The best decision I made this year was to pick up a blue-and-white book called "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet".
I bought it purely on spec – one of those moments when impulse and intuition merged in total unison.
Women kill for those moments, by the way, when shopping for shoes and dresses and they will tell you they occur very rarely, judging by the items they have in their closet.
The cover showed a Japanese-style painting of ships, houses and birds surrounded by a blue sea. It said, David Mitchell, author of "Cloud Atlas". I had heard of him, have yet to read "Cloud Atlas" (which I now must) and I picked it up instantly.
The book cover arrested me, the title intrigued me, the reviews, on the back cover, were glowing.
I am also proud to say that I bought it long before it caught the attention of the general public – and now I can’t open the newspapers or go online without reading something about David Mitchell and Jacob de Zoet.
You see, it’s now had its American release – and that’s the tipping point for any novel to go viral, in e-speak.
Dave Eggers, calling Mitchell "the real deal", says of the book, "…it’s not an easy book, period. Its pacing can be challenging, and its idiosyncracies are many. But it offers innumerable rewards for the patient reader and confirms Mr Mitchell as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive".
I concur with "fascinating" and "fearless".
More than a month after I finished it, I am still longing for the world he created – late 18th century Japan during the Edo period – and feeling for the characters he brought so vividly to life, the earnest, honest but bumbling (in love) Jacob de Zoet and his love interest, the scarred, educated and brave midwife, Miss Abigawa.
The opening chapter was enough to hook me for good, describing a delivery in such vivid detail that you are left in no doubt about Mitchell’s ability to paint pictures with his words. And in case, your imagination still needs help, there are Japanese-inspired illustrations in the book to encapsulate what his words so beautifully capture.
It apparently took him 10 years to write this book. At dinner last week, I recommended it to a friend. "How does one take 10 years to write a book?" was his first question.
This is, I suppose, unheard of in today’s world of instant everything. Look at the "Twilight" series – or should we call it "Tweetlight" – in which the author, Stephanie Meyer, churned out book after book for vampire-hungry teenage girls, which then became movie after movie. Even the actor, Robert Pattinson, is getting sick of playing the alabaster-skinned vampire, Edward.
"Thousand Autumns" feels like it took 10 years to write – it’s rich in detail, context, romance, history and adventure. And if I could, I would take 10 years to read it because finishing it meant I had to leave his world behind.
Its historical detail could only be possible through deep research and its bold narrative structure could only be built over time, with a lot of thought, love and care – and I suppose, countless revisions.
It’s like a house. Do you build it to last or are you putting up a tent?
"Thousand Autumns" is a book built to last – 1,000 years later, this will be a book that will be treasured. As for Twilight, well, that will just disappear into the ether, just like the billions of tweets that are pushed out there each day.
