another Mitchell I read because nothing else was to hand (at the time) and wondered why I bothered. As I said with Black Swan Green he can write well but he's too tricksy and caught up with his own virtuosity or something.. I know many friends who like him, but he's not for me.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how many stars to give this book. I'm swaying between 2, 3 and 4 stars, so I guess I'm settling right in the middle with 3. This is the fifth David Mitchell book for me, and although it started out exciting, my interest dipped in and out throughout the book. I felt like there was so much stuff thrown into this book, so many different styles, side stories (the movie at the cinema, the Goatwriter story, the uncle's journal...), random bits from other characters, and of course the number 9 that pops up throughout, that I wondered at how they all fit together. But, given the name of the book, I suppose I should not really wonder at that.

Also, I kept feeling a huge Haruki Murakami presence, (influence?) that I found myself comparing this book with the Murakami books that I have read, specifically The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. It was almost distracting me from enjoying Mitchell's book on its own merit. I did have fun with this book overall, but sadly I found myself wondering how much longer I had to go to reach the end.

While it's such a transparent ripoff of Murakami that Mitchell should literally be distributing royalty checks, number9dream nonetheless might be my favorite Mitchell novel. Cloud Atlas is more impressive on a first reading and I think is rightly the most popular of his works, but number9dream is slightly better imo, with a uniquely joyous energy and inventiveness, particularly in terms of the prose (Mitchell's best).

Don Quixote was a dreamer, looking for his life's meaning in the romances of his youth. Eiji Miyake is searching for meaning to his life by finding the father he has never seen. This novel melds a quixotic quest into cyber-fueled dreams which morph into a nightmarish reality.

Meaning eludes all of Mitchell's characters. Sugu is a talented hacker obsessed with backdooring the U.S. Defense Department's computer. He confesses his disillusionment. “I ran a mylo-P search as a matter of course and checked thousands of sample grail files, from all over the document field. Holy Grail is just an exercise in infinity. In meaninglessness.” (p.285) A doomed World War II submarine pilot declares in his journal: “I have never felt so alive as in these weeks. The meaning of my life is to defend the Motherland.” (p.267) Later, he asserts: "…I believe the kaiten project is the reason I was born.” (p.289) What a grim thought: to believe that your purpose was to die for an already dead ideology.

The search for meaning is like entering a hall of mirrors, an infinite corridor of reflected reflections. It will take Ai Imago, an introspective musical prodigy and Eiji's romantic interest, to finally articulate the paradox: “You look for your meaning. You find it, and at that moment, your meaning changes, and you have to start all over again.” (p.290)

Eiji’s emotions impact the reader a beat later than they impact the protagonist. The exposition is meant to disorient the reader, mirroring Eiji’s own sense of dislocation. He is from Kyushu. His immersive experience of Tokyo is a shock. It's a sweltering city, by day dominated by forbidding fortresses of power like the Pan Opticon Building. By night it’s a maze of warrens disguised by the glare of garish neon signs. He is far from the world of Kyushu's isolated villages, forested hills and restless seacoast. “Broken fences, wild flower breakouts, unplotted spaces. Kyushu is the run-wild underworld of Japan.” (p.373) Our own disorientation arrives when we are suddenly transported that first time from the Jupiter Café to Pan Opticon’s lobby.

The word 'underworld' connects the reader to childhood mythologies. Eiji prayed once to the Thundergod. Make me a famous soccer player and I will promise you anything. He scores the winning soccer goal; his sister Anju drowns. Was that the price? We never believe that for a moment. Mitchell even seems to mock his character when an old man zips into the video store where Eiji works. “Jason and the Argonauts thrilled us, Sinbad chilled us, Titanic killed us. Myths are no longer what they used to be", the old man declares as he returns his borrowed videos and exits. (p.289)

Having never met his father, Eiji’s imagination spins various scenarios: a government minister hiding his connection to an elicit son for fear of scandal; a kidnap victim forcibly prevented from a long sought reunion; a banking magnate with powerful connections; a Yakuza associate dangerous to be around. All of these scenarios are so banal that the nightmarish reality Mitchell will insert are all the more shocking.

