 UK First edition cover | |
| Author | David Mitchell |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Semi-autobiographical, Bildungsroman novel |
| Publisher | Random House |
Publication date | April 2006 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 294 pp (first edition, paperback) |
| ISBN | 1-4000-6379-5 (first edition, paperback) |
| OCLC | 61513194 |
| 823/.92 22 | |
| LC Class | PR6063.I785 B58 2006 |
Black Swan Green is a semi-autobiographical novel written by David Mitchell, published in April 2006 in the U.S. and May 2006 in the UK. The bildungsroman's thirteen chapters each represent one month—from January 1982 through January 1983—in the life of 13-year-old Worcestershire boy Jason Taylor. The novel is written from the perspective of Taylor and employs many teen colloquialisms and popular-culture references from early-1980s England.
Mitchell has the speech disorder of stammering, [1] and noted in 2011, "I'd probably still be avoiding the subject today had I not outed myself by writing a semi-autobiographical novel, Black Swan Green, narrated by a stammering 13 year old."[1]
YouTube Encyclopedic
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David Mitchell, Part 1 | July 14, 2010 | Appel Salon
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James Merrill reads "The Black Swan"
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David Mitchell, Part 4 | July 14, 2010 | Appel Salon
Transcription
[blank] [applause] Randy Boyagoda: Thank you. I think it's safe to say that the excitement in the room this evening, the buzz around this event in recent days comes from an obvious source. One writer's brilliance of storytelling, his boldness of imagination, and his awe-inspiring literary ambitions. That said, I'm admittedly surprised that you've all seen such greatness in only my first novel. [laughter] RB: And the rather brief description of my second... And I'd like to take the rest of this evening to tell you about my second novel, no. Instead of saying more about that, I myself would much rather hear one of the world's greatest contemporary writers, David Mitchell, discuss his latest feat of fiction, "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet". David Mitchell was born in Lancashire, England and currently lives in West Cork, Ireland with his family. Between these coordinates, he's lived elsewhere, perhaps most notably in Japan, the setting of his new book and some of its predecessors. And indeed, it's on the evidence of Mitchell's work so far, five novels, translated into some 19 languages that fellow writers, critics, readers and prized juries alike continue to praise him for the brilliance and boldness of his writing. RB: Indeed, in 2007 Time Magazine named him the lone novelist to its list of the world's 100 most influential people. Mitchell's writing is so admired and indeed important because it's technical wizardry and aesthetic showmanship for which he receives abundant praise are always in service of compulsively readable storytelling and, at its best moments these are his means of revealing, in strange places and stranger still ways, nothing less than the universals of human experience. This evening we have the pleasure of hearing from David Mitchell directly in discussion about the universals of human experience he reveals in turn of the 18th century Japan, when a young devout Dutch clerk named Jacob de Zoet arrives at Dejima, a man-made island off Nagasaki that is occupied by the Dutch East Indies Company. Soon after arriving, Jacob finds himself immersed in a world of intrigue, corruption, power politics, ritual, religion, and forbidden love, elements that intertwine and intensify as Jacob's story and the story of Orito Aibagawa, the Japanese midwife he falls in love with, develop. Before we sit down and have a conversation about this wondrous novel, we are very fortunate that David has offered to give us a reading from it. And so without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, David Mitchell. [applause] David Mitchell: Thank you very much indeed and thank you for sacrificing your beautiful, beautiful evening to come and listen to me. And thank you for those wonderful introductions as well. I've recorded them and when I'm having bad days I'll just replay them on my i-Pod. And whenever I hear that Time Magazine 100 most influential people thing referenced, I can still hear the laughter of scorn from both my mother and my wife. [laughter] DM: My wife helpfully pointed out that I'm not even the most influential person in the house. [laughter] DM: There are four of us in our immediate household and I... We worked it out and I have to admit she's right. I came in at number five after the washing machine, so it's really nice that Time Magazine sort of gave me that accolade but talk about a reality gap. Anyway, I'm going to do a brief reading from here. I think I'll just jump