Number9dream

by David Mitchell

Book Overview

By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

"A novel as accomplished as anything being written."--Newsweek

Number9Dream is the international literary sensation from a writer with astonishing range and imaginative energy--an intoxicating ride through Tokyo's dark underworlds and the even more mysterious landscapes...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812966929
• ISBN13: 9780812966923
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Piquant slice of modern Japan.

The Story: The book begins with a Japanese youth sitting in a coffee shop contemplating the colossal building that he has been staring at for who knows how long. Eiji Miyake, the son of a prostitute, his mother went into rehab when he was young and he never met his father except in the dreams of adolescents. Growing up on a rural Japanese island with his extended family Eiji lost his twin sister and became alone in the world. The book begins as he moves to Tokyo in search of his missing father. The search gets him entangled with the yakuza (Japanese Mafia) and leads him to the love of his life. Ai, the girl he falls in love with, shows him what true strength is. When her parents threaten to disown her if she pursues a musical career in Paris, she chooses the City of Light at the cost of her parents. Eiji's love for Ai and his own risks and brushes with disaster eventually teach him that not all dreams are worth dying for, and that a young man learns his identity by making his own complex choices, not by trying to recapture the past. Does he ever find his father? Can he reconcile with his mother and come to terms with the death of his sister? Are we all living in a dream or reality and is there really a difference? If you are brave, read and puzzle it out for yourself. Comments: Number9Dream can be a challenging read at times, particularly when passages within each chapter go out of sequence and some real events spiral off into Caulfield-esque fantasies, but there is just enough consistency in the plot to keep you hooked. The plot is often broken up by, stories, flashbacks, daydreams (the first hundred pages?), and more (one of my favorites is the journal of a World War 2 suicide submarine pilot) which makes for an interesting, although confusing read. The novel takes a great deal of contemplation to understand, and even more to fully process. By the end of the book, you cannot tell what the truths are and what the daydreams of Miyake are. He is not Murakami, but fans of his will love Mitchell's nature to deal with dreams and reality as if they were interchangeable (the point being that there may be no difference at all). The author does not hide the fact that Murakami is a large influence in the novel. Mitchell seems to want uninitiated readers to seek Murakami out, knowing that he is only an acolyte. If you love trippy novels that make the average, normal persons life seem somehow magical, than you will love this. My only advice would be, do not give up on the book. The first 100 pages are quite difficult to get through; much of it is daydreaming and initially the difference between the dreams and reality is hard to discern. Pros: Trippy dreamlike quality, compelling story. Pure escapism. Cons: If'ya don't like creative use of language-the first 100-pages will seem like a bad acidtrip.

Favorite Book from my Favorite Author

DESPITE WHAT YOU MAY HAVE HEARD I love the condescension of this book's reviewers. Most of them see fit to deem Mitchell's novel as 'ambitious', that he was far too clever for his own good, but not quite clever enough for them. One reader was barely able to compel himself through the first 60 pages, but was still able to deduce that Mitchell's work was in this instance "fundamentally masturbatory" (I have no idea what book this guy was reading). A FANTASTIC READ If you want to read an excellent novel, I would hate to have you be dissuaded by numbskulls with a hazy grasp on the definition of the term 'disjointed.' For a novel that "challenges the defintion[sic] of plotting" the narrative thread is marvelously clear. It is, at its core, a book about a boy searching for his father. But more than that, its a book about a boy's life and everything that fits into that life: what he's thinking, where he comes from, what he wants. I KNOW YOU'LL LIKE IT I think reviewers who gave this book 3 stars or less had difficulty with the novel because in Number9dream Mitchell deals in the fabric and machinery of human imagination, how it compels us through the mundane, how it propels us through our fears, and how some of us are driven to nurture it, to stoke its fires and, at times, to give ourselves over to its power. So if you are not willing to surrender, if briefly, to imagination, this is not the novel for you. But otherwise, give it a chance, let yourself go, and for God's sake love this book. I do. Here is my previous review for this book: I read this novel in preparation for Mitchell's latest, "Cloud Atlas", and was totally in awe of the depth of his insights, the eagerness of his narrative, and the beauty of his characters (among my favorites: Pithecanthropus, the tender neanderthal in the service of his secret love, and Kusakabe, the anti-war kaiten pilot on the eve of his suicide mission). On the ending: I have heard a lot of grumbling. Personally, I finished the novel at 2am (an hour when I couldn't be sure I wasn't dreaming myself) and went to bed frustrated, maddened, making plans to hunt Mitchell down and slap him a couple times. In the morning though, I was awakened to its simplistic and absolute genius. It was perfect because A) it was not a sludge of sappinness pandering to the most obvious emotional responses the novel had been building throughout (writers, take note) and B) it was marvelously descriptive of a quintessential human experience, without overtly being a description. Is the novel challenging? Yes, but not in the sense of confusing the reader, as some previous reviewers have intimated. Rather, it challenges perception, death, purpose, and the very mechanisms of modern life. All that, and it is supremely enjoyable, brilliant, really really good, funny, smart, genius, flying, and running. So delve inside number9dream, be carried by its venerable rhythms to your own violent waking...

