"The Soul is a Verb. Not a Noun." The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell

I just finished a terrific novel by one my favorite contemporary writers, David Mitchell. I've read all of his novels, and this, his most recent, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet is a simply astonishing historical novel, which has recently been released as a paperback. He is best known for his experimental novel Cloud Atlas 2004, which has been adapted for a  big budget theatrical release in mid-2012. More recently I read his previous novel, Black Swan Green, a coming of age novel set in rural England which is equally great. He is definitely a gifted writer, and his latest novel aptly demonstrates how hard he works at his craft.

I can only speculate as to how much research went into the creation of this novel. Clearly he has done a lot. That this book is not more celebrated may be because the story is something people at least in the US don't care to read about, a Dutch trading outpost in Japan at the end of the 18th Century. I'm very aware of his abilities so I trust his judgement. If this was being plugged as a movie perhaps someone would say, "Yeah, it's good..., but why not set it just before World War II, or why not make the title character American?". Which of course would be a silly notion to anyone who has read this book. So many themes are interwoven here, contact between two cultures, prejudice, modernization versus tradition, love and survival, honor and betrayal, language and worldviews. Intellectual ideas are bandied about in an authentic way--sometimes writers overdo this and it becomes more about them than actually furthering the story.

So it is 1799, and the capable young clerk Jacob De Zoet is arriving at Dejima, an artificial island just off the coast of Nagasaki created for Dutch traders to prevent them from having contact with the mainland. He arrives with Vorstenbosch, the new head of Dejima, sent to ferret out the evident corruption and irregularities discovered at this outpost. De Zoet is out to make a fortune for himself so that he can return to Holland and marry. You are then quickly introduced to the world of the Dutch East India Company, the people who have chosen this maritime mercantile life and who managed to survive its rigors. But early on in his tenure he becomes enchanted with a young Japanese woman who is studying medicine with Dr Marinus, the company doctor who DeZoet forms an intellectual bond with.

The setting of the novel is fascinating, Japan a few generations before its modernization phase. The Japanese obviously want some of the things that the Dutch have to offer, but they don't want them  to have any significant contact or influence on their society, ideas, mannerisms, dress. In a way Dejima is a prison, albeit a potentially lucrative one for the Dutch traders. The Dutch obviously want to trade with the Japanese, but this is not the Colonial period when the terms of trade were dictated by the West unilaterally. Human nature is funny, and in order to trade there has to be some contact. And it is natural for people to be curious. Technology, ideas about governance, and modern medicine are of interest to some of the Japanese officials and certainly Japanese society is of great interest to DeZoet and Dr Marinus. But like anything else it took a period of time and intervening events before there was a sea change in Japanese society away from cultural introspection.

I don't want to go too far with explaining this story. It is a masterfully rendered piece of historical fiction, a thumbnail sketch in some ways, but in other ways universalic. You gain a good understanding of the mercantile world and the new colonial mindset and life in pre-Modern Japan. The amazing thing is that he has created a real world here, plausible from both a European and Japanese perspective. And he uses a variety of narrators to illuminate us with different perspectives, both from the mindsets of different characters, but also from characters regaling us with their tales of how they wound up in Dejima.

So it is a love story, but it is also a bit of a horror story. I don't want to disclose the details. But the story is all so seamlessly integrated. And once you are introduced to the main characters and you are brought up to speed to Nagasaki life in 1799, the narrative takes off, and the novel quickly becomes a page turner. And there are numerous moments in this novel when the prose is simply vivid, breathtaking and transcendent. The attention to detail is similarly striking.

So do yourself a favor and read this interesting novel. It was a fascinating story and I learned some new things in the process. Then you'll want to read his back catalogue.

