What a strange, strange book! How colossally it fucked with my mind. During the first chapter I was thinking "I'll be damned if I have a clue what's going on". The rating I had in mind was in the two-star territory until halfway through. It's not that it was bad, but after Ghostwritten, it wasn't what I expected. For the next few chapters, an additional star made its appearance and then the final chapter happened to me. You read right. It's not so much that you read number9dream as it is it "happens" to you.

Mitchell's prose is like a thick liquid made by substances of all kinds. At times, I caught myself reading a sentence again and again either to properly suck in the lyrical, almost poetic, flow of words or to experience again and again the clever, scratch that, the brilliant meanings hidden behind. Number9dream is full of proverb-like witticisms and word-games such as "Could my quixotic quest be a quite quotidian query?". And it's not just the prose but also the dialogs with the top moment being when Eiji (that is, our protagonist), in a dream, asks John Lennon what Tomorrow Never Knows is about and John says "I never knew". "But you wrote it", says Eiji and John answers: "No, it wrote me."

Number9dream is often satirical. With all the action-packed scenes and Yakuza references, it seems to make fun of a whole genre of books. But the true essence of the book is dreams. Dreams serve as a means of communication between Eiji and himself as much as between Mitchell and the reader. Careful and quality depictions of dreams in book and movies always hit a soft spot in me and this is no exception. And as if this wasn't enough, Mitchell throws in dozens of musical references, especially of John Lennon and his songs, as well as Murakami references whom obviously he's been greatly influenced by.

I could go on and on about the dozens of threads that constitute this novel but I have neither the patience nor the eloquence to do them justice. It may have taken a while to get to me but when it finally did, it did with all its force. Mitchell is seriously and steadily making his way in my "favorite authors" list.

Number9dream ή αλλιώς ο κακός χαμός.όπως έχω ξαναπεί φυλάω τα λιγοστά βιβλία του Mitchell που δεν έχω διαβάσει ως θησαυρούς για τις πολύ δύσκολες στιγμές. Έτσι αποφάσισα να ξεκι ησω το προτελευταίο από τα βιβλία του πιυ δεν έχω διαβάσει ακόμη σε μια δύσκολη αναγνωστική χρόνια που έχω πέσει σε ένα τέλμα, ελπίζοντας να μου δώσει μια ευχάριστη αναγνωστική εμπειρία και ένα boost στο διάβασμα μου.. Και το κατάφερε με το παραπάνω..
Το βιβλίο αυτό του αγαπημένου μου David Mitchell είναι μια πραγματική περιπέτεια, ένα ταξίδι που σχεδόν ποτέ δεν ξέρεις αν βρίσκεσαι στην πραγματικότητα ή σε ένα όνειρο ή στη φαντασία κάποιου, αλλά από την άλλη δεν έχει και καμιά σημασία αυτό. Μια ιστορία ενηλικίωσης, ένας νεαρός που ψάχνει τον πραγματικό του πατέρα και πιστεύει ότι αυτό ακριβώς είναι το νόημα της ζωής του. Ψάχνοντας θα βρει πολλά στο δρόμο του.. Το Τόκυο, τη Γιακουζα (!), ένα ημερολόγιο με αναμνήσεις, τον Τζον Λένον να του λέει ότι το "tomorrow never knows" δε το έγραψε εκείνος, αλλά εκείνο τον έγραψε.. Και ένα σωρό άλλα άσχετα και σχετικά που μόνο αν διαβάσετε το βιβλίο θα καταλάβετε πως δένουν μεταξύ τους. Ξεκίνησα πιο χαλαρά την ανάγνωση του βιβλίου και πίστευα ότι δε θα με κερδίσει ως το τέλος, αλλά τελικά ανακάλυψα πως ο, τι έχει να πει με το μοναδικό του τρόπο ο Mitchell, πραγματικά με ενδιαφέρει και με τραβάει. Είναι ένα βιβλίο αφιερωμένο σε όσα αγαπά και θαυμάζει ο συγγραφέας με κυριότερο τον Μουρακαμι, κάτι που γίνεται ιδιαίτερα σαφές σε αυτό του το μυθιστόρημα. Εξαιρετικό. Ειδικά αν αναλογιστεί κάνεις ότι ήταν μόλις το 2ο βιβλίο του..