These scenarios also reflect Eiji’s eager desire to associate himself with the powerful. That longing connects with his actual memories of his own childhood persona. He was timid and awkward; Anju was bold, fearless and competitive. One of the lessons Tokyo will teach him is the link, hidden in plain sight, between power and destructiveness. Unlike the powers of nature like flood and earthquake, that kind of power is malignant.

Mitchell's technique is brilliant. He is adept at many voices. Much of the narrative is revealed through colorful dialogue. Surreal violence is juxtaposed with misunderstandings that elicit macabre humor. The journal entries of Eiji’s father's uncle, Subaru Tsukiyama, are gripping even though we know the outcome. Subaru is a suicide mission trainee in the waning days of World War II. Eiji's long absent alcoholic mother is revealed through letters she sends. An absurd story with a talking goat and hen distracts. The randomly inserted fragments are bewildering. Subtle touches connect us to reality. It's almost reflexive to look at the clock when awakened from a dream. Mitchell positions a film developing store with a FUJIFILM clock across from The Shooting Star, a video-rental store where Eiji works and sleeps. The clock is one of the markers of Eiji’s shifts in and out of dreamscapes. All of these events are compressed into a five week period in which Eiji will turn 20, fall in with a louche sociopath named Yuzu Daimon, pursue love, and encounter a dangerous connection with a detective who compiled a dossier on his father.

Much of this novel unspools like a fever-dream. The vibe is certainly a far cry from John Lennon's soporific song “Number9Dreams.” It is difficult to care about Eiji because so much of what he reveals is delusional. We know he feels guilt over Anju's death, but at the same time we are distanced by the conviction that there is no duplicitous Thundergod. The unsettled feeling Mitchell evokes is one we want to shake off well before the ending rather than embrace and contemplate.

Eiji Miyaki has travelled to Japan determined to find the father who abandoned him, his mother and sister. A gargantuan task with Eiji not even knowing his father’s name or whereabouts. What transpires while Eiji is searching is at times bizarre, surreal, dreamlike.

The first chapter opens with Eiji breaking into the Panopticon building in which he believes that a lawyer there has vital information on his father’s whereabouts. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that this is the first of many dream sequences, the reader will pick that up quickly.

Following chapters will find Eiji reading his great uncle’s war journal. Chronicling the suicide attacks the Japanese made in the giant Kaiten suicide submarines towards the end of the Second World War. Reading a children’s book manuscript while hiding out from the Yakuza. The manuscript is absurd, it is a children’s book, but the writing is beautiful, rhyming, I have never seen so much alliteration before. I get the feeling that Mitchell enjoyed writing this chapter. The lead character is a goat called Goatwriter who stutters (Mitchell used to stutter) and eats his own manuscripts.

Speaking of the Yakuza. They play a prominent role in Eiji’s search as well, as he finds himself mixed up with a young man, who inadvertently brings Eiji to the attention of one of the Yakuza bosses resulting in Eiji being drawn into the deadly, dangerous world of the Japanese underbelly.

Just like his previous novel “Ghostwritten” all these chapters are linked in a variety of different ways. And just like his debut novel he switches genres seamlessly. There are even references to events, objects and characters from “Ghostwritten”. It is all part of Mitchell’s multiverse. Half the fun of reading this novel is finding all the connections. The references to the number nine myriad. Wait until you read chapter nine. The major difference is that this novel all revolves around Eiji and his search and feels more cohesive than “Ghostwritten”, which although equally as good, does have a random feel to it at times.

Embedded within these chapters of dreams and journals, manuscripts and memories, the story of Eiji’s search in the present takes place. There are also flashbacks to his childhood and his sister Anju, who does not feature heavily in the book but has an integral role. Her death, a guilt that Eiji cannot shake and has carried with him for nine years.

