Booking It: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Dejima and everything it stood for is at the heart of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. This novel by David Mitchell, best known for writing Cloud Atlas, is set at the turn of the 19th century, in a secluded and suspicious Japan. Dejima, a small, man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki that functioned as a Dutch trading post, was the sole point of contact between Japan and the Western world. Mitchell’s novel explores the lives of all who came in contact with it: Dutch traders and clerks, Japanese interpreters and magistrates, students, soldiers, sailors, scholars and more. Dejima leaves none of them untouched. Thousand Autumns portrays it as a point of collision between cultures, ideas and values with complicated outcomes.

Although the novel centers on its eponymous character, Jacob de Zoet is only one person in a sea of backstories and parallel plots and action. Mitchell creates rich, unique stories and personalities for his characters that enliven the story as a whole. A large portion of the middle of the book barely even mentions de Zoet, focusing instead on two of his Japanese friends: Ogawa Uzaemon and Aibagawa Orito.

The book begins a little slowly, and if I had not thoroughly enjoyed Cloud Atlas I may have been turned off of it. However, I had faith in Mitchell’s writing and ability to surprise, so I persevered, though I floundered a little in the sea of Dutch and Japanese names. Jacob de Zoet arrives in Dejima to make his fortune so that he may marry his fiancée back home with her father’s consent. His particular mission is to aid his superior,

Vorstenbosch, in rooting out the corruption and underhanded trading that is running rampant in Dejima. His struggle to remain true to his morality and principles in a sea of greedy traders is a driving force in the novel, and what held my interest in the beginning of the book. The other part of his storyline, an infatuation with Japanese medical student Aibagawa Orito, I found trite and frankly annoying. They have few, brief interactions that did not, to me, merit his ardor, although I could understand his interest.

As the characters moved into separate storylines and Mitchell developed them apart from one another, I found they were both wonderfully interesting characters to read. I never quite reconciled myself to de Zoet’s love for Aibagawa, but it was only one thread of a complicated tangle of plots and subplots. Mitchell built the suspense and mystery, weaving this tangle expertly, and once I was approximately a third of the way through I was devouring every word. The novel pulls you in with constant new perspectives and pieces of backstory and agonizingly difficult decisions for the characters. That I was annoyed by de Zoet’s hasty and perhaps contrived ardor for Aibagawa hardly mattered at the end, because I found myself thoroughly enjoying each and every character regardless, holding my breath at cliffhangers and desperately captivated by question “What will happen next?”

I hesitate to reduce this novel to any particular theme or maxim because it is so rich and so intricate. However, I said that Dejima and everything it once stood for is at the heart of Thousand Autumns because if the novel is about any one thing, it is finding one’s place in a different and unexpected life. The island represented a point of contact, an exchange of ideas and goods and a collision of cultures and values. It was at once valuable and dangerous. It presented opportunities, but fostered corruption. Yet it fostered loyalty also. For Jacob de Zoet, Dejima appears to him almost as a prison sentence at the beginning, and in carving out his existence there he finds he carves out a much richer life than he had hoped for or imagined. The Dutch and the Japanese are almost always at odds with one another, from the prohibition against any markers of Christianity such as crosses or Bibles, to the threatening Dutch ultimatums against the Japanese. However, despite all this, they persist in working together and find a commonality in the desire for trade. With that commonality, they endure the difficulties and isolation of Dejima, and sometimes they even forge friendships. It is these wary yet powerful friendships that bring the novel to life. It is exquisitely emotional. You are never entirely sure who to trust while reading it, but you do always know that you feel deeply for them, one way or another.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is an unexpectedly moving story, full of characters more complicated and thought-provoking than you initially think. It delves into a strange, untold corner of the past where Mitchell picks apart a knot of contrasting cultures. It is fascinating, dangerous and definitely worth a read.