straight in and interrupt myself as and when. DM: Picking slugs from the cabbages with a pair of chopsticks, Jacob notices a ladybird on his right hand. He makes a bridge for it with his left which the insect obligingly crosses. Jacob repeats the exercise several times. "The ladybird believes," he thinks, "she's on a momentous journey but she's going nowhere." He pictures an endless sequence of bridges between skin covered islands over voids and wonders if an unseen force is playing the same trick on him. Until a woman's voice dispels his reverie. "Mr. Da Zuto." DM: Jacob removes his bamboo hat and stands up, and Ms. Aibagawa's face eclipses the sun. "I beg pardon to disturb". Surprise, guilt, nervousness, Jacob feels many things. She notices the ladybird on his thumb. "Tentomushi". And in his eagerness to comprehend, he mishears, "Obentomushi." "Obentomushi is luncheon-box bug," she smiles. "This," she indicates ladybird, "is a tentomushi." "Tentomushi," he says, and she nods like a pleased teacher. Her deep blue summer kimono and white head scarf lend her a nun's air. They're not alone. The inevitable guard stands by the garden gate. Guard, garden, they clash, don't they? Guard and garden. Michael, we're gonna have to organize a product recall here, that says, "By the garden door," it's gonna have to be now. Some things like that, of course, lots you can get by reading, but only if you read that one aloud could you ever notice it. So I would have had to have read all 500 pages in my hut, just as God no, God, too late now. [laughter] DM: Jacob tries to ignore him, the guard. "It's ladybird in Dutch, gardener's friend." "Anna would like you", he thinks, looking into her face. "Anna would like you." Anna is his fiancee back at home in Zeeland. She's of a higher social class, so the prospective father-in-law has said that he can only ask for her hand in marriage if he goes out east for five years to earn his fortune, thinking that's a nice way to get rid of the young guy. The gardener's friend, because ladybirds eat greenfly. Jacob raises his thumb to his lips and blows. The ladybird flies all of three feet to the scarecrow's face. She adjusts the scarecrow's hat as a wife might. "How you call him?" "It's a scarecrow in Dutch to scare crows away, but this one's name is Robespierre. [laughter] DM: Warehouse is Warehouse Oak. I love this about the Dutch. They named their warehouses the same way we name ships, and it's says something, one of the quite interesting about the Dutch psyche, I think, a good thing about the Dutch psyche, of course. "Monkey is William Pitt. Why scarecrow is Robespierre?" "It's because his head falls off when the wind changes." [laughter] DM: It's sort of a dark joke. "Joke is secret language," she frowns, "inside words." Jacob decides against referring to the fan until she does. It would appear at least that she's not offended or angered. The fan... This is just the third encounter they've had. The first encounter, when they first met, he was working in a warehouse, she ran in after a monkey that had run away with a poor sailor's amputated limb. It's a long story, it kind of made sense at the time. [laughter] DM: It's really hard to get them to meet because Dejima is just sort of... This place, it's a man-made island in Nagasaki harbour where, as you heard in the introduction, the Dutch East Indiies Company were allowed to sort of operate a trading post. But potentially a very rich place for a novel, I thought. But then, once I started writing, I also realized it's an anti-plot device. The whole point was to prevent the unexpected. The Japanese sort of isolated it at the far western end of the country. A very small island, I say island and you might think of mountains and hills and fields. It was tiny, probably twice the size of this hall... No, three times. Very, very small. Just one street, a few warehouses, that was it. And certainly during the trading season when it was busy, every third or fourth person was a spy. DM: So how can you get them to meet? Some kind of a romantic interest, possibly budding if not blossoming and, yeah, so that was the amputated limb plot. That was one answer. Anyway, big digression. She left her fan there, he took the fan away and couldn't get her face out of his head. So he disassembled the fan, he's something of an artist, and drew her face on it and then reassembled it. And then managed to slip it to her on a later encounter, on encounter number two, and he hasn't seen her since. So as he's talking about the fan. If you're interested in the fan, then it appears later on in the book, drawn by actually my own mum, which is a bit spinal tap, isn't it, to get your mum to do the artwork but it didn't... [laughter] DM: It was great because it didn't cost me a bean, and it's great. "Mum, got a bit of a favour to ask." She used to be an artist in her former life. Anyway, that's the fan.