Chapter eight is a highlight for me with Eiji falling helplessly from dream to dream. Mitchell describes it so well. The randomness of dreams, and yet paradoxically the connections formed between the same random dreams. This is a truly surreal chapter with the reader transported into Eiji’s dreams. His subconscious mind connecting events and people he has met in the last few weeks of his search. Dreams morphing from one to another.

And again, Mitchell’s descriptions of Japan, Tokyo and it’s claustrophobic atmosphere. It’s sights, it’s sounds and smells, is brilliantly written in his descriptive style. Not only locations but the writing in general,

“I sugarize my coffee, rest my teaspoon on the meniscus, and slowly dribble the cream on to the bowl of the spoon. Pangea rotates, floating unruptured before splitting into subcontinents. Playing with coffee is the only pleasure I can afford in Tokyo.”

I don’t think I have ever read such a dreamlike description of stirring your coffee.

To top it all off Mitchell leaves the reader with a thoroughly ambiguous ending. Which leaves the reader wondering, and I am sure that many people have different views on what has happened and what it means.

I think the only gripe I have is that chapter three, “Video Games” does not really work for me. I think the book would have been better without this chapter but that is a personal issue, others may love it with video games very much part of Japanese culture.

This was the second book in the David Mitchellathon, in which Nat K and I are reading all of Michell’s books in chronological order. We filled pages of discussion talking about this book and Nat found many points and references I had missed. It also helped that Nat is a massive Beatles fan proving invaluable to me with the Lennon references and passages. Please check out her review when she posts it. It will be far superior to mine.

'Maybe the meaning of life lies in looking for it.'
Like the  song by John Lennon which inspired the title of this novel, David Mitchell plays with the fusion of dreams and reality as he sends the reader spiraling through the chimerical passages of Number9dream. This second novel is a departure from the multi-storied structure of Ghostwritten, instead closely following one character. However, it is anything but a simple linear plot and Mitchell shows once again that he can dazzle and dance through numerous facets of writing. Moving through a complicated coming-of-age tale that starts small with a quest for ones estranged father under control situations and further expands into a search for the meanings and acceptance of life while caught up in events beyond oneself, Mitchell questions reality and the nature of dreams all set to the soundtrack of the late, great John Lennon.

From the very first page, it becomes obvious that Mitchell has grown as a writer in leaps and bounds from his previous novel, which was stunning in its own right. 'A galaxy of cream unribbons in my coffee cup, and the background chatter pulls into focus’ is one of the first of many ethereal descriptions employed to create the dreamy tone of Number9dream. Metaphors are used in abundance to create a fanciful nature that occasionally makes the reader wonder if it is even a metaphor at all or just a waking dream. 'How do you smuggle daydreams into reality?’ he questions, and this novel is the answer. Tokyo is described as ’rising from the floor of night’, and old cook is said to 'reanimate his corpse and sit up’, streets ‘fill up with evening’, and many other dreamlike, or nightmarish, images swirl from the page. There is always a question of the validity to what occurs within Mitchell’s novels (Ghostwritten has many characters wonder if what just transpired really happened, Frobisher questions the validity of the sea journal in Cloud Atlas, etc.) and this book takes that challenge head on. But is it the truth that really matters? ‘We are all of us writers,’ he writes, speaking through the character of Goatwriter in part 5, ‘busy writing our own fictions about how the world is and how it came to be this way. We concoct plots and ascribe motives that may, or may not, coincide with the truth’. This is a novel about the imagination and how we attribute meaning, so truth be damned as we follow Eiji down the rabbit hole.

