What do you think?
Rate this book
Black Swan Green
From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new.
Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping” through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons.
Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s most subtlest and effective achievement to date.
Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping” through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons.
Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s most subtlest and effective achievement to date.
296 pages, Paperback
First published April 11, 2006
About the author
David Mitchell
94 books14.6k followersDavid Mitchell was born in Southport, Merseyside, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent, studying for a degree in English and American Literature followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature. He lived for a year in Sicily, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England. After another stint in Japan, he currently lives in Ireland with his wife Keiko and their two children. In an essay for Random House, Mitchell wrote: "I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to live in 1994 I was too easily distracted to do much about it. I would probably have become a writer wherever I lived, but would I have become the same writer if I'd spent the last 6 years in London, or Cape Town, or Moose Jaw, on an oil rig or in the circus? This is my answer to myself." Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), moves around the globe, from Okinawa to Mongolia to pre-Millennial New York City, as nine narrators tell stories that interlock and intersect. The novel won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for best work of British literature written by an author under 35) and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His two subsequent novels, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2003, he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. In 2007, Mitchell was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World. Mitchell's American editor at Random House is novelist David Ebershoff.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,819 reviews
July 29, 2016
I’m about to start gushing over this book now, so look out. I may end up stammering my way through this review, but if I do, just consider it a tribute to Jason Taylor.
So Black Swan Green. This is the first David Mitchell book I’ve read but I assure you, it will not be the last. I loved everything about this book. I RELATED to everything about this book. True, I have no idea what it’s like to be a 13 year old British boy growing up in the 80’s, yet there is something so universal about this character that anyone who has gone through adolescence can probably relate to in some way or another. Me? I related a lot. For one thing, when I was 13 I was a total tree climbing, fort making, trouble finding tomboy. Not exactly the makings of a “popular” teenage girl. And I was PAINFULLY shy. I remember that feeling of just wanting to make myself as invisible as possible so that no one noticed me. Because noticing me would undoubtedly lead to ridicule in some nasty form or another. But Jason takes his ribbing in stride. He’s a good kid. A likable kid. A kid you find yourself rooting for. You want him to get the girl! You want him to beat the crap out of the jerkface bullies! You want him to succeed!
Jason Taylor is ACE.
David Mitchell is ACE.
Black Swan Green, that’s right, ACE!
I wish I could remember all of the glorious passages from this book, but I borrowed the dang thing from the library, and they don’t take kindly to people underlining things or scribbling in the margins. I jotted this bit down on a scrap of paper:
~ Jealous and sweet, this music was, sobbing and gorgeous, muddy and crystal. But if the right words existed the music wouldn’t need to.
Sigh. I didn’t want this book to end. I think it’s the type of book that will serve you well to read at a leisurely pace. Give yourself time to let the story marinate; allow Jason Taylor to touch your heart. You’ll be glad you did.
So Black Swan Green. This is the first David Mitchell book I’ve read but I assure you, it will not be the last. I loved everything about this book. I RELATED to everything about this book. True, I have no idea what it’s like to be a 13 year old British boy growing up in the 80’s, yet there is something so universal about this character that anyone who has gone through adolescence can probably relate to in some way or another. Me? I related a lot. For one thing, when I was 13 I was a total tree climbing, fort making, trouble finding tomboy. Not exactly the makings of a “popular” teenage girl. And I was PAINFULLY shy. I remember that feeling of just wanting to make myself as invisible as possible so that no one noticed me. Because noticing me would undoubtedly lead to ridicule in some nasty form or another. But Jason takes his ribbing in stride. He’s a good kid. A likable kid. A kid you find yourself rooting for. You want him to get the girl! You want him to beat the crap out of the jerkface bullies! You want him to succeed!
Jason Taylor is ACE.
David Mitchell is ACE.
Black Swan Green, that’s right, ACE!
I wish I could remember all of the glorious passages from this book, but I borrowed the dang thing from the library, and they don’t take kindly to people underlining things or scribbling in the margins. I jotted this bit down on a scrap of paper:
~ Jealous and sweet, this music was, sobbing and gorgeous, muddy and crystal. But if the right words existed the music wouldn’t need to.
Sigh. I didn’t want this book to end. I think it’s the type of book that will serve you well to read at a leisurely pace. Give yourself time to let the story marinate; allow Jason Taylor to touch your heart. You’ll be glad you did.
November 17, 2022
Black Swan Green is an excellent book – it is an almost perfect portrayal of the place and time, it’s lyrical and frank…
Every childhood is unique so every book about childhood is capable to add something new and if the book is good and sincere it makes a reader return to one’s own childhood and to compare one’s own experience with the feelings and impressions of the main character.
Juvenile awareness of the world… First impressions of society and social relationships… Personal attitude…
Childhood is a marvelous planet which we are forced to leave when we grow up.
Run across a field of daisies at warp speed but keep your eyes on the ground. It’s ace. Petalled stars and dandelion comets streak the green universe. Moran and I got to the barn at the far side, dizzy with intergalactic travel.
Every childhood is unique so every book about childhood is capable to add something new and if the book is good and sincere it makes a reader return to one’s own childhood and to compare one’s own experience with the feelings and impressions of the main character.
Juvenile awareness of the world… First impressions of society and social relationships… Personal attitude…
People’re a nestful of needs. Dull needs, sharp needs, bottomless-pit needs, flash-in-the-pan needs, needs for things you can’t hold, needs for things you can. Adverts know this. Shops know this. Specially in arcades, shops’re deafening. I’ve got what you want! I’ve got what you want! I’ve got what you want! But walking down Regent’s Arcade, I noticed a new need that’s normally so close up you never know it’s there. You and your mum need to like each other. Not love, but like.
Childhood is a marvelous planet which we are forced to leave when we grow up.
July 29, 2023
'The world unmakes stuff faster than people can make it.'
Month by month our lives spiral forth into the future, with each moment shaping who we are and who we will become. It is no wonder that the pivotal years of adolescence, the stage of development classified by Erik Erikson as the Identity vs. Role Confusion stage, is fertile land for novels (if the nutrients of such land has been dried up from overuse of such topics is up for debate). Mitchell’s Black Swan Green examines this tumultuous period of development, drawing from his own experiences at times, to track the to-and-fro of the formation of an identity caught in the gale storm winds of external pressures from society, politics and family drama. While this may seem like something we have all read before, Mitchell manages to deliver it through one of his unique, multi-faceted methods and posing this novel as the metafictional chapter of his oeuvre.
The structure of this book is rather exciting, with each chapter functioning nearly as a stand-alone short story, ordered chronologically throughout one year of Jason Taylor’s life. Starting and ending in January, we watch the progression of Taylor’s identity during the trying stage when social cliques are formed (when one year everyone of the same gender in a class attends their peers birthday and the next year that person who invited you to their birthday won’t even acknowledge you), and less-than-ideal physical or social traits make outliers of many youths. The pressures to fit in and the aggression of those who already do cause Jason’s confidence to falter, demonstrating how easily we let outside forces shape what we are inside. Some of these forces are negative, yet there are many examples of positive reinforcement in the novel. What works best about the structure is that each individual chapter has Jason’s personal path juxtaposed with that of a larger social theme. The family fallout, written with such scathing accuracy to demonstrate a failing marriage and shallow bickering that ensues, is detailed alongside the Falklands conflict, both being summed up beautifully by the sister in her explanation of a Pyrrhic victory during a family dinner. Another prime example is the juxtaposition of Jason’s outsider status with his peers and the hatred towards the gypsy camp that moves just outside of town.
Each one of Mitchell’s previous novels has a major point where he lifts up the hood and allows the reader to examine the engine driving his narrative. Cloud Atlas has the multiple allusions to it’s own structure, such as Frobisher explaining his sextet in a similar fashion as one would explain the novel, and number9dream had the wonderful ‘Goatwritter tales’ that explored Mitchell’s literary goals. In Black Swan Green we have his meeting with Madame Crommelynck's ¹ and her lessons on beauty and on being an artist. ‘If you are not truthful to the world about who and what you are, your art will stink of falseness,’ she instructs Jason. In effect, this novel is his truthful account of his life, exposing all his flaws, fears, failures and embarrassing moments in the name of truth and art. There is even a brief moment where the reader witnesses the creation of a rough draft for a previous chapter. The metafiction does not cease there, however, as this novel contains much of Mitchell’s own life, particularly his overcoming of his stammer. Ironically though, could it be seen as Mitchell still hiding behind false pretenses and using Jason as his mouthpiece, thus missing the point of Madame Crommelynck’s teachings? That, dear reader, is for you to decide.