Plot summary
Chapter 1: January man
Jason Taylor is a 13-year-old with a stammer in the small village of Black Swan Green in Worcestershire. The first chapter starts with a rule Jason's father has: "Do not set foot in my office" and Jason breaking that rule to pick up the phone. It also introduces Jason's older sister Julia, friend Dean "Moron" Moran, popular boy Nick Yew, Gilbert "Yardy" Swinyard, Ross Wilcox and his cousin Gary Drake, golden boy student Neal Brose, tomboy Dawn Madden, Mervyn "Squelch" Hill, bully Grant Burch, local legend Tom Yew and "less shiny legend" Pluto Noak. Jason secretly publishes his poems in the Black Swan Green Parish magazine under the alias "Eliot Bolivar". Jason breaks his grandfather's expensive Omega Seamaster de Ville watch. Also, after an accident on an iced-over lake, he meets a mysterious old woman rumoured to be a witch.
Chapter 2: Hangman
Jason goes into more detail about his struggles with stammering. He then explains how his stammers affect his relationships with other people. He refers to this mental block as "hangman". He's scared to stand up and speak during the school's weekly rhetoric session, but is saved by a call from his South African speech therapist, Mrs. de Roo.
Chapter 3: Relatives
Introduces Jason's relatives who come for a visit, including cool, 15-year-old cousin Hugo Lamb (who reappears in Mitchell's later novel The Bone Clocks), who pressures Jason to try his first cigarette.
Chapter 4: Bridle path
Jason is attacked by dobermans and scolded by their owner. When he comes across he meets his classmates Kit Harris, Grant Burch, Philip Phelps and Ant Little. A fight between Burch and Wilcox ends with the former breaking his right wrist. Jason encounters Dawn Madden, a girl he has a crush on. She treats him like a dog. Escaping up a tree, Jason witnesses Tom Yew, on leave from the Navy, make love to Debby Crombie.
Chapter 5: Rocks
This chapter explores Jason's perspective on the growing British instability in the Falklands War and arguments between his mother and father. Tom Yew is killed when his ship, HMS Coventry, is bombed by Skyhawks. Eventually, a ceasefire is declared.
Chapter 6: Spooks
Jason's mother takes up an interest in running an art gallery part-time. Jason finds an invitation to join the Spooks, a local secret society made up of Noak, Burch, Swinyard, Peter Redmarley and John Tookey. Jason and Moran are challenged with making it through six back gardens in 15 minutes. Jason makes it with ten seconds to spare, but his friend Moran is injured when he falls through a greenhouse.
Chapter 7: Solarium
Jason receives an invitation from the publisher of his poems. The real benefactor is revealed to be Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck (a much younger version of whom also has a part in Cloud Atlas). She conducts sessions with him, offering constructive criticisms of his poems. Crommelynck is soon extradited as a result of her husband's financial scams in Germany.
Chapter 8: Souvenirs
Jason goes on two trips: one with his father for a work event, another with his mother to her job at Yasmin Morton-Bagot's gallery. During his trip with his father, Jason is taken to get fish and chips by Danny Lawlor, a man who works under his father at Greenland. He later meets his father's boss, Craig Salt. Jason's mother takes over as manager of Yasmin Morton-Bagot's gallery, La Boite aux Mille Surprises. Jason and his mother prevent a trio of girls stealing items from the store. His mother decides to take him to see Chariots of Fire, an act which gets noticed by people from his school.
Chapter 9: Maggot
Wilcox and Drake make fun of Jason for going to the cinema with his mother. Wilcox starts calling him "maggot", a name which grows within the school. The entire school is punished because Wilcox and his group berate a teacher. Jason meets Holly Deblin, who tells him, "You're not a maggot. Don't let dickheads decide what you are." Wilcox and his group jump Jason after school and Jason tries to stand up for himself, but fails. The bullies throw Jason's backpack atop the school bus' roof as it drives off. Jason catches up to the bus, the driver Norman Bates asks why Jason allows himself to be bullied. Bates urges that Jason attack Wilcox with a knife. Upon hearing this, Jason says that if he did he'd "get sent to Borstal." Norman Bates replies, "Life's a Borstal!"
Chapter 10: Knife grinder
A gypsy knife grinder visits Jason's house, offering his services. Jason does not let him in. Jason and his father attend a village meeting to decide what to do about a proposed gypsy encampment. After several speeches, a fire alarm is pulled, causing minor panic. Moran's father reveals to Jason that his grandfather was a gypsy. Through a series of events Jason finds himself in the gypsy camp.