John Lennon was reportedly obsessed with the number 9 (a very interesting article about that can be read here), which may have taken its root from being born on Oct. 9th, and continued to present itself all through his career with songs like Revolution #9, #9 Dream, and strange coincidences such as meeting Yoko Ono on Nov. 9th and that the two of them have nine letter O’s shared between their names. Mitchell’s protagonist, Eiji, is a massive Lennon fan and seems to also be haunted by the number 9. Like Lennon’s birthplace of Liverpool, Eiji’s Kagoshima has nine letters in the name. Eiji was born on September 9th, and nine years have passed since the tragic episode with his sister. This novel is oversaturated with this mysterious 9, it appears in some form constantly. By the end of the novel, readers may find themselves also obsessed with this number, counting letters in names such as Eiji’s grandfather to find that there are nine letters in Tsukiyama and noticing that Eiji shows up an hour early for his 10a.m. meeting, or adding up the numbers on clock times that show up constantly revealing yet another instance of the number 9 (12:51, 13:32, 2:34, 13:23, etc.). Room numbers are 333 on the 9th floor, everything comes in nines such as the number of vehicles to arrive at the yakuza showdown, bars open at 9am, he shuffles a deck of cards ‘nine times for luck’ and thinks of Ai ‘ninety times per minute’. The book is even separated into 9 chapters, the last of which is blank because 'the meaning of the ninth dream begins after all meanings appear to be dead and gone’. There are seemingly countless other examples. This book is the greatest Easter egg hunt imaginable. Beyond the number 9, Mitchell has some fun incorporating Beatles lyrics into the novel, such as describing Ai as a girl with ’ kaleidoscope eyes’ or in a hilarious scene where Eiji gets stoned and the POV switched briefly into 3rd-person, Eiji opens his mouth to speak ‘but his words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup…’. Pure genius.

While this novel does not have as dramatic of breaks in form as some of his others, each chapter has a structure unique from all the rest, each with its own purpose. There is the high action fantasies of the first chapter, the reflections of the past in the second, and even an entire collection of stories and letters read later on in the novel, both with a highly original voice from the rest. Mitchell is always eager to show his versatility, and fans of this will not be disappointed.

The fifth chapter, Study of Tales, is particularly interesting as it gives Mitchell an opportunity to interject his opinions on the novel itself into the plot. Goatwriter (perhaps a nod to the idea of ghostwriters presented in Ghostwriten?), is a stuttering goat (David Mitchell has a stammer) whose stories often fail since his words literally get stuck in his throat when he eats the pages. He shows how many authors must eat their words, or even be chased down by the word hounds who force them to be always on the run from their past works. The plight of the novelist is cleverly on display. This section is especially poignant today with the rise of electronic readers when the computer witch tells Goatwriter ‘Paper is dead, haven’t you heard? You shall compose your untold tales in a virtual heaven’. The witch argues that ‘writing is not about ‘fulfillment.’ Writing is about adoration! Glamour! Awards!’. Here is where the true message of this books high-octane scenes comes to light. Mitchell argues against writing purely for glamour and this novel is a slap in the face to all those who write purely for a widespread audience enjoyment by becoming one of them. As in Cloud Atlas, Mitchell employs a ’literary pulp’ style of writing to bridge the gap between literature and pulp novels by injecting pure literary depth and meaning into the pulp plots and violent scenes (the yakuza bowling scene will haunt me forever) to infect the minds of those who read pulp and show them that they can look deeper into a novel. ‘I searched for the truly untold tale in sealed caves and lost books of learning’ he says, ’could it be that, instead, profundity is concealed in the obvious? Does the truest originality hide itself within the d-dullest cliché?’. Mitchell could write long dry novels full of depth, but it would seem that his mission is to rescue readers from their sugar-pop novels, so he writes books full of action clichés and compelling violent plots to pull them from the depths and into the wonderful world of literature. Goatwriter’s dive into the lake and his death show Mitchell shedding the worldly fears of writing, giving the finger to critics and the concept of fame, and becoming the abstraction of words and works. Mitchell lives up to this and has become one of the finest modern author. Later in the novel, Mitchell continues to poke fun at simple-minded action plots when he has Buntaro give his theory that ‘a title ending in -ator is guaranteed to be drivel….and the quality of any movie is inverse proportion to the number of helicopters it features.’

