number9dream

Description

Eiji Miyake arrives in a sprawling Japanese metropolis to track down the father he has never met. But the city is a mapless place if you are 18, broke, and the only person you can trust is John Lennon. His 8-week hunt plunges into the hinterland between the city and the mind, where a Polish art movie is no less real than the coffee in front of him and letters from an Imperial Army soldier are signposts to next week, and where he crosses paths with numerologists, staion masters, gateballers, hostesses, organ harvesters and insane chefs. Philosophical, colourful, sometimes violent, this is a dazzlingly inventive novel about image, control and memory.

David Mitchell's first novel, GHOSTWRITTEN, won the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. NUMBER9DREAM, his second, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2003 he was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists and his third novel, CLOUD ATLAS, was shortlisted for 6 awards including the Man Booker Prize and won the British Book Awards Best Literary Fiction and the South Bank Show Literature Prize. He lives in Ireland with his wife and daughter.

'If anything more amazing than his debut, GHOSTWRITTEN, this Booker-shortlisted fantasia confirms the Hiroshima-based Mitchell as the most prodigally gifted of young British novelists ... an extraordinary literary cabaret of dreams, visions and pastiches, from video-game rides and gangster rumbles to suicide submariners. Endlessly ingenious and hugely enjoyable - but oddly moving as well. A rich showcase for 21st-century fiction.' -- Boyd Tonkin, Independent 'A clever, contemporary reworking of classic videogame / quest themes ... This videogame is made not of zeros and ones, however, but of dream fragments and poetry ... the beautiful, snake-like narrative twists and tangles around leitmotifs borrowed from action films, manga, anime, SF, fantasy, old detective novels, mob stories, coming-of-age romances, cyberpunk, epic quests and war stories ... Mitchell rolls around in implausibility, takes some incredible literary liberties, and - yes - gets away with it.' -- Scarlett Thomas, Independent 'It's a measure of the precocity of David Mitchell's talent that this novel, the author's second book, is nearly a rare example of a satisfying "anti-novel". This experimentation with narrative form is usually reserved for authors with comfortably established book sales and secure reputations. It is told dexterously ... The book progresses through quick changes of style and texture. This fixes one's attention on the delights of Mitchell's prose. Almost without realising it, you find that you have fallen for Eiji, and that his plight has registered at a deep level.' -- Paul Tebbs, Daily Telegraph 'David Mitchell's second novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and it's not hard to see why. The narrative has a langorous, dream-like quality - the result of being structured around Eiji's fantasies. Mitchell writes well in a range of different moods and styles: funny, poignant, humdrum, violent. Most strikingly of all, he depicts Tokyo as a bewildering labyrinth, which provides the perfect backdrop to the desultory wanderings of Eiji's mind.' -- Observer 'Even more dazzling than GHOSTWRITTEN' -- Matt Thorne, Independent on Sunday 'I haven't enjoyed a novel so much in ages; wild, bristling with strangeness' -- Independent Books of the Year 'Exceptional ... more than a surreal detective story or coming-of-age novel, more than a portrait of Tokyo or stream of adolescent consciousness, it is unique: clever, unusual, gripping and beautifully written' -- Literary Review 'Resounds to the same marvellous chatter of voices that marked out GHOSTWRITTEN, his outstanding first novel' -- Observer 'Spellbinding' -- Boyd Tonkin, Independent Books of the Year 'A delirious mix of thriller, tragedy, fantasy, video games and a portrait of uneasy modern Japan ... A deserving Booker nominee.' -- Guardian 'Wildly inventive' -- Sunday Times 'Captures aspects of modern Japan with a compelling authenticity and beauty' -- Daily Telegraph