The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

This week I turned back into an adult, and read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet. It's fantastic, plain and simple. The novel is set in shogun-ruled Japan in 1799, and details the experiences of a clerk in the Dutch East India Company, Jacob DeZoet. But the book is so much more than the story of this one character. The author, David Mitchell (who was Man Booker Prize nominee for Cloud Atlas), manages to combine a page-turning suspense novel with a fascinating history lesson on imperial Japan, Dutch colonialism, and life in the 18th century, all rolled into one. Mitchell's writing is absolutely gorgeous, but beyond that, his pacing of the novel is fantastic. I couldn't put it down. And what's not to love about learning major history in so painless a package? Loved, loved, loved this book. My only two quibbles are that occasionally I mixed up some of the minor characters (some of the Dutch and Japanese names and their characters weren't easily distinquishable), and at the end, Mitchell feels the need to sum up. I hate summing up. But those two gripes aside, this is a novel worth reading at least a couple of times.
And if you like this one, have a go at The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng. It is equally terrific.