Chapter 11: Goose fair
Jason finds Wilcox's lost wallet, containing six hundred pounds, at the fair. After some encounters in the fairground he decides to give it back. Wilcox breaks up with Madden and finds her sleeping with Burch. In shock, Wilcox steals Tom Yew's Suzuki and crashes it, losing part of his right leg.
Chapter 12: Disco
It is learned that Jason's father lost his job. Jason crushes Brose's calculator in a vice. After being taken to the Principal's office, Jason reveals that Brose has been running an extortion scheme intimidating other boys in his year for money. Brose is expelled. It is learned that Jason was kicked out of the Spooks. Miss Lippetts delivers a class about secrets and the ethics of revealing them. During the dance, Jason kisses Deblin. He reveals to his father that he broke the watch and his father reveals that he's been having an affair and is divorcing Jason's mother.
Chapter 13: January man
Taking place two weeks later, Jason reminisces around the village one final time before leaving. The mystery phone calls were from Jason's father's mistress, Cynthia. He has stopped writing poems for the parish magazine.
Critical reception
In 2007 the book received recognition as a Best Book for Young Adults (Alex Awards) from the American Library Association.[2] It was shortlisted for the 2006 Costa Book Awards, longlisted for the 2006 Booker Prize and was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. It was a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year, American Library Association Notable Books for Adults. It was shortlisted for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award.
Allusions/references to other works
The book contains references and characters from other works by Mitchell, as is characteristic of his novels:
- Neal Brose, a pupil at the same school as Taylor, appears as an adult in Ghostwritten.
- Eva van Crommelynck, who tutors Taylor on poetry and life, also appears in Cloud Atlas, as do references to her father, Vyvyan Ayrs, her mother, and Robert Frobisher, composer of the rare and beautiful sextet that Jason listens to while visiting her. Eva encourages Jason to read Le Grand Meaulnes - also read by Eiji in number9dream.
- Gwendolyn Bendincks, the vicar's wife at the end of "Solarium," also appears in Cloud Atlas. She is one of two residents who head the Residents' Committee at Aurora House (the home to which Denholme Cavendish sends his brother Timothy).
- Mark Badbury, a pupil at the same school as Taylor, also appears as an adult in the short story "Preface" published in the [UK] The Daily Telegraph on 29.04.06.
- Another pupil, Clive Pike (as an adult) and school headmaster Mr. Nixon (both corporeally and disembodied) appear in the short story "Acknowledgments" published in Prospect, No. 115, Oct. 2005
- School headmaster Mr. Nixon (his first name is revealed as Graham) appears in the short story 'Denouement' published in The Guardian Review section, 26.05.07, in support of the author's appearance at the Hay Festival that day.[3]
- Nicholas Briar, a pupil at the same school as Taylor, also appears as an adult in the short story "The Massive Rat"[4] published in The Guardian "Weekend" supplement on 01.08.09.
- The Castles, next-door neighbors to the Taylors, also appear as the titular character's parents in the short story "Judith Castle",[5] published in The Book of Other People on 01.02.08.
- The John Lennon song "#9 Dream", which is also the title of Mitchell's second novel, is played during the school dance.
- The character of Hugo Lamb is revisited in Mitchell's 2014 novel The Bone Clocks.
- The characters of Ross Wilcox and Dawn Madden are a married couple and Aunt and Uncle of the main character in the short story "If Wishes Was Horses" [6] published in The New York Times on 13.07.20.
References
- ^ a b "Lost for words" Archived January 4, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, David Mitchell, Prospect magazine, 23 February 2011, Issue #180
- ^ American Library Association (2007). "2007 Best Books for Young Adults". Archived from the original on 13 February 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2011.
- ^ Mitchell, David (26 May 2007). "Dénouement". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 27 January 2008. Retrieved 20 June 2007.
- ^ "David Mitchell: The Massive Rat". The Guardian. London. 1 August 2009. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 11 December 2016.
- ^ "The Book of Other People". The New York Times. 8 January 2008. Archived from the original on 30 July 2014. Retrieved 21 February 2017.
- ^ "If Wishes Was Horses". The New York Times. 13 July 2020. Archived from the original on 15 July 2020. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
Reviews
- Review of Black Swan Green: The Times (London)
- Review of Black Swan Green: The New Yorker
- Review of Black Swan Green: The New York Times
- Review of Black Swan Green: The Observer
- Review of Black Swan Green: www.thebookseller.com
This page was last edited on 8 February 2024, at 20:10