If each of his novels has a metafictionally-revealing section, this novel serves as the metafictional novel to his oeuvre. As much of BSG focuses on the dangers and consequences of people operating with a closed, or selfish mind, Mitchell shows how much of the hardships in our lives could be alleviated if people just took the time to understand each other, to shoulder the burden of taking the right path instead of the easy path that burns a lot of good people in the process. He shows how those with power, such as the city council, or the nation with the stronger army, or even just the popular kids at school, will always use such power to ensure those beneath them stay there.
There are several common complaints about this novel, and each one admittedly valid, yet I felt this novel still accomplished the goals set out for it and not by overlooking these shortcomings, but by trying to further understand them. Mitchell often preempts his criticisms and addresses them within the novel. Cloud Atlas, in particular, has Mitchell ridiculing critics in general through his slimy Miles Finch character, and addresses those who would see the book as nothing but mere gimmick. While Jason Taylor is fleshed out wonderfully with a whole repertoire of English jargon and juvenile slang, the narrative is often delivered through lush descriptions, complex metaphors and an insight into his situations that come across as overly mature for a boy of 13. To assuage such criticisms, Jason is written to have a precocious sense of literature and poetry. While it never comes right out and says it, his talents are hinted at being prodigious, or just so enough to reach the attention of Madame Crommelynck who is said to have a sharp eye for extreme talent (she did see the genius behind the insanity in Frobisher in CA). The reader can choose to accept this argument or not, however, Mitchell does not stop there in his attempts at believability. Much of the lush description teeters into the territory of over-writing, something that a young, unfocused writer often clings to. It isn’t until the end of the novel that the supposed self-written tale of Jason Taylor is executed in crisper, well-executed prose to demonstrate that Taylor is beginning to finally come into his own as the purveyor of truthfulness that he has been taught to be mark of the true artist. Once again, the novel does rely on the acceptance of these techniques and this does not satisfy everyone. Then again, I may just be an apologist since I really do appreciate Mitchell hope for his success.
Mitchell’s novel fall into a strange zone of literature that is both beneficial and problematic for him as an author. His novels are an interesting amalgamation of easily digestible plots, literary theory, fireworks and fantastic writing. This blend, which I have come to refer to as Literary Pulp, is most apparent in Cloud Atlas, and a further investigation into the terms implications can be found here. Mitchell positions himself as a sort of literary gateway drug, pulling younger readers, or readers with more of an inclination towards plot-driven novels, into the wide wonderful wilderness of literature. Perhaps this is why I forgive some of his more ‘gimmicky’ techniques. The ‘mind-blowing’ big twists, ideas, structure or overall-appearances-of-texts type of gimmicks are something that really grabs many people, particularly those referenced a moment ago. Chuck Palahniuk reached fame in a similar fashion through attempting for the ‘mind blow’ and other gimmicks, and while he was an author that lead me into bigger, better authors such as Don DeLillo and Pynchon, he never had enough literary flavor of his own to keep my eye on him for very long. Mitchell comes across more like the overly excited professor that just wants you to love books as much as he does and is willing to sacrifice some of his literary merit with the higher brow to draw in a crowd of readers who would otherwise stay away from the higher brow literature. In Cloud Atlas, for example, someone who loved the Somni story is more or less instructed to seek out books like Brave New World while the Adam Ewing story borrows the style of Herman Melville to turn heads his way. Even in this book, Mitchell references many great writers such as T.S. Elliot or Chekov, references Madame Bovary (which he did in n9d as well) and offers a massive listening list of a wide variety of great musicians. This book would fits in nicely on a shelf for those who like higher literature, or would be just as at peace next to a book like The Perks of Being a Wallflower ², however being an excellent gateway for someone of the latter category to continue a pursuit of literature. Mitchell’s Literary Pulp method is a great way of reaching out, but it does garner a great deal of negative criticism for doing just that. As someone who hopes to go on into teaching, I find Mitchell to be a useful example of how to get people excited about books. Now that he has achieved recognition, he was able to move away from the more gimmicky methods to write something more subdued such as BSG and Thousand Autumns. I think there is a bright horizon for Mitchell if he continues to grow and push forward.
Although I read this book just over six months ago, it has not left my mind and recently I have spent a great deal of time fighting back the bleakness of the factory by over-analyzing this novel. Spending a year with Jason Taylor really endears the reader towards David Mitchell, as they quickly realize much of the stories are based on his own life. However, I would not recommend it as a first Mitchell read, seeing as it is a sort of commentary on the previous novels. Even if you disliked his earlier works, I would still recommend giving this novel a try, as it is a strong departure from his usual style. As the novel comes to a close, the reader sees life as a continuing spiral instead of something made of many beginnings and endings. It ends on the minor key, that angsty note that demands one final chord for completion and resolution, but Mitchell leaves the readers mind to fill that note in. We are left feeling things could get better, but to resolve everything would be to cheapen the story and to cheapen the actual course life takes. This is not a perfect novel, and has many aspects that leave a bad taste in the mouth of many well-read individuals (please browse GR, there are many with better tastes and insight than I that found a lukewarm reception in this book), yet I feel that Mitchell does an excellent job of covering his tracks. Simply put, and in the words of Jason Taylor, this book is ‘ace in the face!’.
4.5/5
¹ Readers of Cloud Atlas will remember her as Eva, the love interest of Robert Frobisher. Fans of CA are treated to an alternative perspective on Frobisher’s behavior and genius. Other characters that make a cameo in BSG are Neal Brose, of Ghostwritten, and Gwendolyn Bendincks, who stayed at the old folks home in CA.
² I in fact recommended this book to my sister after she finished that novel, citing many similarities between the two. Both deal with a coming-of-age, musical tastes, and overcoming personal hardships, yet BSG is accomplished without the melodramatic angst and emotion that teenagers seem to thrive on. This book is also similar to Murakami w/r/t the constant allusions to songs, the great Murakami being a major influence on Mitchell (what? This review and the footnotes have been a blatant rip-off of DFW? Surely you Jest)
‘A Pyrrhic victory is one where you win, but the cost of winning is so high that it would’ve been better if you’d never bothered with the war in the first place. Useful word, isn’t it? So, Jace. Looks like we’re doing the dishes again.’
Month by month our lives spiral forth into the future, with each moment shaping who we are and who we will become. It is no wonder that the pivotal years of adolescence, the stage of development classified by Erik Erikson as the Identity vs. Role Confusion stage, is fertile land for novels (if the nutrients of such land has been dried up from overuse of such topics is up for debate). Mitchell’s Black Swan Green examines this tumultuous period of development, drawing from his own experiences at times, to track the to-and-fro of the formation of an identity caught in the gale storm winds of external pressures from society, politics and family drama. While this may seem like something we have all read before, Mitchell manages to deliver it through one of his unique, multi-faceted methods and posing this novel as the metafictional chapter of his oeuvre.
The structure of this book is rather exciting, with each chapter functioning nearly as a stand-alone short story, ordered chronologically throughout one year of Jason Taylor’s life. Starting and ending in January, we watch the progression of Taylor’s identity during the trying stage when social cliques are formed (when one year everyone of the same gender in a class attends their peers birthday and the next year that person who invited you to their birthday won’t even acknowledge you), and less-than-ideal physical or social traits make outliers of many youths. The pressures to fit in and the aggression of those who already do cause Jason’s confidence to falter, demonstrating how easily we let outside forces shape what we are inside. Some of these forces are negative, yet there are many examples of positive reinforcement in the novel. What works best about the structure is that each individual chapter has Jason’s personal path juxtaposed with that of a larger social theme. The family fallout, written with such scathing accuracy to demonstrate a failing marriage and shallow bickering that ensues, is detailed alongside the Falklands conflict, both being summed up beautifully by the sister in her explanation of a Pyrrhic victory during a family dinner. Another prime example is the juxtaposition of Jason’s outsider status with his peers and the hatred towards the gypsy camp that moves just outside of town.
