A review by thisotherbookaccount
number9dream by David Mitchell
3.0
When it comes to creative endeavours, it is better to swing big and miss than to play it safe all the time. David Mitchell is the kind of author who's all about taking big swings — and when it pays off, it pays. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is one of my favourite reads from 2018, so I was really excited to get into number9dream, one of his earlier works. It also helps that the story is set in Japan, and partially on Yakushima, an island that I visited in 2017.
So number9dream, unfortunately, is an example of Mitchell taking a swing at things and not quite hitting the mark, especially towards the end.
I get what he is trying to do here, of course. Every chapter is split into two narratives: there is the main narrative of our protagonist trying to find his father in Tokyo, and then a secondary narrative that provides the background or some form of allegory, usually told in the forms of diary entries, a story within a story — you get the idea.
When the device works, it works like a charm. Early on in the book, the protagonist's journey is juxtaposed with the memories of his twin sister as they grew up on the island. So the secondary narrative served an actual function, in that it helped to develop various characters further. The Kai Ten chapter, while not directly related to the main storyline, is also a great historical fiction in and of itself.
My issue with the book is that the back-and-forth between the primary and secondary narratives don't always work, but because Mitchell had already established that to be a thing in the first chapters, he has to carry on with the conceit through to the end of the book. This means that there are secondary chapters in the book that feel shoehorned in. The second-last chapter of the book intercuts our protagonist's journey to find his mother with a series of dreams — that was a really painful chapter to get through. I generally dislike dream sequences in books, because they seldom very feel like real dreams, but more like thinly veiled narrative devices to tell and not show what the characters are thinking/feeling. But most dream sequences are short and sweet, so you can basically afford to skim or skip them in other books — but when half of a 40-page chapter is filled with these dreams, it become onerous real quick.
Oh, and chapter five of the book is just a whole lot of nonsense. I cannot, for the life of me, understand the secondary narrative involving Goatwriter. I ended up skipping all the paragraphs with Goatwriter, and reading just the main narrative in that one. It's a complete left turn in the book that feel so forced by Mitchell.
Perhaps the most perplexing part is the fact that the main narrative itself is actually very, very strong. I enjoy the main character, I enjoy the side characters, I even enjoy the detour involving the yakuza. The fact that Mitchell decided to pile an additional layer of literary device on top just feels somewhat unnecessary to the already-great story underneath it all.
So number9dream, unfortunately, is an example of Mitchell taking a swing at things and not quite hitting the mark, especially towards the end.
I get what he is trying to do here, of course. Every chapter is split into two narratives: there is the main narrative of our protagonist trying to find his father in Tokyo, and then a secondary narrative that provides the background or some form of allegory, usually told in the forms of diary entries, a story within a story — you get the idea.
When the device works, it works like a charm. Early on in the book, the protagonist's journey is juxtaposed with the memories of his twin sister as they grew up on the island. So the secondary narrative served an actual function, in that it helped to develop various characters further. The Kai Ten chapter, while not directly related to the main storyline, is also a great historical fiction in and of itself.
My issue with the book is that the back-and-forth between the primary and secondary narratives don't always work, but because Mitchell had already established that to be a thing in the first chapters, he has to carry on with the conceit through to the end of the book. This means that there are secondary chapters in the book that feel shoehorned in. The second-last chapter of the book intercuts our protagonist's journey to find his mother with a series of dreams — that was a really painful chapter to get through. I generally dislike dream sequences in books, because they seldom very feel like real dreams, but more like thinly veiled narrative devices to tell and not show what the characters are thinking/feeling. But most dream sequences are short and sweet, so you can basically afford to skim or skip them in other books — but when half of a 40-page chapter is filled with these dreams, it become onerous real quick.
Oh, and chapter five of the book is just a whole lot of nonsense. I cannot, for the life of me, understand the secondary narrative involving Goatwriter. I ended up skipping all the paragraphs with Goatwriter, and reading just the main narrative in that one. It's a complete left turn in the book that feel so forced by Mitchell.
Perhaps the most perplexing part is the fact that the main narrative itself is actually very, very strong. I enjoy the main character, I enjoy the side characters, I even enjoy the detour involving the yakuza. The fact that Mitchell decided to pile an additional layer of literary device on top just feels somewhat unnecessary to the already-great story underneath it all.