's eccentric family and her ability to see the future in a hazy sort of way.


The book then quickly shifts forward to a raft floating somewhere in the Pacific during the war.  Ben's Navy ship has sank, and he is the lone survivor, adrift with no food or water. He is not, however, alone on the raft.  Death is with him, and Death, not adverse to wagers, agrees to a baseball game with Ben and his friends back home.  What ensues is literally a baseball game for the ages, and for life.  Its hard to not compare this to Field of Dreams, but I won't, other than to say that there are some similarities, but mainly on the surface.  Things Invisible to See is magical realism mixed with  middle America at its most conventional.  The ending is truly original and reminds us that sometimes the best things are just meant to happen and nothing can get in the way of that.

My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk

“A letter doesn't communicate by words alone. A letter, just like a book, can be read by smelling it, touching it and fondling it. Thereby, intelligent folk will say, 'Go on then, read what the letter tells you!' whereas the dull-witted will say, 'Go on then, read what he's written!”  

Plot:  16th Century Istanbul - an illustrator working on a secret book for the Sultan is murdered.  The book will use European style art techniques, which are considered blasphemy in the Muslim world. Black, who has just returned from several years abroad, is asked to investigate the killing.  Black hopes to use the investigation to rekindle a romance with his old love.  The book touches on the nature of art and the influence of the West that was just beginning at the time of the story. 

Why read it?: They mystery part may appeal to some, I wasn't that impressed with that part.  But the details and ideas of how art may be viewed, and the uses art has in our lives is fascinating, along with a vivid description of life in that part of the world.  The way in which cultures intersect and meld is obviously still relevant today, just as it was then.

One of my daughters bought me this for Christmas, it was one of several books by middle Eastern of Islamic writers she gave me.  Interestingly enough I had recently finished another book by Pamuk, Snow, which I had found very compelling.  This is a hard to categorize book - several people compare it to The Name of the Rose, which I suppose is accurate.  A historical mystery, focusing on a period of great change in society.  The whodunit part of My  Name is Red did not excite me much;  the plot narrows things down to three suspects early on, and I found them all pretty interchangeable and not particularly well defined.  That is most likely due to my unfamiliarity with the culture, but it wasn't that important to me anyways.  I found musings on art and culture and religion to be amazing, even as they go on and on for chapter after chapter. 

My Name is Red takes place in late 16th century Istanbul; contact with the western world is beginning to be more common.  The book deals with the effects of that contact, mostly through art, but the effects carry over to other aspects of life as well.  There are obvious parallels to current day events and issues (the lack of understanding of different cultures is through an Islamic viewpoint here).  An illustrator, working for the Sultan on a book that will show the glories of his kingdom, is murdered.  Suspicion falls on 3 of his fellow artists who are also working on the book.  While such books were routinely done, this book is special; rather than being done in the traditional Islamic style, which is very stylized and basically consists of reproducing figures done centuries ago by the acknowledged masters of they style, the illustrations in this book are to be done in the European style, which aims for realism and shows individual detail.  To many, this is blasphemy.

Black, who once trained to be a miniaturist with the suspects in the murder, arrives back in Istanbul after many years away.  He is pressed into service as a detective by his uncle, who is overseeing the book's development.  Black once hoped to marry his uncle's daughter, Shekure, when they were younger, but she ended up being married to another and now has two young sons.  Her husband however, is presumed dead in battle.  Black is still in love with Shekure and sees this job as a way of getting back into her life.

A big part of the charm of this book is the style.  There are a multitude of characters who get a chance to tell their story.  Chapter 1 is I am a Corpse, and is narrated by the murder victim. The murderer (I will be Called a Murderer), a dog, a tree, a coin, even a color, hence the book title, all get their own stories and have the chance to express their ideas of art, what it means, what it should be and what is should depict.  I will admit to getting lost at times in trying to figure out what exactly is going on or what point someone is making, but I got enough of it.  In particular, I was fascinated by the details of how books of the time moved around, being given as gifts, or won in battles, and how the books were then redone to fit its new owner.  Whether this explains the development of Islamic artwork, or whether Islamic artwork influenced political life in the region, I'm not sure. 

The love story between Black and Shekure is worth the read as well.  Both have their own ideas and goals, and aren't hesitant to manipulate things, including each other, to get what they want.  Early on, Black seems a bit bumbling and too overwhelmed with his desire to win Shekure, but he proves to be a bit more wily than he lets on.  Given that he needs to solve a murder to save his own skin, win over and marry Shekure,  and fend off a determined and not very nice rival suitor, all in a few days, Black eventually proves to be up to the task.