The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

By: David Mitchell

Narrated by: Jonathan Aris, Paula Wilcox

Length: 18 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

A Booker finalist and Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize winner, David Mitchell was called “prodigiously daring and imaginative” by Time and “a genius” by the New York Times Book Review.

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.

But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur, until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings. As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?”

©2010 David Mitchell (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"It’s as difficult to put this novel down as it is to overestimate Mitchell’s virtually unparalleled mastery of dramatic construction, illuminating characterizations and insight into historical conflict and change. Comparisons to Tolstoy are inevitable, and right on the money." ( Kirkus Reviews)

"Despite the audacious scope, the focus remains intimate; each fascinating character has the opportunity to share his or her story. Everything is patched together seamlessly and interwoven with clever wordplay and enlightening historical details on feudal Japan. First-rate literary fiction and a rousing good yarn, too." ( Booklist)

“An achingly romantic story of forbidden love . . . [David] Mitchell’s incredible prose is on stunning display. . . . A novel of ideas, of longing, of good and evil and those who fall somewhere in between [that] confirms Mitchell as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive.” (Dave Eggers, The New York Times Book Review)

Otherworldly

Captivating. Transportive. Original. Uplifting. Sad. Thousand Autumns is all of these and many, many more. For me it’s a perfect read during the time of year when days are shortening. Mitchell’s prose is exquisite as usual.

A Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

This is an extraordinary tale written by a master story teller...worth every minute of time spent listening.

Jan

History, atmosphere and love

This is a great novel that delves into the Japan of 1799. If you love a story with history and a peek into the Japanese and Dutch culture of that time period, you will enjoy this novel. The only thing that was a little odd was that the narrator would portray a Japanese character with English Cockney accents.

Starts slowly . . .

but wait it out. A good book about an interesting time. It does scream for a good editor in the early part, and but the book does eventually move and the story is very interesting.

Unrequited Love Caught In Two Very Flawed Cultures

A lovely escape into the grime and gristle of European and Japanese cultures mixing and manipulating over the politics of commerce.
Glimmers of individual virtue are pitted against cultural chauvinism, with graphic descriptions of the foibles, constraints and violences of both.
A thoroughly enjoyable escape -- like a vacation for the imagination.

Great expansive story--fantastic narration

This is a very good David Mitchell book. It is a straightforward historical novel, as compared to Cloud Atlas, Ghostwritten, or The Bone Clocks. (But that doesn't mean there aren't some Mitchellian "features." Notice especially the presence of a particular physician in this book.)

The story features adventure, mystery, love, and Mitchell's wonderful writing style. If you like Mitchell, you will like this. It may not be your favorite of his (it isn't mine), but I doubt you will be disappointed.

The narration is as good as it gets. Jonathan Aris is a master of voices and gives each character a singular voice. Paula Wilcox is similarly talented. Paula narrates the chapters with mostly female characters--and this makes the listening experience extra good. Male narrators attempting to sound like women often ruin the audio experience for me. This team approach eliminates that issue.

What to say

As with other Mitchell novels, I was as transfixed by characters as by the storytelling.

Well written and narrated, engaging, and...

It contains some wise and odd, beautiful bits. Shows the possibilities of appreciation for a nation, culture and personality intrinsically different from one's own. Loved it.

A great listen, but it fizzled out

This book started out as very interesting and all the characters were very engaging, but the author had a hard time maintaining his sub-plots. He left one character hanging and the end of the second section and never really resolved her rescue. No explanation, she was just free, and by the end of the final section he did not wrap up all the loose ends, at least not to my satisfaction. It is a good book and I can reccomend it, but I did feel let down at the end.

Remarkable novel

Beautiful writing & highest level of story craft, amazing characters, stately sinuous plot unfolding like a garden, an entrancing immersion to another time place around a meeting of cultures, A delightful work with a range of gifts for the reader, hard core historical details in cahoots with poetic illuminations of Nature, human & earthly. Like!!