The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell was a mixed bag for me. Being brought up on stories of Admiral Perry opening Japan, I never really gave much thought to the Dutch East India Company's influence in this part of the world. The window this book opened on the Dutch trading island of Dejima at the turn of the nineteenth century, and its relationship to the forbidden Japan of Nagasaki and beyond was fascinating.
But - and this is a big but - at the same time there were a number of things that annoyed me about this book. The frequent cutting between interior dialogue and exterior action was distracting. Mitchell evoked some beautiful images of the place, but dropped characters and plot lines without resolving them. I found myself for the last third of the book wondering "But what about Orito? Whatever happened to her?" She shows up again on the last pages, but it was too little, too late. Apparently the virtuous Jacob de Zoet got over his disappointments in love rather quickly. Rather a let down for this character. And the evil Lord Abbott who kills a cobra with a mere pass of his hand? I wondered if the book was veering into the supernatural. It seems not, but how did he do it, then? Too many loose ends for me.
Still it did keep me turning the pages to see what would happen next. And I did pursue the British entry into Japan because I was curious about how accurate that was (The HMS Phaeton did not sail into Nagasaki until 1808.) so there was sufficient material to interest me throughout. If you find books about feudal Japan interesting you might like this book. I did not recommend it to my husband even though he is a fan of the Tales of the Otori book cycle, but I did find it worth reading for myself.
What do you think?
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