The metafiction doesn’t stop with Goatwriter. Mitchell has a knack for incorporating others works into his own to highlight his themes. There is a constant comparison of him to the equally excellent Haruki Murakami, both for their metaphysical and surreal styles and for their ‘literary pulp’ novels. David Mitchell is on equal footing with this highly regarded master of modern Japanese literature, and his novels should be more than enough to quench the thirst of any Murakami fan, this novel in particular. Mitchell has Eiji read Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which serves for more than just a nod to his contemporary. The novels share many features, such as a simple quest becoming much more broad in scope and threatening, the surrealistic quality, and both novels have two women that seem to be able to enter and feed off of dreams. Another novel read by Eiji is Le Grand Meaulnes (this book plays a small role in Black Swan Green as well), which is also a coming-of-age of sorts that employs fantastical elements.

The term coming-of-age tale does not quite fit this novel properly. Perhaps coming-to-an-adult-understanding-and-acceptance would be more appropriate, but rather cumbersome and wordy. This novel’s humble beginnings are a quest for Eiji’s father, who he has never met, and this seems to him to be the whole reason for his day-to-day life. Through the course of the novel, Eiji encounters a wide variety of people, all with goals that drive their meaning. Some are looking for their son, which presents a sort of irony, and there is some looking to get the right job, or right school, to die in glory for their country, or to bring a child into this world. However, as Eiji learns, eventually there must be some end to every quest, yet life continues after. ‘When you win, the rules change, and you find you’ve lost’ he is told.

To move forward in looking for your meaning, we often have to look backwards as well. ’Endings are simple, but every beginning is made by the beginning before.’. Through the novel, Eiji often brings up a tragic event involving his sister nine years before the novels present. While he discusses it from time to time, he always beats around the bush so to speak and it isn’t until the very end that he confronts it head on. He mentions how guitar had been a method of helping him get past the pain, but his life had just been a Band-Aid to cover up, not actual healing. This is his true coming-of-age, when he finally learns to accept and move forward. It is interesting how Mitchell uses landscapes to exemplify this. First, there is much emphasis of people being a part of their environment, ‘I am not made by me, or my parents, but my the Japan that did come into being’,, or 'Tokyo builds people’. Also, it seems that your present location is important to who you are as he is told 'knowing where you are is a requisite of self-knowledge'. Most of the novel takes place in Tokyo, which is described in beautiful ethereal depictions, often moving up and out towards the sky and clouds. This is his escape, and his escape has now built him much like how Lennon tells Eiji that ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ wrote him. When he returns home, the descriptions become more grounded and earthy, discussing the colors of nature, the grains of grass, and the dirt. The prose becomes overwhelmingly lush and the smells and sounds of being out in the country effluviate from his words. He is now down to earth, removed from the dream and is able to easily distinguish what is real and what are his dreams, which are easily separated for the reader. He has returned to the land, the Japan where 'all the myths slithered, galloped and swam from.’ Once he has come to grips with his reality and past, his dreamlike Tokyo is literally shaken up and ripped apart, the dream shattered.

This novel is incredible. It is a thrill ride through the life of the mind, through bloody Yakuza fights, hilarious first sexual encounters (he calls his erection ‘Godzilla’!), childhood memories and first loves. All the while, Mitchell pumps the pulp fiction with layers upon layers of meaning and then questions the idea of meaning and reality itself. ‘The world is an ordered flowchart of subplots after all’ he says, and this novel will make you question your own reality, much like how Eiji often wonders if he is still some child weeping in the woods and his whole life is a dream. You will also find yourself haunted by the number 9 forever after (is it only a coincidence this review is 9 paragraphs longs….?). Find this book and read it, and examine your meaning. Because maybe 'the meaning of life lies in looking for it’.
9/9
böwakawa poussé, poussé

'The body is the outermost layer of the mind.'