Each one of Mitchell’s previous novels has a major point where he lifts up the hood and allows the reader to examine the engine driving his narrative. Cloud Atlas has the multiple allusions to it’s own structure, such as Frobisher explaining his sextet in a similar fashion as one would explain the novel, and number9dream had the wonderful ‘Goatwritter tales’ that explored Mitchell’s literary goals. In Black Swan Green we have his meeting with Madame Crommelynck's ¹ and her lessons on beauty and on being an artist. ‘If you are not truthful to the world about who and what you are, your art will stink of falseness,’ she instructs Jason. In effect, this novel is his truthful account of his life, exposing all his flaws, fears, failures and embarrassing moments in the name of truth and art. There is even a brief moment where the reader witnesses the creation of a rough draft for a previous chapter. The metafiction does not cease there, however, as this novel contains much of Mitchell’s own life, particularly his overcoming of his stammer. Ironically though, could it be seen as Mitchell still hiding behind false pretenses and using Jason as his mouthpiece, thus missing the point of Madame Crommelynck’s teachings? That, dear reader, is for you to decide.
If each of his novels has a metafictionally-revealing section, this novel serves as the metafictional novel to his oeuvre. As much of BSG focuses on the dangers and consequences of people operating with a closed, or selfish mind, Mitchell shows how much of the hardships in our lives could be alleviated if people just took the time to understand each other, to shoulder the burden of taking the right path instead of the easy path that burns a lot of good people in the process. He shows how those with power, such as the city council, or the nation with the stronger army, or even just the popular kids at school, will always use such power to ensure those beneath them stay there.
‘I want to bloody kick this moronic bloody world in the bloody teeth over and over till it bloody understands that not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more bloody important than being right.’This line from Jason echoes a message that permeates through all of Mitchell’s novels. In Cloud Atlas, the abuse of power is present is a primary theme in each of the novels stories, as well as in Ghostwritten to a lesser extent. Even Number9dream toys with the ideas of power and the struggle for it. It is as if Mitchell took the events from his own upbringing and inflated the lessons he learned to the larger scope of society and the overall human condition. It could even be argued that Mitchell’s own coming-of-age story was skewed and spun with larger literary themes into Number9dream, which further excuses him of his repeat visits to the bildungsroman theme.
There are several common complaints about this novel, and each one admittedly valid, yet I felt this novel still accomplished the goals set out for it and not by overlooking these shortcomings, but by trying to further understand them. Mitchell often preempts his criticisms and addresses them within the novel. Cloud Atlas, in particular, has Mitchell ridiculing critics in general through his slimy Miles Finch character, and addresses those who would see the book as nothing but mere gimmick. While Jason Taylor is fleshed out wonderfully with a whole repertoire of English jargon and juvenile slang, the narrative is often delivered through lush descriptions, complex metaphors and an insight into his situations that come across as overly mature for a boy of 13. To assuage such criticisms, Jason is written to have a precocious sense of literature and poetry. While it never comes right out and says it, his talents are hinted at being prodigious, or just so enough to reach the attention of Madame Crommelynck who is said to have a sharp eye for extreme talent (she did see the genius behind the insanity in Frobisher in CA). The reader can choose to accept this argument or not, however, Mitchell does not stop there in his attempts at believability. Much of the lush description teeters into the territory of over-writing, something that a young, unfocused writer often clings to. It isn’t until the end of the novel that the supposed self-written tale of Jason Taylor is executed in crisper, well-executed prose to demonstrate that Taylor is beginning to finally come into his own as the purveyor of truthfulness that he has been taught to be mark of the true artist. Once again, the novel does rely on the acceptance of these techniques and this does not satisfy everyone. Then again, I may just be an apologist since I really do appreciate Mitchell hope for his success.
Mitchell’s novel fall into a strange zone of literature that is both beneficial and problematic for him as an author. His novels are an interesting amalgamation of easily digestible plots, literary theory, fireworks and fantastic writing. This blend, which I have come to refer to as Literary Pulp, is most apparent in Cloud Atlas, and a further investigation into the terms implications can be found here. Mitchell positions himself as a sort of literary gateway drug, pulling younger readers, or readers with more of an inclination towards plot-driven novels, into the wide wonderful wilderness of literature. Perhaps this is why I forgive some of his more ‘gimmicky’ techniques. The ‘mind-blowing’ big twists, ideas, structure or overall-appearances-of-texts type of gimmicks are something that really grabs many people, particularly those referenced a moment ago. Chuck Palahniuk reached fame in a similar fashion through attempting for the ‘mind blow’ and other gimmicks, and while he was an author that lead me into bigger, better authors such as Don DeLillo and Pynchon, he never had enough literary flavor of his own to keep my eye on him for very long. Mitchell comes across more like the overly excited professor that just wants you to love books as much as he does and is willing to sacrifice some of his literary merit with the higher brow to draw in a crowd of readers who would otherwise stay away from the higher brow literature. In Cloud Atlas, for example, someone who loved the Somni story is more or less instructed to seek out books like Brave New World while the Adam Ewing story borrows the style of Herman Melville to turn heads his way. Even in this book, Mitchell references many great writers such as T.S. Elliot or Chekov, references Madame Bovary (which he did in n9d as well) and offers a massive listening list of a wide variety of great musicians. This book would fits in nicely on a shelf for those who like higher literature, or would be just as at peace next to a book like The Perks of Being a Wallflower ², however being an excellent gateway for someone of the latter category to continue a pursuit of literature. Mitchell’s Literary Pulp method is a great way of reaching out, but it does garner a great deal of negative criticism for doing just that. As someone who hopes to go on into teaching, I find Mitchell to be a useful example of how to get people excited about books. Now that he has achieved recognition, he was able to move away from the more gimmicky methods to write something more subdued such as BSG and Thousand Autumns. I think there is a bright horizon for Mitchell if he continues to grow and push forward.
Although I read this book just over six months ago, it has not left my mind and recently I have spent a great deal of time fighting back the bleakness of the factory by over-analyzing this novel. Spending a year with Jason Taylor really endears the reader towards David Mitchell, as they quickly realize much of the stories are based on his own life. However, I would not recommend it as a first Mitchell read, seeing as it is a sort of commentary on the previous novels. Even if you disliked his earlier works, I would still recommend giving this novel a try, as it is a strong departure from his usual style. As the novel comes to a close, the reader sees life as a continuing spiral instead of something made of many beginnings and endings. It ends on the minor key, that angsty note that demands one final chord for completion and resolution, but Mitchell leaves the readers mind to fill that note in. We are left feeling things could get better, but to resolve everything would be to cheapen the story and to cheapen the actual course life takes. This is not a perfect novel, and has many aspects that leave a bad taste in the mouth of many well-read individuals (please browse GR, there are many with better tastes and insight than I that found a lukewarm reception in this book), yet I feel that Mitchell does an excellent job of covering his tracks. Simply put, and in the words of Jason Taylor, this book is ‘ace in the face!’.
4.5/5
¹ Readers of Cloud Atlas will remember her as Eva, the love interest of Robert Frobisher. Fans of CA are treated to an alternative perspective on Frobisher’s behavior and genius. Other characters that make a cameo in BSG are Neal Brose, of Ghostwritten, and Gwendolyn Bendincks, who stayed at the old folks home in CA.
² I in fact recommended this book to my sister after she finished that novel, citing many similarities between the two. Both deal with a coming-of-age, musical tastes, and overcoming personal hardships, yet BSG is accomplished without the melodramatic angst and emotion that teenagers seem to thrive on. This book is also similar to Murakami w/r/t the constant allusions to songs, the great Murakami being a major influence on Mitchell (what? This review and the footnotes have been a blatant rip-off of DFW? Surely you Jest)
‘A Pyrrhic victory is one where you win, but the cost of winning is so high that it would’ve been better if you’d never bothered with the war in the first place. Useful word, isn’t it? So, Jace. Looks like we’re doing the dishes again.’
August 15, 2024
My complete review of Black Swan Green is published at Before We Go Blog.
“These jokes the world plays, they’re not funny at all.”
I love a good coming-of-age novel, and Black Swan Green by David Mitchell is one of the best.
Black Swan Green takes place in a middle-class neighborhood of Worcestershire, England, in the early 1980s. The book is narrated by 13-year-old Jason Taylor. Black Swan Green is divided into thirteen chapters that cover thirteen consecutive months in Jason’s life. The chapters have an episodic style, each presenting a vignette of Jason’s life as he deals with the universal issues of young teenage boyhood: family struggles, friends and bullies, ill-advised troublemaking adventures, and failed attempts to decipher the mysterious nature of girls.
