The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

De: David Mitchell

Narrado por: Jonathan Aris, Paula Wilcox

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

Reseñas de la Crítica

"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)

Spend some money

The book overall was excellent, the problem was they were too cheap to hire narrators to read the Japanese parts, sounded terrible especially the womens roles, thick English accent for a young Japanese girl.... crazy.

I wish I could listen all over again!

This book was just plain fun. I love history and got lots of it here, some for real and some invented, but all fascinating. The characters and situations were so original and new to me. A real saga, and very well read by the narrators.

I love David Mitchell

While I did not like this book as much as I liked Cloud Atlas or Black Swann Green, I did very much like the story and the characters. I was excited to get in the car every day or go to lunch to continue listening to the story.

English accents from Japanese characters??

The story was excellent but listening to strong English accents from Japanese characters threw me off!
Japanese accents would be much preferred!

David Mitchell: You’ve Done It Again!

I read to be entertained. I enjoy getting lost in a story. What accomplishes that most effectively is a story written on many levels. The story line is, of course, the primary trance. But can be the added pleasure of history being brought alive and/or a fascination with unexpected elements. This book has both of those.
A young Dutchman goes to Japan in the late 1700s to make a career and win a young lady’s hand by doing so. The details of the business in the book and the relations with Japan were so real, I looked up the history. When I read about Japan’s trade with the Dutch and the attack of Japan by the English, I appreciated Mitchell’s creative imagination all the more. Then, when a particularly despicable character is murdered with a hidden, arcane potion I was gleefully happy with the event and the means that brought it.
This book is a fine read. Go ahead! Make space on your shelf for The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.