This was one of the most difficult books I have read in a long time. Reviewers have called it "epic," "magestic" and a collection of countless other platitudes. After reading it, my opinion is that while it is all these things, and while David Mitchell has achieved something momentous with this wo...
An excellent story, as I'm beginning to expect each time from Mitchell. I do often think the covers of books are too far apart, but Mitchell's big books should be bigger. I want to know his characters better, stay with them longer - he writes books worthy of greater investment.Ninety per cent of thi...
David Mitchell makes a worthy entry into the literature of clerks with The Thousand Autumns. I've puzzled before about why clerks make such good protagonists. I think now it's because they witness misdeeds petty and grave in the course of their duties. Everyone else considers them too powerless or w...
I had a hard time with this book...I spend the first part of the book trying to figure out what was going on. Then there were sections that were very compelling that made me keep reading, but then it would go back to sections that either I didn't understand or didn't care about. I think I would have...
This book may be five stars. Read other reviews for an idea about the book's many virtues. Ultimately, I was not entirely satisfied. The narrative leaves Jacob De Zoet behind and that did not work for me in the long run, though I enjoyed reading the other points of view too.
A good, and exhaustively researched historical novel, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as any of Mitchell's others, despite a life-and-death opening. Indeed, life and death is a continuing theme, both of individuals (a major character is a midwife) and of culture and empire. Jacob de Zoet is an ...
LOVE books that make me drag out my 2-volume shorter Oxford dictionary! Amazing insight into a brief period of time in Japan in late 18th century, with Dutch influence. Liked the viewpoint of Dutch clerk interspersed with Japanese midwife. Rare laugh-out-loud moments just added enough lightheartedne...
This book is very pleasantly written, taken line by line, and is an interesting window onto a time I find underexplored. De Zoet himself makes me want to scream, and Orito is so unlikely a heroine that I found myself snorting a lot. I've heard lots of carrying on about how many characters there were...
Feels like ages since I last read a book this beautiful by virtue of simple old-fashioned storytelling aided by nothing more extravagant than multiple points of view. And Mitchell, with his ability to seemingly effortlessly breathe life into his creations, didn't need anything beyond that to write a...
This is a beautiful descriptive story of Imperial Japan in 1799 - shortly after Japan has opened up its borders to trade with Europe. The title character, Jacob de Zoet, is a young clerk of the Dutch East Indies Company who is hoping in the next 5 years to make his fortune in Japan so that he can r...
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