What elevates Black Swan Green above other coming-of-age novels is the voice that David Mitchell has created for Jason, making him one of the most vibrant, hilarious, and authentic narrators from any book I’ve read. Mitchell has captured the language and culture of early 1980s England perfectly. By the end of the book, you may also be thinking in terms of the teenage slang from early Thatcherist England.
David Mitchell adeptly captures the anxieties of boyhood. Besides the usual anxieties related to school, bullies, and girls, Jason also experiences stuttering. Jason personifies his stutter as “Hangman,” an entity who grabs words out of his mouth as he is trying to enunciate them. When Jason is speaking, he carefully plans ahead to avoid letters and syllables that are known to cause him problems. The way Mitchell presents Jason’s struggle with stuttering is both authentic and endearing as we see the potential words racing through Jason’s mind as he attempts to find the right combination of letters that will evade Hangman’s grasp.
Black Swan Green also presents the larger problems in Jason’s parents’ marriage via snippets throughout the chapters, although we don’t know the full scale of their problems until later in the book. The gradual way that Mitchell reveals these issues is an effective and realistic portrayal coming from the point of view of a 13-year-old son with other pressing issues on his mind.
Although not fantasy, side characters from Black Swan Green reappear in David Mitchell’s later World Fantasy Award-winning novel, The Bone Clocks, and in his science fiction masterpiece, Cloud Atlas, making Black Swan Green an essential part of the greater Mitchellverse.
Overall, Black Swan Green does an amazing job of getting the reader inside the mind of a 13-year-old boy in the early 1980s. Jason will make you laugh out loud with his humor and feel the same adolescent anxieties that he feels. Black Swan Green is ace.
“These jokes the world plays, they’re not funny at all.”
I love a good coming-of-age novel, and Black Swan Green by David Mitchell is one of the best.
Black Swan Green takes place in a middle-class neighborhood of Worcestershire, England, in the early 1980s. The book is narrated by 13-year-old Jason Taylor. Black Swan Green is divided into thirteen chapters that cover thirteen consecutive months in Jason’s life. The chapters have an episodic style, each presenting a vignette of Jason’s life as he deals with the universal issues of young teenage boyhood: family struggles, friends and bullies, ill-advised troublemaking adventures, and failed attempts to decipher the mysterious nature of girls.
What elevates Black Swan Green above other coming-of-age novels is the voice that David Mitchell has created for Jason, making him one of the most vibrant, hilarious, and authentic narrators from any book I’ve read. Mitchell has captured the language and culture of early 1980s England perfectly. By the end of the book, you may also be thinking in terms of the teenage slang from early Thatcherist England.
David Mitchell adeptly captures the anxieties of boyhood. Besides the usual anxieties related to school, bullies, and girls, Jason also experiences stuttering. Jason personifies his stutter as “Hangman,” an entity who grabs words out of his mouth as he is trying to enunciate them. When Jason is speaking, he carefully plans ahead to avoid letters and syllables that are known to cause him problems. The way Mitchell presents Jason’s struggle with stuttering is both authentic and endearing as we see the potential words racing through Jason’s mind as he attempts to find the right combination of letters that will evade Hangman’s grasp.
Black Swan Green also presents the larger problems in Jason’s parents’ marriage via snippets throughout the chapters, although we don’t know the full scale of their problems until later in the book. The gradual way that Mitchell reveals these issues is an effective and realistic portrayal coming from the point of view of a 13-year-old son with other pressing issues on his mind.
Although not fantasy, side characters from Black Swan Green reappear in David Mitchell’s later World Fantasy Award-winning novel, The Bone Clocks, and in his science fiction masterpiece, Cloud Atlas, making Black Swan Green an essential part of the greater Mitchellverse.
Overall, Black Swan Green does an amazing job of getting the reader inside the mind of a 13-year-old boy in the early 1980s. Jason will make you laugh out loud with his humor and feel the same adolescent anxieties that he feels. Black Swan Green is ace.
December 16, 2022
9 Kingfisher Meadows, Black Swan Green, Worcestshire.
It was good to return to Black Swan Green. 1982. Jason Taylor’s story. This is the fourth book of David Mitchell’s, and the first of his which I’d read. So I have a very soft spot for it. It was funny to see how my perception of it has changed, even in the short time since I last read it.
This time around, I saw the shadows in the corners. It was a much darker read. It wasn’t just a trip down memory lane, having fun remembering both the good and not so good things about becoming a teen. The tribalism at school, the hierarchy of “popularity”, the practical jokes, the bullying. The wonderful joy of great music, discovering your talents, your whole life ahead of you like an empty book, pages waiting to be filled as your dreams would allow, the friendships forged which you knew would last forever. Reading this I sensed how much of our younger selves we carry on into adulthood. Or as whatever adulthood passes for.
In the context of reading his earlier books, there are prime characters who appear in both Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas. I had so many “ker-ching!” moments where I was able to join the dots and enjoy the story even more than I already did the first time.
Regardless of whether or not you’ve read his other books, or are starting right here, I cannot recommend Black Swan Green enough. It remains a firm favourite, and will have to come with me if I ever end up stranded on a desert island.
My original review is written below, and please also have a look at Neale’s review. It was so much fun reading this with him, and the discussion that led from it.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Some wise words which were “accidentally” left on a notepad for Jason Taylor to read when picking up an item from the staff room on behalf of a teacher:
”Respect earnt by integrity cannot be lost without our consent.
Don’t laugh at what you don’t find funny.
Don’t support an opinion you don’t hold.”
Perhaps even more valid in 2022 than in 1982.
It's hard to believe that it's possible, but this book is even more of a 5☆ read the second time around.
On to Book 5! This is like “James Bond will return in….”. Neale and I will next be reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet as part our David Mitchell Odyssey. I’m more than a little daunted at the idea of it, but I’ll be brave!
And remember,
"Courage is being scared shitless but doing it anyway."
Original review below.
*******************************************
"Often I think boys don't become men. Boys just get papier-mâchéd inside a man's mask. Sometimes you can tell the boy is still in there."
This book... I loved it on so many levels. It was just so honest. Painfully so. No matter that the main protagonist is a young, awkward male. I still got it. I felt it. David Mitchell writes so well about the exquisite torture of being a teen. The friendship groups and cliques with allegiances that keep changing, the early stirrings of self and sexual awareness. Those first crushes. Asserting yourself with your peers and with your parents. Or trying to. And the self doubt! The silly dares. The bravado. The oh-so-important quandaries. How paralysingly important trivial things are. Not a kid, not an adult. Not really a proper teen either. Just stuck. In first gear.
"Boys are bastards, but they're predictable bastards. You never know what girls're thinking. Girls're from another planet."
Our narrator is Jason Taylor. He lives in Black Swan Green*, Worcestershire. On top of all these growing pains, he suffers daily visits from his nemesis, the aptly named "Hangman". As a stammerer, even the easiest of phrases often refuse to leave his lips coherently. The "Hangman" comes a-calling. Which adds to his affliction. And so it goes.
"Stammerers act invisible to reduce the chances of being made to say something we can't."
Set against the backdrop of 1980s England, with Thatcherism, the Falklands War, sibling rivalry, family breakdown, and the changing face of friendships as themes. This book shows that growing up is never easy. Each generation has its defining moments. As does each individual.
A saying comes to mind "School days are the best days of your life." Are they? Possibly for some. For others it's a quagmire of navigating between the school bullies & tyrannical school teachers. The senselessness of bullying is shown in all its hurtful, unnecessary glory in painstaking detail. And the scariness of the school bus driver Norman Bates (aptly named) - do characters like this even exist anymore? Bowie knife, anybody?
Secrets, morals, ethics, reputations. When is it ok to divulge a secret? Is it ethical to do so? What if you damage someone’s reputation by either telling or not telling a secret? Such big questions for a thirteen year old. I love the chapter in the book (”Disco”) where the English class discusses these topics. I used to have the coolest English teacher who used to go off on tangents like these. He was the best. Such fond memories. So much of what happens in your formative years, are what you take with you throughout life.
BATMAN’S REAL NAME IS BRUCE WAYNE Discuss.
(Ah, Mr Davidson, where are you now?)
Many of the scenes are so politically incorrect and reminiscent of the times, it's like walking into a time machine. Press 1982.
