Great read

Excellent book. Lots of names and nationalities and titles and statuses to keep track of. I had to look up some of the japanese titles. There are multiple storylines, of course intertwining. I enjoyed the interpreters' roles in the story, selecting each word carefully going from one language to another and back again.

An amazing and very detailed work set in turn-of-the-nineteenth-century Japan. Great for historical fiction fans and with a satisfying ending. A real page-turner! Makes me want to read more of David Mitchell's work!

Ruth

Outstanding work. This author impresses -

1788 and the Dutch explorers are about to come into close contact with the closed world of Edo-era Japan. This story weaves and twists as it follows our central characters, as lush in it's descriptiveness of the Japanese landscape as it is for life within a Dutch sailing crew. Action Romance and a well crafted and suspenseful novel.

no ebook

While getting off to a very slow start, all was made worthwhile once accustomed with the presentation of the dialogue and perspectives shifted to other central characters. A beautifully written novel, creating wonderful imagery for the setting and equally wonderful characters, all with entirely believable quirks and flaws you either love or hate. Moments of heartache were felt through and through. Recommend giving it a decent go.

Having visited Nagasaki, I was really up for reading this book. Alas, I didn't particularly care for it. Initially, the book is written in the present tense although it takes place in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I got used to it, but I didn't like it. I found the book's characters rather wooden and while the plot of the story was interesting, I didn't think the author did it justice. I do agree that it gets better after the first section, but all in all, a disappointment.

Mitchell's exceptionally sensuous text drips with the sounds, smells, dialects, and subtle gestures of feudal Tokugawa Japan.
His classicizing tale plumbs the depths of human emotion, with a doomed love story at its heart, with healthy doses of implacable enemies, the clash of cultures and religions, ambitious rivals, imperial greed and corruption, swashbuckling adventure, and even a bit of the macabre.