Black Swan Green

i thoroughly enjoyed this book. A lot of us have been 13 yr old boys and his pain and sufferings and absolutely innocence of true knowledge are quite relevant.
I don't think it was any secret that his parents we're going to divorce by the end, just a more physical representation of a boy growing up and having to accept the changes that come with time and age. Funny, beguiling, imaginative, enjoyable, blurb away but its my favourite so far of mr mitchells. (hus first two sent me towards murakami and i thank him for that).
Read it, enjoy it, but don't take it too seriously.

This was okay. I enjoyed reading it, but I remain ambivalent. Most of the criticisms I've read here are valid, but then so are most of the more defensive comments.

On the basis that this has already been thoroughly dissected, I won't go into great detail, but I was also drawing parallels with young Master Mole, who, in his relentless pomposity and haplessness, is a far more endearing and believable narrator than Jason. Jason's prose is also pretentious in a way that might be forgivable in third-person narration.

I was a bit annoyed by the constant insertion of psychologically strong but weakly constructed characters, like Danny, Hugo, Eva van Crommelynck, the gypsies and Julia. In Townsend's books, the adults are as pathalogically flawed as the protagonist. In Black Swan Green, they're just randomly unpleasant/pleasant - and the vacillations are predictably designed to shock.

But I still liked it, and I still carried on reading it.

There's nothing wrong with a bit of wish fullfillment in fiction, as long as it's tempered by a slash of reality.

I didn't hate it. I think Mitchell's an interesting writer. Can't quite understand all the fuss made over him. It doesn't do him any favours, because you expect something really special and you get something good but considerably less than startling. I liked it best when the reality began to bend, as in the ghost boy on the lake and the old woman in the house in the wood. Also the short story about the journey along the bridal path ending in the madhouse. Elsewhere it was just episodic and badly structured, quite similar to all the many other books and films about nerds, Adrian Mole in particular. Nasty rough boys and a sensitive protagonist who writes poetry - we've been here before, I think. The ending is far too neat and predictable, family divorce (saw this coming from the first chapter) and Jason's triumph over the bullies. This last turn of events 24 carat wish fulfillment, you have to say.

I've just finished this, and thought it was great. I'm surprised by the comments below about it being "clunky" as I thought the way the book flowed was beautiful and any awkwardness was just the nature of a thirteen year old boy.

Thanks for the prize, booktribes people.

Finally finished it - and my overriding feeling is one of indifference. Can't say I hated it, but it didn't leave much impression. I think the trouble is that adults can rarely write about childhood without drifing into nostalgic whimsy and romanticism that sounds false. Which is why I like Lord of the Flies so much, because its about the only book I can think of which doesn't do this. Possibly The Cement Garden. Anyway, an OK read.

I also thought it was great; of all Mitchell's works, I prefer Cloud Atlas, but I really liked Black Swan Green as well. I often accuse cover blurbs of being either exaggeration or utter lies, but I think Mitchell earned his praise with this one.

Jack,

I reckon you're being a little harsh.

I thought this was a great book. I was a little puzzled by some clunky bits until I got to the chapter with Jason and the old lady who attepts to widen his horizons. Then I got it.

The description in the book is as it is because it's the interior voice of a thirteen year old boy who is practicing to be a writer; hence the overblown description and clunkiness. They're all the kind of things that an inexperienced writer does in their head; all the kind of descriptions and thoughts that don't quite do what they're meant to, so jar or sound weird or out of kilter.

There's a lovely acknowledgement of the influence of Andrew Collins' 'Where Did it all Go Right?', 'Black Swan Green' being a distant fictional relative of Collins book on growing up in the seventies.

I thought it was great, I really did.

Cheers,

Billy

I don't think I'm being harsh at all, but then, I'm weighing my opinion against someone who disliked it so much he shouted, "It's balls!" in the pub, repeatedly, louder and louder, until a bouncer came over and told him to keep it down.

I don't think Jason being a trainee writer is an excuse for clunkily written bits. If the intention was as you say, they should come across as parts that are awkwardly thought out by Jason and well written by Mitchell. They don't. They just look badly written by Mitchell. After all, we could all write a book that is badly written, but 'frame' it as the writing of an awkward protagonist.

I'm not sure about Mitchell overall. I've read three of his books so far, and enjoyed them - Number9Dream being my favourite - but the degree to which he appropriates other voices and just stacks them up means I find it difficult to really feel any enthusiasm for him as a writer. I admire his skill, but my emotional reaction doesn't go far beyond that.

Right. Finished it. At first I was a little irked, as I always am when the marketing team take over the cover, back cover and first five pages of a book. Because it's never as good as those blithering freaks in the newspapers make out. No book could be. In the case of 'Black Swan Green', I was promised a pitch-perfect adolescent voice, and I instead got one that puts you immediately in the mind of an adult youth worker or Blue Peter presenter trying to 'get down' with the kids' lingo. It takes a little getting used to - and it certainly doesn't remind me in any way of how kids spoke when I was 13 - but then, I was growing up in the early 90's, not the 80's, so I can give Mitchell the benefit of the doubt.

And I think that's the key to it. If you can trust Mitchell - if you're prepared to believe he's a good writer - then you can forgive the clunky bits of 'Black Swan Green' and enjoy what's good about it. There are numerous memorable incidences and descriptions, and Mitchell manages to make Jason's stutter into something more than a Dog-in-the-Nighttime style heavy-handed character quirk. I really liked Jason's trio of imaginary enemies - Hangman, his stutter, who stops him saying certain words, Unborn-Twin, who eggs him on and mocks him, and Maggott, who urges hum to chicken out of everything.

I won't give any examples, but there are also some pretty bad descriptions, sequences of events that seem rather far-fetched and silly, and some really strained dialogue. Julia the Big Sister never quite works for me, and neither do most of the hard kids. Worth it if you don't get snagged on the rough bits though.

This was my favourite book last year. It seemed to be reviewed in some places as being unsubstantial but it has stuck firmly in my head. A series of short stories really about growing up in the Eighties. The writing is amazing.