" 'Wish I could be thirteen again.' 'Then', I thought, 'you've obviously forgotten what it's like.' "
Reading this made me feel so sentimental! I was in high school in the 80s, so the references to the music, politics and pop culture of the times brought back many memories. And made me smile. Also cringe. The wonder and fear of being on the brink of change. To start to be in charge of your destiny, and yet not have much say in too many things, except your own moral compass.
While this seems to be a deceptively simple coming of age story, it has so much complexity. It's about the threads between people, and our perceptions of each other. The games we play. The masks we wear. The self-protective armour we carry. It has a gentle self-deprecating humour. There were so many parts where I laughed out loud. The bits about an entire class having to do detention because no-one was willing to grass on the perpetrator/s who committed an indiscretion, causing aforesaid detention (yup, who hasn't been there)...classic. I enjoyed the subtle irony, and the spot on observations.
Really, it's about finding your voice and becoming your own person. And the pains is takes to get there.
Jason, as the guileless main character makes you want to both hug and cheer him on at the same time. I think I may have a bit of a crush. The ending left me wanting more. It left me sad, yet happy. And hopeful. It's so poignant. I hope Jason Taylor ended up in a good place.
Despite this very long review, I still didn't say what I wanted to. Just read it. You'll get so much out of it. This is going on my "Favourites" shelf. Quite simply, that is where it has to be.
LOVED. I cannot gush about this one enough. It's really touched a soft spot. I do not know why I didn't read it earlier.
5 very contented ★ Sigh.
*** I asked the wonderful, talented Mr.Neale-ski (*waves*) to pick me a "happy book" to start my 2020 reading year. Great pick. Love, love, love. Me happy. An unofficial buddy read. Please read his review once he posts it. ***
* Black Swan Green: no black swans here, nor white ones either...or green. Or are there? It just depends on how hard you look.
" 'So there's no swans in Black Swan Green?' 'Yeah. It's sort of a local joke.' 'Oh. That's pretty funny, really, isn't it?' "
“If swans weren't real, myths'd make them up.”
It was good to return to Black Swan Green. 1982. Jason Taylor’s story. This is the fourth book of David Mitchell’s, and the first of his which I’d read. So I have a very soft spot for it. It was funny to see how my perception of it has changed, even in the short time since I last read it.
This time around, I saw the shadows in the corners. It was a much darker read. It wasn’t just a trip down memory lane, having fun remembering both the good and not so good things about becoming a teen. The tribalism at school, the hierarchy of “popularity”, the practical jokes, the bullying. The wonderful joy of great music, discovering your talents, your whole life ahead of you like an empty book, pages waiting to be filled as your dreams would allow, the friendships forged which you knew would last forever. Reading this I sensed how much of our younger selves we carry on into adulthood. Or as whatever adulthood passes for.
In the context of reading his earlier books, there are prime characters who appear in both Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas. I had so many “ker-ching!” moments where I was able to join the dots and enjoy the story even more than I already did the first time.
Regardless of whether or not you’ve read his other books, or are starting right here, I cannot recommend Black Swan Green enough. It remains a firm favourite, and will have to come with me if I ever end up stranded on a desert island.
My original review is written below, and please also have a look at Neale’s review. It was so much fun reading this with him, and the discussion that led from it.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Some wise words which were “accidentally” left on a notepad for Jason Taylor to read when picking up an item from the staff room on behalf of a teacher:
”Respect earnt by integrity cannot be lost without our consent.
Don’t laugh at what you don’t find funny.
Don’t support an opinion you don’t hold.”
Perhaps even more valid in 2022 than in 1982.
It's hard to believe that it's possible, but this book is even more of a 5☆ read the second time around.
On to Book 5! This is like “James Bond will return in….”. Neale and I will next be reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet as part our David Mitchell Odyssey. I’m more than a little daunted at the idea of it, but I’ll be brave!
And remember,
"Courage is being scared shitless but doing it anyway."
Original review below.
*******************************************
"Often I think boys don't become men. Boys just get papier-mâchéd inside a man's mask. Sometimes you can tell the boy is still in there."
This book... I loved it on so many levels. It was just so honest. Painfully so. No matter that the main protagonist is a young, awkward male. I still got it. I felt it. David Mitchell writes so well about the exquisite torture of being a teen. The friendship groups and cliques with allegiances that keep changing, the early stirrings of self and sexual awareness. Those first crushes. Asserting yourself with your peers and with your parents. Or trying to. And the self doubt! The silly dares. The bravado. The oh-so-important quandaries. How paralysingly important trivial things are. Not a kid, not an adult. Not really a proper teen either. Just stuck. In first gear.
"Boys are bastards, but they're predictable bastards. You never know what girls're thinking. Girls're from another planet."
Our narrator is Jason Taylor. He lives in Black Swan Green*, Worcestershire. On top of all these growing pains, he suffers daily visits from his nemesis, the aptly named "Hangman". As a stammerer, even the easiest of phrases often refuse to leave his lips coherently. The "Hangman" comes a-calling. Which adds to his affliction. And so it goes.
"Stammerers act invisible to reduce the chances of being made to say something we can't."
Set against the backdrop of 1980s England, with Thatcherism, the Falklands War, sibling rivalry, family breakdown, and the changing face of friendships as themes. This book shows that growing up is never easy. Each generation has its defining moments. As does each individual.
A saying comes to mind "School days are the best days of your life." Are they? Possibly for some. For others it's a quagmire of navigating between the school bullies & tyrannical school teachers. The senselessness of bullying is shown in all its hurtful, unnecessary glory in painstaking detail. And the scariness of the school bus driver Norman Bates (aptly named) - do characters like this even exist anymore? Bowie knife, anybody?
Secrets, morals, ethics, reputations. When is it ok to divulge a secret? Is it ethical to do so? What if you damage someone’s reputation by either telling or not telling a secret? Such big questions for a thirteen year old. I love the chapter in the book (”Disco”) where the English class discusses these topics. I used to have the coolest English teacher who used to go off on tangents like these. He was the best. Such fond memories. So much of what happens in your formative years, are what you take with you throughout life.
BATMAN’S REAL NAME IS BRUCE WAYNE Discuss.
(Ah, Mr Davidson, where are you now?)
Many of the scenes are so politically incorrect and reminiscent of the times, it's like walking into a time machine. Press 1982.
" 'Wish I could be thirteen again.' 'Then', I thought, 'you've obviously forgotten what it's like.' "
Reading this made me feel so sentimental! I was in high school in the 80s, so the references to the music, politics and pop culture of the times brought back many memories. And made me smile. Also cringe. The wonder and fear of being on the brink of change. To start to be in charge of your destiny, and yet not have much say in too many things, except your own moral compass.
While this seems to be a deceptively simple coming of age story, it has so much complexity. It's about the threads between people, and our perceptions of each other. The games we play. The masks we wear. The self-protective armour we carry. It has a gentle self-deprecating humour. There were so many parts where I laughed out loud. The bits about an entire class having to do detention because no-one was willing to grass on the perpetrator/s who committed an indiscretion, causing aforesaid detention (yup, who hasn't been there)...classic. I enjoyed the subtle irony, and the spot on observations.
Really, it's about finding your voice and becoming your own person. And the pains is takes to get there.
Jason, as the guileless main character makes you want to both hug and cheer him on at the same time. I think I may have a bit of a crush. The ending left me wanting more. It left me sad, yet happy. And hopeful. It's so poignant. I hope Jason Taylor ended up in a good place.
Despite this very long review, I still didn't say what I wanted to. Just read it. You'll get so much out of it. This is going on my "Favourites" shelf. Quite simply, that is where it has to be.
LOVED. I cannot gush about this one enough. It's really touched a soft spot. I do not know why I didn't read it earlier.
5 very contented ★ Sigh.
*** I asked the wonderful, talented Mr.Neale-ski (*waves*) to pick me a "happy book" to start my 2020 reading year. Great pick. Love, love, love. Me happy. An unofficial buddy read. Please read his review once he posts it. ***
* Black Swan Green: no black swans here, nor white ones either...or green. Or are there? It just depends on how hard you look.
" 'So there's no swans in Black Swan Green?' 'Yeah. It's sort of a local joke.' 'Oh. That's pretty funny, really, isn't it?' "
“If swans weren't real, myths'd make them up.”