Happiness Is Luxury--Tunes For A Recession Mix Tape--Making Losers Happy--Xpressway Singles 1988-1991

There was a time when I was completely obsessed with New Zealand Rock. I was buying music from Flying Nun records directly. I probably would have bought a lot more, but back then it was difficult to buy things overseas. I had no idea how to get New Zealnd dollars to buy things. This was before Paypal, and before this outfits were accepting credit cards. I used to go to Pier Platters in Hoboken and go upstairs and pick through the Kiwi vinyl, of which they had an extraordinary selection. Today I wish I had bought music more blindly--I stuck to things I had heard of, mostly.

Somewhere I found out about the Xpressway label run by Dead C stalwart Bruce Russell. In a way it was an island of misfit toys for New Zealand artists who were no longer part of the Flying Nun group. After a beginning of being a diverse potpourri of worthy artists, the label was concentrating on more melodic artists. I had picked up the Peter Gutteridge tape Pure probably through a Flying Nun catalog I had and sent a later out in snail mail fashion as was popular in those days. Probably three weeks or so later I received a letter from Mr. Russell, beginning with the depressing words.

Dear Fred, Sadly, Xpressway is no more.....He went on to explain that he had founded a new label Corpus Hermeticum that would be devoted to more improvisational forms of music, in effect, going in an even less popcentric direction than Xpressway. I was disappointed as I had hoped to get some more things from their small catalog. I picked up some interesting items from CH over the years, which were fairly interesting but maybe not the sort of thing I found myself listening to repeatedly. Fortunately at least some of my Xpressway fix was sated through compilations, one of which is Making Losers Happy.

While the classic recording is the awesome Xpressway Pileup, there is much to enjoy on Making Losers Happy, which contains 14 tracks from rare singles and Eps recorded between 1988 and 1991. These recordings came out originally in batches of only 500, so this Cd is really indispensable to any fan of New Zealand music. This comp was released in the US on the musically adventurous and eclectic Drag City label out of Chicago. A great grouping of innovative artists are represented here, who create challenging music that never fails to be interesting.

The album begins strongly with a fairly tuneful (for them) Bad Politics by the Dead C, one of the great noisy experimental bands of New Zealand. A fairly grim pop tune with a nice driving beat to it. Russell, Michael Morley and Robbie Yeats have two others here also, one of which, Angel, is a favorite of mine. "Turn off the sun, and dance, forever..." A slow insular stoned out beginning descends into white noise and hypnotic drum patterns. A song of pure noisy beauty. Crazy I Know has an almost jangly pastoral quality to it. Saw Dead C at Maxwell's in Hoboken years ago, with Thurston Moore and drummer Tom Surgal doing an opening improvisatory set. They are a really interesting live band, masters of controlled feedback on stage. I recall one of the guitarists raising a huge squall by playing the guitar flat on a table similar to a pedal steel.



Alastair Galbraith is also represented, an artist that more people should know about. He collaborates with Graeme Jefferies (Cake Kitchen, This Kind of Punishment, Nocturnal Projections) on modern sea chanty Bravely Bravely and the grand, shimmering Timebomb. He also is here as a member of Plagal Grind (as was Peter Jefferies, Robbie Muir and David Mitchell), performing the album closer, the smoldering instrumental Blackout and also the elegaic Receivership.

David Mitchell of the 3d's is also here, with the jittery South Island raga Dead Dog in Port Chalmers. Dogs is a mesmeric noisy almost disco pop tune. He performs also Grey Funnel Line supporting the lead vocals by 3d bandmate Denise Roughan. The Terminals are represented by the Kiwi classic The Deadly Tango. The b side is the equally awesome and aggressively punky Do The Void.



Finally, one of my favorite artists, Peter Jefferies is here performing with Robbie Muir. What an amazing and incestuous bunch of musicians you find from this small scene. Jefferies Last Great Challenge in a Dull World is a special album for me, with great piano. On Making Losers Happy he performs the noisy invigorating Catapult. On a different tack, The Fate Of The Human Carbine is a dour sarcastic ballad with clever lyrics, quite in line with his work with This Kind of Punishment.



Making Losers Happy is a nice introduction to some of the standout artists on the Xpressway label. Once you hear this or Xpressway Pileup you will probably want to further explore the discographies of these musicians.