#4 of 2009: Number9Dream by David Mitchell

Mitchell is another author whose works seem, at first glance, to be simplistic and tongue-in-cheek and easy to finish, but they end up being all of the above and none of the above at the same time. What should be a quick read always finds a way of becoming complex without ever hinting at the mechanics that allow this trick to happen, a deceptively simple narrative unfolding into something rife with literary gimmicks and bizarre tales-within-a-tale that will leave you placing a bookmark between the pages and taking a break just to make sure your brain has absorbed the info properly.

That’s my excuse. I’m sticking to it. That’s my reason for never finishing Mitchell in a timely fashion.

Unlike Ghostwritten, Number9Dream sticks with one main character the whole way through, but in the eight chapters that cover the four-hundred-page novel there is a cast of characters almost too bizarre to be believable. Almost. We follow a young island hick in the big city looking for his unnamed father, a man who impregnated his mother and ran off, only to run into yakuza (multiple times), a concert pianist, a video store owner/capsule hotel landlord, a crazy train station employee, a wannabe hacker, a Korean bar hostess and several weirdo pizza delivery employees. Not to mention the equally weird pizzas they make.

It’s a strange story, told in a strange style, and once again I’m going to have to come out and claim a better understanding of the work would be had after a second reading. I notice myself making this claim a lot. Perhaps I read too quickly, to shallowly, to understand everything my eyes scan over. Perhaps I’m just not cut out for “intellectual” work. Perhaps I’m lazy.

Perhaps, like Number9Dream, I’m everything at once.


3/5, only for being layered enough to require a second reading.

#58 of 2008 - Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

This is one of those books that I picked up and put down numerous times over the course of the summer. I’d read a chapter, set it down, pick it up, read another chapter, lather, rinse, repeat. Due to the complexity of language and the technical details, the Clear Island chapter near the end kept me from finishing the book time and again.

I finished the book today, and I must say that despite the lapse between reading the first seventy percent by July and what I’ve read today I am very impressed. This is an excellent debut novel, full of detail, layers and layers of people crossing each others’ paths and back again.

I’m not going to be able to do this novel justice by reviewing it now, so I won’t. It’s a definite reread candidate, though, and this time I won’t be slowing down or stopping until I’m done.