5 Stars - Phenomenal book!

This is the fourth David Mitchell book I’ve read, and none have disappointed. Every time I start a new book by this author I’m hesitant because I figure, by the law of averages, that one has to be a dud. I have not found that “one” yet, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I never found it.

This book is so beautifully written. It's strange and heart wrenching, funny and relatable. I have never known another author to compact so many emotions into one book and make the book a good read.

In short, this book is about Eiji Miyake and his search for his birth father. Seems simple enough, however that is not the case when Mitchell is the one writing the story. We follow Miyake's actual life and his dreams, what could have been. I don't want to give too much away because this book deserves to be read. However, I will say that the title comes from the John Lennon song by the same name (#9 Dream). David Mitchell and John Lennon. How can that be anything other than spectacular?!

I like to think of this book as surrealist art personified, or written and quantified in some way. It's hard to describe. Imagine if a Dalí or Magritte painting was a book. This would be that book. I'm still having trouble putting into words how fantastic this book is.

I also appreciate how different this is from his author books. Don't get me wrong, this is style very clearly by the same guy who wrote my beloved Slade House, The Bone Clocks, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Yet this story seems to be rooted in more reality than the others, or at least that's how it felt to me. I think that's because the base story (that's what I call the generally plot of Mitchell's books - or what the main character is going through. I know I'm not explaining myself very well) makes the most sense to me. No, I was not an illegitimate child, no my mother didn't abandon me. No, I didn't go from the country to the big city searching for my long-lost father, etc. But I think that that storyline isn't uncommon or groundbreaking and it's familiar and something I know that a lot of people can relate to on many levels. It was real. And when the real is wrapped in this sci-fi/fantasy it makes for an incredible story.

Do I recommend this book? Look, I understand that Mitchell's style is not for everyone - especially and including this book. If you're not a fan of the author I guarantee you won't like this book. Though of course, because I loved the book, I want everyone to read it and enjoy it as much as I did.

REASONS I LOVED THIS BOOK:

-It is by David Mitchell
-It made me want to go have sushi & sake bombs
-It was surprisingly funny
-Not only did it remind me of Murakami, it referenced The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
-It had the word "knickerbockers"

I was rating this in my head as I went along (something I can't help but do since joining goodreads), and for the first part, I was liking it and thinking 3 stars. Once I hit the halfway point, the Mitchell I know and love emerged, bumping it up to a four. By the end of the novel, there were some solid 5 star passages.

Set in Tokyo, Eijii Miyake is on a quest to find the father he's never met. His character is slowly revealed not just by his actions, but also through his various dreams. Usually, my eyes start to glaze over when reading about dreams (or song lyrics), but in this, it worked.

"How do you smuggle daydreams into reality?"

Mitchell was able to do this brilliantly, showing that reality is constantly different than what we have going on in our innermost thoughts. Throughout life, there's times when it's disappointing, and other times it turns out better than you could have possibly imagined.

Dos años después del éxito conseguido por Escritos fantasmas: una novela en nueve partes (1999), David Mitchell regresaba al panorama literario con number9dream (2001), una historia a priori (ya te digo yo que no) más sencilla que la anterior. Una especie de búsqueda de un padre perdido por parte de un jovenzuelo japonés abandonado, con el místico número nueve de fondo y con la canción #9 Dream de John Lennon resonando fuerte en los auriculares. En esencia, number9dream no deja de ser una de esas historias dickensianas de crecimiento sobre un joven que sale de su pueblo con nada más que un estuche de guitarra y prácticamente sin dinero, acepta una serie de trabajos bastante miserables y duerme en casi cualquier rincón, abriéndose camino poco a poco en la gran ciudad a través de la gran aventura que es la vida.

