Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - The Library of the Uncommons

mario@bookwyrm.social reviewed The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Review of 'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I don't think I've read a David Mitchell book yet that I didn't love. This is in many ways a much more straightforward book than you might be used to from him, but the combination of vivid writing, humour, an incredible amount of historical research (it's set on a Dutch trading outpost in the bay of Nagasaki in 1799) makes it if anything an ever stronger read.
How he straddles the different sensibilities of the Dutch, Japanese and English through language is amazing, but of course this wouldn't count for much if it wasn't also a very emotionally captivating novel.

ana reviewed The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Review of 'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

It is so funny when you find the same character in two different books yet in two different registers. It is good to meet them again, it is like re-encountering an old acquaintance. This historical novel has this and that – merchants, scribers, nuns, samurais, captains, the rich, the dispossed, all so full of life, some even bigger than life. All bring to our attention issues like loyalty, honesty, corruption, fear, bravery, lust, eligion. How unthinkably big power can get to be, yet how it can be defeated when enough people are determined to fight for justice and space for love no matter what.

I found especially touching how, when the main character seemingly looses all because he refuses to be corrupted, he gains the simpathy and respect of all around him (except his bosses) all who again seemed ruthless and selfish at the beginning. May be that is why …

It is so funny when you find the same character in two different books yet in two different registers. It is good to meet them again, it is like re-encountering an old acquaintance. This historical novel has this and that – merchants, scribers, nuns, samurais, captains, the rich, the dispossed, all so full of life, some even bigger than life. All bring to our attention issues like loyalty, honesty, corruption, fear, bravery, lust, eligion. How unthinkably big power can get to be, yet how it can be defeated when enough people are determined to fight for justice and space for love no matter what.

I found especially touching how, when the main character seemingly looses all because he refuses to be corrupted, he gains the simpathy and respect of all around him (except his bosses) all who again seemed ruthless and selfish at the beginning. May be that is why I loved it, because it gives us the triumph of good over evil that we all long for, in such a logical terms, like it is the natural thing to happen because alongside this triumph we have witnessed human and natural miseries too.
And I thought the epilogue touching and emotional, not unnecessary at all.

Cascadia

rated it

Feb. 27, 2019