book review the thousand autumns of jacob de zoet

I’m not going to pretend I know more than that about historical Japanese foreign policy. At this time, Japan was actually closed to foreigners as part of the country’s Isolationist policies. Dejima is actually a man-made island created as a port for the Dutch (and other foreign traders) that sits outside of Nagasaki, Japan. Next, the story switches entirely and the reader is introduced to a Dutch merchant ship docking in Dejima. This part of the story is disturbingly graphic and powerfully written, though it won’t be clear for some time how it relates to the rest of the story.

The opening chapter is about a midwife and doctor who help deliver a child from a woman who is the concubine of a Japanese magistrate. The story takes place primarily from 1799-1800 in Dejima and Nagasaki, Japan.

Which is not to say this is an easy read. Jacob is a character you like instantly, and his story is a compelling one. This time, I’m not even sure where the initial “slow patch” was for me. I put it down and planned to come back to it. I started this book last year, got a few chapters in, and for some reason found it difficult to connect with the book. This book was on a lot of literary “best of 2010” lists last year, and it completely deserves the honor. Even better, the three books are completely different - Cloud Atlas spans many different time periods and characters, from prehistoric to future, Black Swan Green is about teens in 1980s England, and Thousand Autumns is a historical novel about Dutch trade in Japan in 1799. I’ve read three books by David Mitchell and he hasn’t disappointed me yet.

Book review the thousand autumns of jacob de zoet