July 8, 2017
I have a soft spot for coming of age books. So whenever I start a coming of age, I keep chanting, "please be good". I hate it when I don't like such story as I think they are beautiful, if written in right way, and perhaps one of the hardest kind to write. It's difficult to capture the emotions of an adolescent. It's such a tender age where kids are coming to terms to with life, when they try to fit in or hide away; when parents let them come out of their shadows and the brutal world is trying to teach them the hard realities of world. When they're clueless about whether to behave like an adult because everyone expect them to or be that carefree kid who don't give a damn about this big, bad world.
Black Swan Green is story of 13 year old Jason Taylor. On the surface he is just an ordinary boy but as you get to know him, you find how hard he is trying to be accepted in group of popular kids. He knows they're bad, they're bullies but still he wants to be a part of that gang because it'll help him attain that status which every weak kid desires. Some kind of security, perhaps? Too bad that he was not accepted and spent all the time to hide from those bullies who harass him whenever they find him alone. They make fun of his stuttering, and alienate him. But poor kid still keep going on, after all moving on is life, thinking/telling himself one day things will change.
If all that struggle outside home was not hard enough, he has to endure the little fights that his parents had. Its kind of funny how parents think. They'll hide things from you as in their opinion they're shielding you from pain because you're still a kid and unable to understand things. But they'll dump everything on you later expecting you to understand and corporate. They'll expect you to behave like an adult.
This book is semi-autobiography of author and perhaps that's why he has captured the emotions of Jason so beautifully. I felt happy, sad, ecstatic, scared, and love for Jason because it was just perfect. A perfect read for someone like me (who loves coming of age stories).
P.S: This book is full of songs from early 70s & 80s. (one more reason to love it)
Black Swan Green is story of 13 year old Jason Taylor. On the surface he is just an ordinary boy but as you get to know him, you find how hard he is trying to be accepted in group of popular kids. He knows they're bad, they're bullies but still he wants to be a part of that gang because it'll help him attain that status which every weak kid desires. Some kind of security, perhaps? Too bad that he was not accepted and spent all the time to hide from those bullies who harass him whenever they find him alone. They make fun of his stuttering, and alienate him. But poor kid still keep going on, after all moving on is life, thinking/telling himself one day things will change.
If all that struggle outside home was not hard enough, he has to endure the little fights that his parents had. Its kind of funny how parents think. They'll hide things from you as in their opinion they're shielding you from pain because you're still a kid and unable to understand things. But they'll dump everything on you later expecting you to understand and corporate. They'll expect you to behave like an adult.
This book is semi-autobiography of author and perhaps that's why he has captured the emotions of Jason so beautifully. I felt happy, sad, ecstatic, scared, and love for Jason because it was just perfect. A perfect read for someone like me (who loves coming of age stories).
P.S: This book is full of songs from early 70s & 80s. (one more reason to love it)
September 24, 2022
A bittersweet and empowering coming of age novel, Black Swan Green, is about a thirteen year old boy growing up in a small town in England during the 1980s. Being a teenage boy is hard enough, but he is a stutterer, so his life at school is a living hell. He also writes poetry, which he keeps a closely guarded secret from even his own family.
Funny at times and sad at times, the story of his journey is incredibly moving. With surreptitious help from a teacher and his stuttering coach, he begins to understand that cruelty isn't born, but is made. To deal with his bullies, he has to study them and find their weaknesses. Just as he sees some light at the end of the tunnel with his classmates, his parents surprise him with turmoil he didn't see coming.
Funny at times and sad at times, the story of his journey is incredibly moving. With surreptitious help from a teacher and his stuttering coach, he begins to understand that cruelty isn't born, but is made. To deal with his bullies, he has to study them and find their weaknesses. Just as he sees some light at the end of the tunnel with his classmates, his parents surprise him with turmoil he didn't see coming.
November 14, 2017
Sometimes I look forward to reviewing a book; other times it can feel like an unwanted chore, like mopping the floor. This falls into the latter category. Not because I didn’t enjoy it – I did – but because I can’t find much to say about it. It’s about a thirteen year old boy who is bullied at school. As a parent boys are difficult at thirteen. The spontaneity and moments of genius have retreated behind double glazing. A surly self-consciousness has replaced the old inclination to dig and dance and sing. When before in your role as father you were made to feel like a magical deity, you’re now made to feel like a traffic warden. That was one thing this book made me aware of. At the same time it brought back memories of when I was thirteen, only a few years before the character in this book was thirteen. One thing that occurred to me was how important football was in determining popularity at school. Mitchell barely mentions football. If you weren’t interested in football your chances of being bullied went up tenfold. Mitchell’s boy is bullied because he has a slight stutter. What Mitchell does supremely well here is to use stuttering as a metaphor for the painful awakening of self-consciousness in all adolescents (thanks to Ellie for making me rethink this element of the novel!). Mitchell’s character also writes poetry and reads The Daily Mail (there’s an oxymoron!) – what thirteen year old boy reads the Daily Mail? For Americans who don’t know, The Daily Mail is a British newspaper which was sympathetic to the Nazis in the 1930s and hasn’t changed its political perspective much over the years.
Anyway, apologies for writing down some random thoughts instead of writing a helpful review!
Anyway, apologies for writing down some random thoughts instead of writing a helpful review!
March 1, 2021
Rating: 1.5* of five (p66)
Strike one: Teenaged protagonist.
Strike two, and ball one of strike three: Majgicqk. Or something like it.
Strike three: David Mitchell's writing reminds me of all the MFA program writing I've ever read.
I thought The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and Cloud Atlas were disorganized, and NO I did NOT misunderstand the fractured POV he used, I thought he did a poor job of executing it, and I found the preciosity of his phrasemaking in each of the three books I've either read through or Pearl Ruled unpleasant to the point of actual snort of derision coming out of me as I read.
I don't think he's a good writer, I don't like the story he told here (which has nothing to do with him, only to do with my response), and I won't be reading more stuff like this:
If you can make a kid puking tedious, brother, you can make ANYthing tedious. And he does.
Poke me with a fork, I'm done.
Strike one: Teenaged protagonist.
Strike two, and ball one of strike three: Majgicqk. Or something like it.
Strike three: David Mitchell's writing reminds me of all the MFA program writing I've ever read.
I thought The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and Cloud Atlas were disorganized, and NO I did NOT misunderstand the fractured POV he used, I thought he did a poor job of executing it, and I found the preciosity of his phrasemaking in each of the three books I've either read through or Pearl Ruled unpleasant to the point of actual snort of derision coming out of me as I read.
I don't think he's a good writer, I don't like the story he told here (which has nothing to do with him, only to do with my response), and I won't be reading more stuff like this:
The first torrent of vomit kicked a GUUURRRRRR noise out of me, and poured on the muddy grass. In the hot slurry were bits of prawn and carrot. Some'd got n my splayed fingers. It was warm as warm rice pudding. More was coming, Inside my eyelids was a Lambert and Butler cigarette sticking out of its box, like in an advert. The second torrent was a mustardier yellow. I guppered for fresh oxygen like a man in an airlock. Prayed that was the last of it. Then came three short, boiling subslurries, slicker and sweeter, as if composed of the Baked Alaska.
If you can make a kid puking tedious, brother, you can make ANYthing tedious. And he does.
Poke me with a fork, I'm done.
August 4, 2024
An amazing coming of age story, told through thirteen months in the life of Jason Tyler, a thinly veiled literary alter-ego to Mitchell. Ethics, popularity, a falling marriage and doing what’s right, especially if it is difficult, all come back in a fun narrative
I thought about how all leaders can sense what people’re afraid of and turn that fear into bows and arrows and muskets and grenades and nukes to use however they want.
In Black Swan Green we get 13 months during mostly 1982.
Jason, a stammering boy with a penchant for poetry and words in general, has his ideas about life, the stability of parents, the importance of popularity and even the thrills of war, all change during the book. As everyone knows who talked to me in real life about books, I love David Mitchell and this is one of his underappreciated masterpieces!
Jason goes through a remarkable growth, even though his stammer "Hangman" tries to interfere frequently, and learns that popularity is not everything in a teenage life. Also he finds an appreciation for his sister and understanding for the motives driving his parents. Along the way Mitchell introduces us to myriad colorful characters (not to talk about dialects!), from Hugo, a diabolical nephew of Jason who reappears prominently in The Bone Clocks to a Belgian elder woman with a love for poetry, who knows Robbert Frobisher from Cloud Atlas. Still this book is easily readable for anyone not versed in the Mitchellverse, and it might be the most accessible in his oeuvre in a way. War reflects itself in the interactions of teenagers and in the end Jason needs to be brave, even though it’s very hard.
