Number9dream

OK, this is my favourite Mitchell book so far. It is, however, slightly spoilt for me by how much of a straight rip-off it seems to be. I noticed fairly early on the Murakami parallels, even though I've only ever read three chapters of Murakami ('Norwegian Wood' is named after a Beatles song and the protagonist loves the Beatles, while 'number9dream' is named after a John Lennon song and the protagonist loves John Lennon. I don't like it when books are named after songs I *like*, let alone hideously overrated ones by hideously overrated artists.)

Stuff I've read since has more or less convinced me that 'number9dream' can be generously described as a homage.

The writing, as usual for Mitchell, was mostly superbly skilful, verging on poetry at points. It didn't have anywhere near as many clunky parts as 'Black Swan Green' and there was none of the stifling verbosity of the early parts of 'Cloud Atlas'. It does have, however, at least one sequence which feels 'dumped in' rather carelessly - a series of children's stories Eiji reads that don't have (or I couldn't find) any real relevance to the plot or characters. The submarine diary part was much much better, but Mitchell gives in to his playfulness at the end and it goes silly. I find it hard to accept that a man whose mission - nay, his sole purpose in life - has resulted in complete failure, and who is dying of aesphyxiation in a small, hot, metal space, and who has broken his nose and torn his fingernails, would sit and write:

"Wild spinning - up=down, down=up...Lurching downwards > hung downwards > judder halt... Kaiten glanced off hull = bamboo spear off metal helmet..."

Then the lyrics to a song.

The second part is also slightly confusing. I settled nicely into the rhythm of fantasy, reality, fantasy in part 1, and thought that worked brilliantly, but I got severely lost in the cuts between past and present in part 2. I'm still not sure which cat died and at what point.

Very imaginative, but got a bit lost. Read it after Cloud Atlas and was disappointed.

I agree - it was the first David Mitchell I read. He is a deeply literary man with references spread all over the place - but you really don't need to know them to follow the story. It works on all sorts of layers and I recommend it highly.

This book is ace. A playful, intelligent, literary thriller.