I didn't love this one. For a lot of the book it was a 2-star read but the last 2 chapters were particularly good. Still, this is not a book for the casual Mitchell reader. Though it is chronological and only follows 1 character, unlike a lot of his work, each chapter has it's own sort of narrative style that makes it a bit jarring to read at times. I liked our main character, even when I felt like I (as he) did not know where his story was going. It has lots to unpack but it's presented in a way that was hard for me to parse through. Glad nonetheless to have read it as Mitchell is always a treat, if not a challenge. And I only have one more of his left to read for now (Ghostwritten).

“Reality is the page. Life is the word.”
― David Mitchell, number9dream



Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé

Another book I'm going to have to chew on for a bit to really bend my mental tongue around. At first, I was a little disappointed in it. This is my last Mitchell book left to read (I am now a Mitchell completist) and I was hoping for just a little more PoMo juice to squeeze out of his second novel. Three dreams into it and I was afraid Mitchell was aping Murakami (Norwegian Wood, A Wild Sheep Chase) and Joyce (Finnegans Wake) a bit too much in his persuit of a dreamy father-quest novel.

By the end, however, Mitchell salvaged the novel. It still seemed a little too packaged, too sterile, too neat and measured. Don't get me wrong, I liked it and obviously (I've now read all of Mitchell) I like how Mitchell writes, but I'm not sure #9Dream is even close to being top shelf for me of Mitchell's novels.

Αρκετά διαφορετικό απ'το Ghostwritten, το δεύτερο βιβλίο του Mitchell είναι η coming of age ιστορία του 20χρόνου Eiji Miyake που μετακομίζει στο Τόκυο με σκοπό να βρει κ να γνωρίσει τον πατέρα του. Το number9dream είναι πρώτα κ κύρια μια ωδή στον Μουρακάμι κ ο Mitchell δεν το κρύβει. Αναφέρει ότι ο πρωταγωνιστής του έχει αφήσει μισό το Κουρδιστό Πουλί κ δεν ξέρει τι απέγινει ο τύπος που κατέβηκε στο πηγάδι χωρίς σχοινί, παίρνει τον τίτλο του βιβλίου του από τραγούδι του Λέννον κ βάζει τον μεγάλο μουσικό να πει ότι το συγκεκριμένο τραγούδι είναι απόγονος του Norwegian Wood, αφήνει αρκετές ιστορίες ανοιχτές κ πάνω απ'όλα δημιουργεί μια ονειρική ατμόσφαιρα με τρόπο παρόμοιο με αυτό του Ιάπωνα στις καλύτερες του στιγμές. Από κει κ πέρα υπάρχει μια κεντρική θεματική που ενώνει τις πάμπολλες ιστορίες κ ασχολείται με το πως ο κάθε άνθρωπος βρίσκει το νόημα της ζωής (του). Είναι διαφορετικό για ένα πολεμιστή σε έναν πόλεμο, διαφορετικό για μια πιανίστρια με υπέροχο λαιμό που ονειρεύεται να σπουδάσει στο Παρίσι κ φυσικά διαφορετικό για τον ήρωα που προσπαθεί να πιαστεί από κάπου (οπουδήποτε), ακριβώς γιατί η δικιά του ερμηνεία φαίνεται να οδηγεί στην ίδια την αναζήτηση του νοήματος.

Ο ρόλος των ονείρων έχει περίοπτη θέση στο κείμενο κ δίνει την δυνατότητα στον Mitchell να δείξει τα δόντια του ως συγγραφέας γιατί το δικό του ταλέντο εκεί βρίσκεται. Είναι απίθανος γραφιάς, καθηλωτικός storyteller κι ακόμα κι αν τα βιβλία του έχουν ελαττώματα, προσφέρει απλόχερα ψυχαγωγία κ μάλιστα υψηλής ποιότητας.

Στο βιβλίο συμβαίνουν αρκετά τραγελαφικά σκηνικά, κάποια λειτουργούν καλύτερα απ'τα άλλα, όμως σε γενικές γραμμές δεν μπορείς να παρά να παρασυρθείς απ'τη ιστορία ακόμα κι αν είσαι σίγουρος ότι χάνεις συνδέσεις κ σκέψεις μεταξύ ονείρου κ πραγματικότητας, ακόμα κ αν σου περνάει απ'το μυαλό ότι ο Mitchell δεν σου παρουσιάζει κ καμία πρωτότυπη ιδέα. Προσωπικά, ως συγγραφέας με εξιτάρει κ σιγά σιγά εθίζομαι στα βιβλία του, όπως κόλλησα με το παιχνίδι με τον αριθμό 9. Εννοείται λοιπόν ότι το κεφάλαιο 9 είναι κενό γιατί "the ninth dream begins after every ending".

