One more book by David Mitchell that i just finished.

This book is definitely different to his first three books in that it’s semi auto-biographical.   David is a stammerer and uses this book as his kind of coming out statement by creating a protagonist, 13 year old Jason Taylor, who is also a stammerer.

Jason lives in the nothing-much-happening-at-all village of Black Swan Green in Worcestershire (wherever Worcestershire is), and the book is written in 13 chapters each representing one month from January 1982 to January 1983.

One of the things that stands out most about this book is the utter lack of politically-correct words and views.   Prior to the 1990’s in the UK, we had no concept of political-correctness whatsoever.   Back then, children with defects and disabilities were hounded, abused and bullied: i know because back in the 60’s and 70’s i was a child living with a serious, life threatening disability or, as we were officially termed at the time, “invalid”.   It’s quite incredible now to think back to how society used to view people with disabilities: just simply dismissed, throughout society, as invalid human beings.

Driven by the invalid terminology with which we were all officially labelled, there was simply no concept whatsoever in the general population of disability discrimination being seen as anything wrong: it was completely socially acceptable.   I was 17 in 1982 — the year this story is set — and the way things were back then were very different to today.   We had never heard of dyslexia, for example, and children who couldn’t read or write well were just branded as retarded, stupid idiots, segregated into remedial classes and generally shunned.   For David Mitchell growing up with a speech defect back then i can imagine that life would not have been easy at all for a 13 year boy — which is what this book tells the story of.

But i have to say, this is an excellent look at life back in the early 80’s in general.   The views of the school children that David writes about really take the reader back in time so vividly, especially for those of us who were teenagers back in the late 70’s early 80’s.

So i definitely recommend this book to anyone who was a teenager back then, especially if they had any kind of disability: having been a child with a disability back then i found this book very cathartic.   I would also recommend it to all teenagers today, especially those who think that people’s disabilities and differences are invites to be bullied and abused and to be thought of as being lesser people, or even non-people.   I would even go so far as to say that this book would be an excellent book for GCSE English: it would certainly make children think about a few things that they should be thinking about.   And most certainly, it would be far more socially constructive for the next generation to be reading books like this than reading ever more shakespeare and dickens which have never done anything, at all, to improve our society.

Anyway, well worth a read.

Next up in the story line from David is The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

David’s Page

#davidmitchell

All i can say is if you’ve watched the film and haven’t read the book then you’re missing out on something special.   Go read the book, the film is utter shite.

For those who don’t know, the book is a set of six short stories that all interconnect with each other, but here’s the thing, is that you get halfway through the first short when you are dumped into the second.   Then, halfway through that you are dumped into the third.   This goes on until you read all the way through the sixth one and come back down to the second half of the fifth, fourth, and so on until you finish the second half of the first story and reach the end.   Amazing climax!!!!   Literary orgasm!!!   Superb read!!!!

I really like this six shorts in one with ties between thing.   It’s definitely a thing, albeit rather rare.   It’s certainly something that i want more of.

What Lot’s Wife Saw is also a 6 part book.   Instead of short stories it’s about 6 letters all being intertwined into one story.   Admittedly a lot different to Cloud Atlas, but still the six come together to make the whole.

So anyways, if anyone reading this knows of any other books that are a collection of 6 intertwined narratives that make the whole (i won’t complain if its 5 or 7 so don’t be too picky ), please let me know as i’m really enjoying this genre of writing.

David’s Page

#davidmitchell

David Mitchell’s first book, and what a masterpiece of a short story collection it is.

I’ve now got Number9Dream, also by David, lined up, then i plan to read the rest of David’s books in order and when David’s added a few more to the pile i’ll definitely be coming back to re-read them all over again from the beginning.

I’m definitely a huge fan of David’s writing and can truly see why he’s been shortlisted with two books for the Booker Prize already and has won other awards for his writing also.

I’ve added a comment down below this post which is a little bit of a spoiler, and if you are definitely going to read the book then do that before scrolling down there as you’ll spoil it.   Then, when you’ve read the book, come back and read the spoiler and let me know what you thought.

David’s Page

#davidmitchell

 
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In a similar way to Cloud Atlas each short story is subtly interconnected as you move from one to the next.   But whereas in Cloud Atlas, where each story is a jump through time, in Ghostwritten one is left with this weird feeling of the oddest synchronicity.

The image i’m left with in my head after reading this book is that of the never ending stairs:

It really is an incredible piece of writing and a wonderful use of short stories.   I do plan to read it again, so i’ll update this post if i have a different idea of it after a second reading as i’ll already know where i’ll end up when i start the book so it’ll be a whole different experience — ergo my spoiler alert.

So have a read and see what you think at the end — or maybe that should be when you get back to the beginning.