The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

A Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet has been sitting on our kindle since Dave downloaded and read it during last winter's travels. I have been put off by its brick-thick-ness as I'm not a great fan of books that take ages to read. However, our last few days in Almenara allowed me lots of lazing time so I finally got stuck in. I've read David Mitchell before and liked Black Swan Green, but Thousand Autumns is a more serious novel. It does provide a fascinating glimpse into the bizarre crossover world of Dutch traders in - or at least very nearly in - 1800s Japan. The society with which these few Europeans wish to trade is closed, proud and rigidly governed, yet at the same time corrupt, misogynistic and seemingly stuck in a Medieval timewarp with regards to its technology. The reverse xenophobia of the Japanese officials being unable to tell European nationalities apart was a neat touch and I enjoyed reading about Dejima life and the day-to-day interactions between its residents. Descriptions of the buildings and courtly rituals are well presented and interesting. However, I couldn't buy in to the Ogiwa storyline and found it too bizarre. No doubt Mitchell's research would have uncovered a similar situation within the Japan of the time, but for me, the love triangle followed by the quests to rescue and avenge just didn't ring true.

It is so funny when you find the same character in two different books yet in two different registers. It is good to meet them again, it is like re-encountering an old acquaintance. This historical novel has this and that – merchants, scribers, nuns, samurais, captains, the rich, the dispossed, all so full of life, some even bigger than life. All bring to our attention issues like loyalty, honesty, corruption, fear, bravery, lust, eligion. How unthinkably big power can get to be, yet how it can be defeated when enough people are determined to fight for justice and space for love no matter what.

I found especially touching how, when the main character seemingly looses all because he refuses to be corrupted, he gains the simpathy and respect of all around him (except his bosses) all who again seemed ruthless and selfish at the beginning. May be that is why I loved it, because it gives us the triumph of good over evil that we all long for, in such a logical terms, like it is the natural thing to happen because alongside this triumph we have witnessed human and natural miseries too.
And I thought the epilogue touching and emotional, not unnecessary at all.

It is so funny when you find the same character in two different books yet in two different registers. It is good to meet them again, it is like re-encountering an old acquaintance. This historical novel has this and that – merchants, scribers, nuns, samurais, captains, the rich, the dispossed, all so full of life, some even bigger than life. All bring to our attention issues like loyalty, honesty, corruption, fear, bravery, lust, eligion. How unthinkably big power can get to be, yet how it can be defeated when enough people are determined to fight for justice and space for love no matter what.

I found especially touching how, when the main character seemingly looses all because he refuses to be corrupted, he gains the simpathy and respect of all around him (except his bosses) all who again seemed ruthless and selfish at the beginning. May be that is why I loved it, because it gives us the triumph of good over evil that we all long for, in such a logical terms, like it is the natural thing to happen because alongside this triumph we have witnessed human and natural miseries too.
And I thought the epilogue touching and emotional, not unnecessary at all.

It's been a long time since I was so endeared of historical fiction as with this book. I thought it was quite outstanding, a beautiful story.

Jacob de Zoet is a Dutch clerk who comes to Japan in the last year of the 18th century, to make his fortune in five years, so that he can marry his girlfriend Anna. He is sent to Dejima on Nagasaki island along with his his boss to investigate the corruption of the local Dutch trading company. Dejima was the single place of trade between Japan and the outside world until 1854. Shocked by the amount of corruption he finds among the Dutch stationed in Dejima, Jacob falls in love with Orito, a Japanese midwife who is training with the Dutch Dr. Marinus. When Orito's father dies, she falls into the hands of the mysterious Lord Abbott Enomoto. I don't want to describe any more in fear of spoiling it. The book is set in five parts, with the bulk of it happening in the years 1799 and 1800. While the first parts focus on Jacob's live in the trading post, our perspective later switches to Orito, the translator Ogawa, and even the magistrate. I thought it was a fascinating insight into the Edo period of Japan, its isolation, and the consequences for those Europeans who still sat it out in Asia, sometimes not hearing anything from home for years.

It was beautifully written, though I think it's probably not to everyone's tastes. Very descriptive. The cast is huge, and yet I found I knew something about all of them, be it the slaves and servants of the Dutch, to the intrigues amongst the translators, and the magistrate's court.

TLDR: loved the book, a lovely historical novel, would read again.