Σειρά παίρνει το Cloud Atlas, ελπίζω σύντομα.

This novel has an open ending, but there are clues regarding the possible developments of the story all over the last chapter. Although it has eight chapters and each has a name, the author ends the book with the ninth chapter which is simply called "Nine" and left empty. "The ninth dream begins after every ending", says David Mitchell, continuing the subtle insinuation that the story is to be continued in our imagination, but taking into account several clues from the last chapter: "Time may be what prevents everything from happening at the same time in waking reality, but the rules are different in dreams." In dreams everything is possible, characters from different moments of our lives gather to recreate parallel realities, to embody different personalities. Dreams play with reality like kids with plasticine and create alternative meanings which having been auditioned by the present or the past, had been rejected in order to give way to other story-threads (the actual reality). The energy generated by our dreams constitute the nourishment of the witches who are still among us, but because our "world is lit by television, threaded by satellites, cemented by science" admitting their existence seems far-fetched for "the nowadays us". "Dreams are shores where the ocean of spirit meets the land of matter. Beaches where the yet-to-be, the once-were, the will-never-be may walk amid the still-are."

The alternance between dreams and reality is fascinating in this story and the main character ends up wondering if he is a dream of the real Eiji Miyake and when he goes to sleep and dreams, the real Eiji Miyake wakes up and remembers his waking life as a dream. Mitchell succeeds in writing a great final chapter for a book which at some points seems unfocused, with details that could be easily skipped without altering the story.

It's obvious all the way through the book that he is a great fan of Murakami's: not only does he say that the main character, Eiji, is reading "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle", but he seems to even adopt Murakami's style and adapt it to his own way of creating literature. Moreover, Eiji is alike in many ways with Kafka Tamura from "Kafka on the Shore" by Murakami, and all the other characters seem to borrow something from the oddity and charm of Murakami's characters. Maybe it is just my impression, but the author himself declares openly to hold Murakami as a great source of inspiration.

Although I kept wondering while reading this book whether I was really enjoying it or not, the ending somehow brought all the loose ends together and I ended up thinking that it was really worth reading it. Moreover, although the story might not seem very catchy: a young boy starts a quest for his father whom he has never met, Mitchell's very plastic phrases and original use of words, his very creative, unique way of expressing his ideas and his humor create a special reading rhythm which is very entertaining. Therefore, although it seems a light read at a superficial level, once the hidden meanings and metaphors begin to unravel, they just pop out in your head continuously...like a bag of popcorn in the oven which seems unable to ever stop.

Reading is hungry work.
—p.236

I can see what David Mitchell meant by that—or at least I think I can. The hunger to see what happens next, in the hands of a masterful storyteller, can be overwhelming. The temptation to read just one more page... then another... then to the end of the chapter, and before you know it half the book's over and the dishes are left undone in the sink. We've all felt that urge; you wouldn't be reading these words if you weren't susceptible to the same desire. To extend the metaphor, number9dream is a substantial, fulfilling meal of a novel—much more than just a light snack.


Eiji Miyake is a young Japanese man, just turned twenty, from the rural island of Yakushima. He's come to Tokyo in order to find his father, a task that would be much easier if he actually knew the man's name.

Miyake is also a dreamer (though he's not the only one), with an extraordinarily active imagination. The distinction between reality and Eiji's fantasies is (intentionally, I'm sure) not clearly delineated at all. This misled me at first into thinking that Mitchell's novel was more science-fictional than it really is. The sequences starring Eiji as a James Bond wannabe, with props like plasma pistols and humanoid "bioborgs" to wield them, are presented just about as realistically as the ones where he's just sitting in a coffee shop admiring that aloof waitress with her perfect neck. However, this is in the end a realistic novel, a work of mimetic fiction, that uses Eiji's flights of fancy as a way to extend and comment on what's really (?) happening to him.