As always, the prose Mitchell brings to the party is both fun, scathing and beautiful!
Quotes are below:
It’s all ranks, being a boy, like the army.
Trees’re always a relief, after people.
My abortion of a sister flashed me a victorious grin.
It’s easier to change your eyeballs than to change your nickname.
Most people think stammering and stuttering are the same but they’re as different as diarrhea and constipation.
It’s not lies or anything, just truths I made up.
I can never tell Dad what I really think like that. I can feel the stuff I don’t say rotting inside of me like mildewy spuds in a sack.
By the Black Swan girls were clustered under umbrellas. Boys can’t use umbrellas ‘cause they’re gay.
Uncle Brian knows I’d rather be involved in a multiple car crash than discuss my private life with him.
An cow of an awkward pause mooed.
Black Swan Green might not be the arsehole of the world, but it’s got a damn good view of it.
Birdsong’s the thoughts of a wood. Beautiful, it was, but boys aren’t allowed to say ‘beautiful’ ‘cause it’s the gayest word going.
Cherry-knocking sounds a pretty term, but prettiness often papers over nastiness.
They’d make a good husband and wife, we reckon. They both hate humans.
But few things’re only one thing if you think about them long enough.
The world unmakes stuff faster than people can make it.
His skin was as blotched as a dying banana
If a peacock had a human voice, that’d be hers.
If you show someone something you’ve written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin and say, ‘When you’re ready’.
You think I am French?
I nodded.
Belgian. The destiny of discreet neighbours is to be confused with the noisy ones next door.
Our souls eat poetry, but one has seven deadly sins to feed!
The sequence of doors we passed made me think of all the rooms of my past and future. The hospital ward I was born in, classrooms, tents, churches, offices, hotels, museums, nursing homes, the room I’ll die in. (Has it been build yet?) Cars’re rooms. So are woods. Skies’re ceilings. Distances’re walls. Wombs’re rooms made of mothers. Graves’re rooms made of soil.
Jealous and sweet, this music was, sobbing and gorgeous, muddy and crystal. But if the right words existed the music wouldn’t need to.
True poetry is truth. Truth is not popular, so poetry also is not.
Only in my poems, I realized, do I get to say exactly what I want.
Yes, whatever beauty is, I had it, in those days.
Feelings were not expressed so incontinently. Not in our class anyhow.
You are European, you illiterate monkey of puberty!
Wish I could be thirteen again.
Then, I thought, you’ve obviously forgotten what it’s like.
I don’t even know what I don’t know
You’re English! You don’t know real food from freakin’ polystyrene.
I don’t know, we don’t do queens where I come from Jock, well, not queens who dress like they’re serving life in fashion prison…
Hate doesn’t need a why. Who or even what is ample.
Respect earned by integrity cannot be lost without your consent.
Wilcox’s power is that you think it’s not him speaking but public opinion judging you through him.
Questions aren’t questions. Questions’re bullets.
Poems are lenses, mirrors and X-ray machines.
I thought about how all leaders can sense what people’re afraid of and turn that fear into bows and arrows and muskets and grenades and nukes to use however they want.
My neck and bum got scratched but scratches don’t hurt like humiliation hurts.
Time in wood’s older than time in clocks, and truer.
Courage is being scared shitless but doing it anyway
Blank out the consequences
Do it until it’s undoable
But niceness isn’t goodness, I ‘spose.
Secrets affect you more than you’d think. You lie to keep them hidden. You steer talk away from them. You worry someone’ll discover yours and tell the world. You think you are in charge of the secret, but isn’t it the secret that’s using you?
But how someone acts isn’t what they are. Not necessarily.
The world won’t leave things be. It’s always injecting endings into beginnings.
The world never stops unmaking what the world never stops making.
I thought about how all leaders can sense what people’re afraid of and turn that fear into bows and arrows and muskets and grenades and nukes to use however they want.
In Black Swan Green we get 13 months during mostly 1982.
Jason, a stammering boy with a penchant for poetry and words in general, has his ideas about life, the stability of parents, the importance of popularity and even the thrills of war, all change during the book. As everyone knows who talked to me in real life about books, I love David Mitchell and this is one of his underappreciated masterpieces!
Jason goes through a remarkable growth, even though his stammer "Hangman" tries to interfere frequently, and learns that popularity is not everything in a teenage life. Also he finds an appreciation for his sister and understanding for the motives driving his parents. Along the way Mitchell introduces us to myriad colorful characters (not to talk about dialects!), from Hugo, a diabolical nephew of Jason who reappears prominently in The Bone Clocks to a Belgian elder woman with a love for poetry, who knows Robbert Frobisher from Cloud Atlas. Still this book is easily readable for anyone not versed in the Mitchellverse, and it might be the most accessible in his oeuvre in a way. War reflects itself in the interactions of teenagers and in the end Jason needs to be brave, even though it’s very hard.
As always, the prose Mitchell brings to the party is both fun, scathing and beautiful!
Quotes are below:
It’s all ranks, being a boy, like the army.
Trees’re always a relief, after people.
My abortion of a sister flashed me a victorious grin.
It’s easier to change your eyeballs than to change your nickname.
Most people think stammering and stuttering are the same but they’re as different as diarrhea and constipation.
It’s not lies or anything, just truths I made up.
I can never tell Dad what I really think like that. I can feel the stuff I don’t say rotting inside of me like mildewy spuds in a sack.
By the Black Swan girls were clustered under umbrellas. Boys can’t use umbrellas ‘cause they’re gay.
Uncle Brian knows I’d rather be involved in a multiple car crash than discuss my private life with him.
An cow of an awkward pause mooed.
Black Swan Green might not be the arsehole of the world, but it’s got a damn good view of it.
Birdsong’s the thoughts of a wood. Beautiful, it was, but boys aren’t allowed to say ‘beautiful’ ‘cause it’s the gayest word going.
Cherry-knocking sounds a pretty term, but prettiness often papers over nastiness.
They’d make a good husband and wife, we reckon. They both hate humans.
But few things’re only one thing if you think about them long enough.
The world unmakes stuff faster than people can make it.
His skin was as blotched as a dying banana
If a peacock had a human voice, that’d be hers.
If you show someone something you’ve written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin and say, ‘When you’re ready’.
You think I am French?
I nodded.
Belgian. The destiny of discreet neighbours is to be confused with the noisy ones next door.
Our souls eat poetry, but one has seven deadly sins to feed!
The sequence of doors we passed made me think of all the rooms of my past and future. The hospital ward I was born in, classrooms, tents, churches, offices, hotels, museums, nursing homes, the room I’ll die in. (Has it been build yet?) Cars’re rooms. So are woods. Skies’re ceilings. Distances’re walls. Wombs’re rooms made of mothers. Graves’re rooms made of soil.
Jealous and sweet, this music was, sobbing and gorgeous, muddy and crystal. But if the right words existed the music wouldn’t need to.
True poetry is truth. Truth is not popular, so poetry also is not.
Only in my poems, I realized, do I get to say exactly what I want.
Yes, whatever beauty is, I had it, in those days.
Feelings were not expressed so incontinently. Not in our class anyhow.
You are European, you illiterate monkey of puberty!
Wish I could be thirteen again.
Then, I thought, you’ve obviously forgotten what it’s like.
I don’t even know what I don’t know
You’re English! You don’t know real food from freakin’ polystyrene.
I don’t know, we don’t do queens where I come from Jock, well, not queens who dress like they’re serving life in fashion prison…
Hate doesn’t need a why. Who or even what is ample.
Respect earned by integrity cannot be lost without your consent.
Wilcox’s power is that you think it’s not him speaking but public opinion judging you through him.
Questions aren’t questions. Questions’re bullets.
Poems are lenses, mirrors and X-ray machines.
I thought about how all leaders can sense what people’re afraid of and turn that fear into bows and arrows and muskets and grenades and nukes to use however they want.
My neck and bum got scratched but scratches don’t hurt like humiliation hurts.
Time in wood’s older than time in clocks, and truer.
Courage is being scared shitless but doing it anyway
Blank out the consequences
Do it until it’s undoable
But niceness isn’t goodness, I ‘spose.
Secrets affect you more than you’d think. You lie to keep them hidden. You steer talk away from them. You worry someone’ll discover yours and tell the world. You think you are in charge of the secret, but isn’t it the secret that’s using you?