Sin embargo, aunque esta es la historia de Eiji Miyake, que viaja a Tokio para buscar a un padre perdido empujado por la muerte de su hermana y el colapso de su madre, no tiene nada de lo tradicional y habitual que uno pueda esperar en este tipo de historia. Por que claro, esta historia la cuenta David Mitchell. number9dream es un viaje serpenteante entre el sueño, la realidad, los recuerdos, los videojuegos y el mundo de los cuentos que compilan las aventuras de un joven por Tokio en busca de su padre perdido. Es un evocador recorrido por la gigantesca Tokio, por sus casas del té, hoteles del amor, bandas yakuza, garitos de mala muerte, repartidores de pizza y todo un mundo que no para de moverse de forma peligrosa. Una narrativa deslumbrante y fantástica que rodea a Eiji Miyake, donde la barrera de lo real y lo imaginario esta llena de sutilezas que debemos desentrañar.

Éxtasis de la observación
'It is a simple matter. I know your name, and you knew mine, once upon a time: Eiji Miyake. Yes, that Eiji Miyake'. La línea de apertura de number9dream es un todo en si mismo, aunque a primera vista no lo pueda parecer. Lo mismo ocurre con su arquitectura interna, aunque esta apegada a Eiji desde esta primera línea que abre la novela, no para de alternarse y moverse entre planos tanto reales como imaginarios sin que nos demos cuenta. Mitchell nos lleva desde un éxtasis de la observación placentera que ofrecen las misteriosas calles de Tokio hasta una película de acción, una historia de detectives, un thriller cyberpunk, una historia de yakuzas, una fantasía delirante, un viaje hasta la Segunda Guerra Mundial e incluso un pequeño romance. Las metáforas se usan una y otra vez desde esa primera línea, creando un aura fantasiosa que hace al lector preguntarse en todo momento si es una metáfora o solo un sueño lo que esta leyendo.

Sin escenas separadas, sin saltos de página o capítulos que los diferencie, los mundos, historias y fantasías disyuntivas de Eiji Miyake se fusionan, tanto en su mente como dentro de la propia narrativa, dejando que nos perdamos por realidades alternas comparables a la fluctuación de nuestra propia conciencia. El espacio interior de la mente y el espacio exterior del mundo físico se combinan y recombinan una y otra vez, tanto para narrar momentos de pura y placentera inacción como para trasladarnos a lo que parecen (casi) otros mundos. Cada sección exprime al máximo la versatilidad de voces y estilos de Mitchell, llevándonos hasta la Segunda Guerra Mundial a través de unos diarios o hasta un mundo de pura fantasía a través de la lectura de unos cuentos por parte de Eiji. Y aunque no siempre funciona del todo (la quinta sección es un poco pesada), la búsqueda de Eiji se engalana de hermosas texturas oníricas que dan una nueva experiencia a un viaje de crecimiento que ya conocemos.

Intertextualidad y guiños
Como en la mayoría de las obras del Mitchellverse, existe un todo, una especie de mantra que podemos repetir una y otra vez: todo esta conectado de alguna manera, incluso si no sabemos como ni por qué. Una excusa, que guía muchos de los guiños y apariciones de diferentes formas en las distintas obras de Mitchell (aquí tenemos una aparición tangencial a Escritos fantasma o una obra que aparece en El bosque del cisne negro) que sirve también para dar sentido al viaje de Eiji. Por que más allá de la búsqueda de un padre, la historia de Eiji en Tokio es un proceso de maduración y de superación de un trauma ocurrido en el pasado. Un trauma que va saliendo a la luz en pequeñas píldoras a través de sus propias fantasías y que nos deja entrever el camino para su sanación. Un camino repleto de conexiones y coincidencias inesperadas, de aventuras y personajes delirantes que dan un nuevo significado a su vida.