Japan is a science-fictional country anyway, though, at least to Western eyes—I still remember the Onion's article, Earthquake Sets Japan Back To 2147. The setting of Mitchell's novel is, I'm sure, as realistic as it needs to be—he did spend a lot of time in Japan and obviously did a lot of research—but the unfamiliar milieu made number9dream feel like a visit to an alien world. To me, anyway. I don't know how well this book went over with native Japanese, but for me it was profoundly immersive.


Eiji Miyake's quest to find his father is hampered not only by his ignorance (which is fairly comprehensive—he's basically a farm boy adrift in the big city), but also by opponents as varied as his father's lawyer Akiko Katō (whose name he does know, though she's not at all interested in helping him) and multiple factions of Japan's organized criminal syndicates, the Yakuza.

When the Age of Reason reached these shores, it was us {sic} who breathed the deepest sigh of relief.
—p.402

I will admit that I am weary of reading that some book or another was shortlisted (or, worse, longlisted) for the Man Booker Prize. That doesn't really tell me much about the book itself. However... I can tell you that the end of this novel, which was in the running for the Booker Prize after its release, left me nearly in tears with how perfectly it captures the ambiguity of existence.

If you must always have your stories wrapped up and tied off neatly, then perhaps this book isn't for you. For me, though, it was just about perfect.

The narration is dreamlike… Is life but a dream? Eiji Miyake is searching for his father but he finds so many different things…

Squeeze, squelch, squirt. Crocodiles scream, even underwater. The jaws unscissor and the monster thrashes off in spirals. Lao Tzu mimes applause, but I have already gone three minutes without air and the surface is impossibly distant. I kick feebly upwards. Nitrogen fizzes in my brain. Sluggishly I fly, and the ocean sings. Face submerged, searching for me from the stone whale, is my waitress, loyal to the last, hair streaming in the shallows. Our eyes meet for a final time, and then, overcome by the beauty of my own death, I sink in slow, sad circles.

The first part – first dream – is called Panopticon – a building, as a prison or library, so arranged that all parts of the interior are visible from a single point. So we’ll see everything.
And a lost property office is a good departure point to start seeking.

Thirty-six bowling balls were left on platform nine, the farthest platform from the lost property office. Suga had performed his disappearing act so I had to lug them over one by one. They were claimed later by a team who were waiting for them at Tokyo Central station. I am learning that laws of probability work differently in the field of lost property.

The most important thing, however, is that while searching for his father Eiji Miyake finds himself and on the way he establishes his attitude to life.
The eighth dream is titled: The Language of Mountains Is Rain but the language of number9dream is not just water – it is the other three elements as well.
Any life is a quest for one’s own identity.

I gave number9dream five stars way back when I first started rating books around here, but it was far enough removed from reading the book that I didn't feel I could write a review, so there is no chronicle of why I gave it five stars.

Since then I have read most of David Mitchell's stuff, but number9dream was my first, so it retains pride of place. I was turned onto it the winter I went home to Canada for Christmas because for some reason that year I decided I was going to read everything shortlisted for the Booker Prize (I did and they were all excellent reads: Oxygen, Hotel World, The Dark Room, Atonement and the winner (don't ask me how) The True History of the Kelly Gang). I knew Ian McEwan and Peter Carey, but I came to the other four authors for the first time.

number9dream was the first of the six books I read, and by the time the prize was awarded it was still my favourite.

Fourteen years later and I just spent a week and a bit dragging it around from beach to beach, rediscovering the rhythms of David Mitchell's writing -- reminding myself why I love him so much.

I don't think I would give number9dream five stars anymore, but I would still give it a strong four (I'm leaving my original stars up regardless), and I don't think my slight distance from loving this book is all that much of a drop off. In many ways the story of Eiji Miyake is irrelevant when it comes to my final feelings about this book because it wasn't so much the story that made me love number9dream as the storytelling, and no matter the characters no matter the plot, if David Mitchell is telling the story, I am going to set the book down with a mixture of sadness and joy. Sadness that the storytelling is over; joy that I had the privilege to listen to his voice for a little while.

But since this is a pseudo-review, here's the one specific thing I will say about number9dream. BEST ENDING EVER (or, at least, one of my top 5).

I struggled with how to rate this one. At various points, I put it anywhere from 3 to 5 stars. I don't think I liked it as much as Cloud Atlas or Bone Clocks, but I respected it throughout and loved several moments in particular. It's a David Mitchell novel so it plays by its own rules, and especially when theming around dreams, the whole book takes on a very surreal, dreamlike quality. I can't say I fully grasp Mitchell's mind in this story on first read but I have a hunch that I'll love it even more on re-reads.