4 & 1/2 stars, actually.

He is not Murakami, but fans of his will love Mitchell's nature to deal with dreams and reality as if they were interchangeable (the point being that there may be no difference at all). The author does not hide the fact that Murakami is a large influence in the novel. Mitchell seems to want uninitiated readers to seek Murakami out, knowing that he is only an acolyte. If you love trippy novels that make the average, normal persons life seem somehow magical, than you will love this. My only advice would be to not give up on the book. The first 100 pages are quite difficult to get through; a lot of it is daydreaming and initially the difference between the dreams and reality is hard to discern. I highly recommend this novel!

Be patient!

First of all, most of the other reviewers comments are true, even the comments of those who hated the book. Here's the scoop: Number9Dream is brilliant and moving, occasionally violent and shocking, and almost never boring. The scenes involving "Goatwriter" are everything you might imagine from what you have heard. They are puzzling. They are a distraction from the main story. They are also quite funny in their way. Be advised that these scenes do not pop inexplicably out of the ether, as you might assume from the other reviews posted here. The main character, Eiji, is hiding from those who might kill him, and he stumbles upon the text of a story. To bide his time, he reads this story about Goatwriter. It's odd, but it fits. Most importantly, readers who wade through that short section will find they've enjoyed one of the most satisfying novels they've read in a very long time.

Dazzling Dream

Twenty-year-old Eiji Miyake travels to the hyperkinetic, frenetic city of Tokyo in this second novel by David Mitchell, the English expatriate author of 'Ghostwritten' who lives in Hiroshima, Japan. Eiji-san has come to Tokyo to discover the identity of his long-lost father, and it's this quest that propels the narrative through the twists and turns, bumps and bells of its pachinko machine-driven plot. Eiji-san can only control the speed at which he plays this game of life that often slips over into the surreal; otherwise he haphazardly bounces around Tokyo and its environs, bumping into random people who befriend him and betray him.Mr. Mitchell readily admits that he has been much influenced by Haruki Murakami ('The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,' 'Sputnik Sweetheart') and Don DeLillo ('Underworld,' 'White Noise,' 'The Body Artist') in writing 'number9dream.' Readers who are fond of these two authors and their works will love this book. The title, 'number9dream,' echoes the fascination that John Lennon had for the number nine; his 1974 song '#9 Dream' peaked at '9' on the charts. ('So long ago / Was it in a dream, was it just a dream? / I know, yes I know / Seemed so very real, it seemed so real to me.')The story begins: 'It is a simple matter. I know your name, and you knew mine, once upon a time: Eiji Miyake. Yes, that Eiji Miyake. We are both busy people, Ms Kato, so why not cut the small talk? I am in Tokyo to find my father. You know his name and his address. And you are going to give me both. Right now.' Or something like that.' Yes, something like that, because it's not such a simple matter after all. Slipping into the surreal, the realm of sci fi and phantasmagoria, Eiji Miyake soon inhabits a parallel universe. He goes about his day-to-day affairs, yet the narrative glides onto a giant turntable where the record that's playing repeats 'number nine . . . number nine . . . number nine.' Eiji's quest leads him into the underbelly of the Tokyo scene, where he encounters the Yakusa. Does his father have a connection to the Yakusa? The origin of the Yakusa - Japanese for 'they without worth to society' - can be traced back to 1612; they were masterless samurai, ronin, wandering robber bands, who, after the industrialization of Japan, have transformed themselves into Armani-suited gangsters, who some call the Japanese Mafia. The code of the Yakusa and the structure of their organization is complex, but David Mitchell navigates their terrain with consummate skill. After Eiji-san has met up with the Yakusa, he is then warned that he 'must persuade himself that tonight was another man's nightmare into which you accidentally strayed.' Yet the reality of Eiji Miyake's life is haunted and tainted by nightmares and dreams as he time-travels from his cozy capsule in Tokyo to his grandmother's home on the foggy island of Yakushima. In these flashbacks, he confronts ghosts and thunder gods while he seeks clues to the mystery-shrouded death of his twin sister,