Sin embargo, la intertextualidad va un paso más allá en number9dream. La numerología obsesiva con el número nueve (¡incluso es el número de silabas del apellido de su abuelo!) que no para de repetirse durante toda la novela, hasta en el número de capítulos. Al igual que en la canción de Lennon #9dream ('What it in a dream, was it just a dream?'), o la mención de Norwegian Wood, tanto de la canción de The Beatles como de la novela del japonés Haruki Murakami con la que comparte muchos vínculos; desde la mujer que escribe cartas desde un psiquiátrico como de la mención de eventos durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Todo puede llevarnos a la conclusión de que el viaje de Eiji sea más un enriquecedor sueño de Resines repleto de significado vital que otra cosa, dadas las alocadas peripecias de su viaje y las extrañas repeticiones aritméticas que rodean su historia. Nada esta claro en ningún momento, y ya solo por eso (y mucho más) number9dream es una de las novelas más juguetonas de coming-of-age que puedes leer.

Reseña en el blog: https://boywithletters.blogspot.com/2...

Number9dream is infectious--I had trouble putting it down. David Mitchell has incredible story telling ability, and I admire the skill and fieldwork in a different country necessary to make this novel a reality.
I was disappointed with the Yakuza plot turn. The violence was as overwritten as the descriptions of the main protagonists first two cups of coffee. This additive in the story felt hackneyed, especially given the turn towards a kamakazi-ish diary entry later (this, however, deserves some accolades: Mitchell did his homework, knew the history and portrayed a side that is seldom discussed in war: a soldier who understands their role in a broader machine, a mechanism whose end does not match the net gain. I admire this frank discussion.)
I understand, however, the narrative coherence provided by cliche 'yakuza' gang violence blahblahaddsensationalismhere; and the story should not be discounted.

Personally, I like it when Mitchell takes a lot of different stories and connects them cleverly. This means my fave books of his are Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlas and the wonderful Bones Clocks. Number9dream is a rather straight story about a boy who wants to find his father but discovers that his search is meshed with Japanese history and mythology. Think of a more complex Catcher in the Rye (even that had complex moments)

My problems is that there were way too many red herrings, practically every clue leads to some sort of detour and I found that frustrating at times and hindered the story's progress but the ending is beautiful and I was surprised that Mitchell can be evocative when he wants to. Maybe not the best Mitchell novel but a strong one and definitely one a Mitchell beginner should read.

Poslední Mitchell, který mi zbýval k dočtení. Vlastně jsem si ho šetřila na horší časy, protože moje adorace autora Atlasu Mraků skoro nezná mezí. Jeho knihy jsem přelouskala rychle, a najednou zjistila, že ten geniální bídák už jich víc nenapsal. Cítíla jsem se zklamaná ještě víc, než kdybych zjistila, že jsem v zamyšlení právě dojedla poslední sušenku z toho nejlepšího balíčku sušenek na světě a nenechala si ji prozíravě na později.
Mitchell vlastně napsal ještě jednu novelu, jejíž vydání ale naplánoval až zhruba za sto let a tohle rozhodnutí mi málem zlomilo srdce. Další kniha má přijít až někdy v létě 2020.

Number9dream mi dal asi zatím ze všech Mitchellových knih zabrat nejvíc. Hustý, hutný a neuvěšitelně košatý a imaginativní text odehrávající se v Japonsku, prokládaný sny, vzpomínkami a uhozenými představami hlavního hrdiny není úplně jednohubka. To ale není žádná Mitchellova práce. Kromě fakt praštěných snových pasáží, které můžou do velké míry evokovat Murakamiho, se vám ale dostane i civilního příběhu, kdy opuštěný vesnický kluk v Tokiu pátrá po svém otci, nechtěně se zamotá do tarantinovsky krvavého vyřizování účtů uvnitř Jakuzy a často se prostě a jednoduše snaží přežít - úplně sám - v anonymním tokijském mraveništi.

Pokaždé, když čtu Mitchella, závidím mu tu obří výrazovou košatost, fantazii a spisovatelskou řemeslnost. Pane jo, co bych dala za to, umět takhle psát! Jediná věc, která mě utěšuje je, že mistrovi se zatím nevyrovná žádný ze současných etablovaných autorů.