You know those compound German constructions, like schadenfreude, comprised of dissimilar single words? Well, I’ve got a new one that ought to exist if it doesn’t already. It’s schadenselbstungeduld, which translates roughly to “the sadness of your own impatience.” Maybe you can guess why I’m bringing this up. I’ve had a bad case of it since last month when I joined the ranks of several Goodreads friends who have read all five of the David Mitchell books. We’re now waiting long days, weeks, or, heaven forfend, even months for him to give us our next fix.

As a last high from the current stash, number9dream was a good one. And the ending, about which my keyboard remains silent, made me want more – no, in fact, more than that – more to the 9th power. The main character, Eiji, is a young man with problems. Parental abandonment is certainly part of it. A separate tragedy from his boyhood is always at the fore as well. He goes to Tokyo to resolve what he can, but he’s not all that practical. In fact, his daydreams and fantasies often get in the way. They’re a useful device for Mitchell, though, since they give his creative juices a chance to flow (if not gush) freely. As for Eiji’s real life, it’s a multifarious journey. His destination is sometimes diffuse, but seems to include acceptance of his situation, love, a sense of self, and whatever else coming of age stories are meant to bring. Along the way he meets some interesting people, drawn in Mitchell’s customary way to a full human scale. Eiji also meets a few scum-of-the-earth types from warring yakuza gangs. The plot features plenty of action, some that seems as crazy as Eiji’s dreams. (At one point it struck me as funny that it mattered so much to me to know if a scene was a made-up dream when, in fact, a work of fiction is itself made up. But you see where I was coming from – I wanted to know what was what for the integrity of the story (as opposed to the story within the story, nested like these parentheses.))

The only points I took off for in this otherwise excellent book were for a few heinous crime sequences that I felt were over-the-top. I almost got the sense that Mitchell didn’t feel the reality of them either (within the story, that is) since Eiji didn’t seem as affected by them as a real, sentient person probably would be. The pyrotechnics are something I think Mitchell has always been drawn to, and he seems to have learned since how to modulate his use of them. Cloud Atlas, his next book after this one, provides all the evidence you need of his ultimate mastery.

Back to number9dream and its many positives:

-- The little narrative devices worked – lots of perspectives and styles including cyberpunk, crime drama (boiled good and hard), fantasy (a kid’s story within the story about a goat who would sometimes unwittingly eat the pages he wrote), and military history (a moving tale in epistolary form of a suicide mission in WWII).

-- Eiji is a very likable character. You’re happy for every small victory and anxious with every new threat.

-- The young lady he likes, the waitress with the beautiful neck and sublime musical talent, is wise beyond her years. She’s given some thought-provoking lines.

-- Those of us who are big DM fans have always liked the way he writes. He has fun, he chooses his words well, and he’s very creative with both structure and concept. That’s all in evidence here.

-- People tell me that after DM, HM (Murakami) should be next. Is The Wind-up Bird Chronicle a good choice?

I’ll end this with a personal note to David since he seems likely to respond to the pleas of his devoted fans. Will you please hurry up with that next one?! You don’t seem like the type to revel in schadenfreude at our collective schadenselbstungeduld.

It's a fine enough book, but when I compare it other David Mitchel's books it's among my least favorites.

It's the story of Eiji Mijake, a young man that travels to Tokyo to look for his father, and this search takes him to various bizarre encounters. As in any of Mitchel's books there's stories within stories, with multiple themes and characters being dealt with simultaneously. Some parts of the book are just really cool, particularly it's portrayal of Tokyo.

The most interesting part o the book is its mix of reality and dream, making the narrator unreliable in an subtle and intriguing way (which in the hands of a lesser writer could be annoying or gimmicky).

Overall a good book, just not an extraordinary one.

Music for this book:
Milk and Honey - John Lennon and Yoko Ono
#9 Dream - John Lennon
Rumi Sings Beatles - Rumi Koyama


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"as usual when people discuss parental problems, I feel as if I am being told about a medical condition in an organ I lack."

" ' We are both busy people, so let's cut the small talk. You already know my name, or at least you knew it, once upon a time' "

"I fly down the polished hallway, scrunch my feet into my sneakers, fight with the knots, scrape open the door, and begin running."