But how someone acts isn’t what they are. Not necessarily.
The world won’t leave things be. It’s always injecting endings into beginnings.
The world never stops unmaking what the world never stops making.
June 26, 2017
I have failed to understand why this novel is sometimes disregarded even by Mitchell’s admirers. Because Mitchell accustomed us with his earlier works to something more bizarre and flamboyant ? Because Black Swan Green is so … ordinary ?
Adolescence is a real torture, especially for sensitive, smart but morbidly lacking of self-confidence one. And so Jason is. Thirteen-year-old from some jerkwater town, struggling with own deficiencies and fears. In some respects Jason has really rough times: he’s stammering and at all costs attempts to hide it before schoolmates, besides, horror of horrors ! he's writing poems, what is considered as ... well, writing poems is . . . what creeps and poofters do . It’s so easy to become an object of mockery.
In his home there is no better, bad relationships with older sister and hanging over head parents' divorce. And all this in Thatcher's England, times of recession, with the ongoing absurd Falklands war in the background.
This traditional story captivates by its simplicity. Nuanced, amusing and compassionate at the same time. Accurate and irresistibly funny description of adults: sarcastic mother, intelligently mischievous sister, snobbish uncle, ironic cousin Hugo. The tragicomic deliberations on whom stutterer can become, as for sure not a lawyer, maybe a lighthouse keeper ? Soliciting for recognition in the peer group, dread of rejection and to be an object of ridicule and bullying described with tact and humour.
Thirteen, wonderfully unhappy age. Neither child nor teenager. Black Swan Green then is a poignant, bitter-sweet farewell to childhood.
October 31, 2012
I think it was the summer between eighth and ninth grades that I had an absolutely hellish summer camp experience.* For whatever reason I got branded as the person to pick on and just about everything that I did was turned into a series of 'jokes' at my expense.
I haven't thought of this experience in quite sometime, it's sort of one of those things that I just don't dwell on, but it was one of those times that seriously fucked me up. Some of the taunting that Jason Taylor goes through in this book kind of reminded me of this particular time. The early 80's English world that the book takes place in is slightly different from my own experience though, maybe it's the British class thing, but the kids in this book fall into particular positions and there is little mobility out of being an insider or outsider. My own particular experience was that the people tormenting were people I considered friends who turned particularly nasty, and they would swing back to being friends and back to tormentors again. Thinking about many of my experiences growing up, I realize that a lot of kids I knew, especially neighborhood kids, my relationships with many of them were hazy blurs of being friendly, being at war, being friendly again, and maybe even being bullied by them.
And I wonder why I've had no desire to ever seek out friends after I moved away from New Jersey.
I had some mixed feelings doing into this book. Besides Cloud Atlas, none of David Mitchell's books have ever called to me. I mean, when I see or saw them for the first time and read what they are about I don't feel any desire to read them. But, I've enjoyed the two Mitchell books I've read. Lots of goodreads people I know just love him and they are generally people whose opinions I respect (or at least I like their opinions because their opinions line up with my opinions on many book related areas, and it's only natural to think that people who agree with you are smarter than the other philistines who don't agree with you about these sorts of things, right?). I had bought this from the Salvation Army a couple of years back and it's been sitting on my shelf, and it happened to be sitting on the bookshelf that was next in my sort of sporadic, 'pick a book from the next bookshelf / pile of books' so that I can read books I bought at various times, instead of just reading the books I've recently bought and ignoring the hundreds of old-unread books, and because Cloud Atlas was just released as a Major Motion Picture I thought I'd read some Mitchell and when I write a review I'd probably get some extra attention because Mitchell is kind of hot right now.
So that is why I read the book. And I figured a coming of age story in his hands might be interesting.
It was, but it was also nothing that I hadn't read before.
The story is a year in the life of a kid growing up in the early 1980's. It's the year of the Falkland's conflict (war?), something I know very little that doesn't come from Crass lyrics and images ("How does it feel?"). It's the rise of Thatcher, and of continuing economic troubles in the UK. Actually all of this sounds like like a Crass album. Except that those things are all going on in the background, and it's about the more general thing of growing up, getting picked on by your peers, about trying to figure out how to do what is right / staying true to yourself and still fitting in with the cool kids (or at least not getting beat up by them).
I probably liked the book more than my three star rating would make it seem. I think part of the problem was that I was expecting a more interesting narrative, or structure to the story from Mitchell. This was a fairly straight-forward coming of age story. Maybe there isn't a lot that can be done with this particular genre, but this book didn't feel like it really stood out from other movies and novels I've consumed. I think that my lowish star rating is also how I feel the book stands up to the other books of Mitchell's I've read, and as a kind of reaction to the gushing praise that is splashed all over the front and back cover of this book. This was one of the top ten books of the year by the New York Times? Really? Was it a slow year in literature?
The last couple of chapters in the book didn't help save the book for me, either. I was already feeling like the book was nothing spectacular when this happened. I'll save spoiling anything, but things started to feel a little unrealistic for the way things had been going in the book.
I'd probably recommend reading something by John Green if you want to read about precious slightly loser-ish teen boys navigating their adolescence. But there really isn't anything wrong with this book, it just never really did much for me though.
*Summer camp experiences for my own edification
1984 - One week away. Almost sent home for learning how the simple joy of making a blow torch using matches and aerosol bug spray. Forced to do some push-ups as punishment and got screamed at a lot by some jock asshole counselor.
1985 - I'm fairly certain I figured out how not to go to summer camp this year.
1986 - Went to the hellish summer camp for one week. Learned what a gang-bang was through an immature song my tent-mate sung constantly. Almost died rappelling and contracted food poisoning from eating raw chicken. Also spent most of the week in the pouring rain. Built character, I guess.
1987 - Went to the nice summer camp. Woke up every morning at around 5 AM to take field notes for a merit badge, discovered a beaver dam and watched a beaver swim around every morning. An enjoyable experience. Learned that I don't like boats at all and I have no skill in using them except for capsizing them. I also learned that playing a game where two teams fight each other in the water for control over a greased watermelon is stupid. I'm also inept at blowing up my clothes in the water.
1988 - Back to the hellish summer camp. I'm fairly certain that these two weeks are responsible for a host of my 'problems' of dealing with other people as a normal person. Swam a mile. Crashed a motor boat. Went on one of the worst trips ever. I guess this built character.
1989 - Last year of summer camp. Back to the nice camp. Almost stepped on a rattlesnake.
I haven't thought of this experience in quite sometime, it's sort of one of those things that I just don't dwell on, but it was one of those times that seriously fucked me up. Some of the taunting that Jason Taylor goes through in this book kind of reminded me of this particular time. The early 80's English world that the book takes place in is slightly different from my own experience though, maybe it's the British class thing, but the kids in this book fall into particular positions and there is little mobility out of being an insider or outsider. My own particular experience was that the people tormenting were people I considered friends who turned particularly nasty, and they would swing back to being friends and back to tormentors again. Thinking about many of my experiences growing up, I realize that a lot of kids I knew, especially neighborhood kids, my relationships with many of them were hazy blurs of being friendly, being at war, being friendly again, and maybe even being bullied by them.
And I wonder why I've had no desire to ever seek out friends after I moved away from New Jersey.
I had some mixed feelings doing into this book. Besides Cloud Atlas, none of David Mitchell's books have ever called to me. I mean, when I see or saw them for the first time and read what they are about I don't feel any desire to read them. But, I've enjoyed the two Mitchell books I've read. Lots of goodreads people I know just love him and they are generally people whose opinions I respect (or at least I like their opinions because their opinions line up with my opinions on many book related areas, and it's only natural to think that people who agree with you are smarter than the other philistines who don't agree with you about these sorts of things, right?). I had bought this from the Salvation Army a couple of years back and it's been sitting on my shelf, and it happened to be sitting on the bookshelf that was next in my sort of sporadic, 'pick a book from the next bookshelf / pile of books' so that I can read books I bought at various times, instead of just reading the books I've recently bought and ignoring the hundreds of old-unread books, and because Cloud Atlas was just released as a Major Motion Picture I thought I'd read some Mitchell and when I write a review I'd probably get some extra attention because Mitchell is kind of hot right now.
So that is why I read the book. And I figured a coming of age story in his hands might be interesting.
It was, but it was also nothing that I hadn't read before.
The story is a year in the life of a kid growing up in the early 1980's. It's the year of the Falkland's conflict (war?), something I know very little that doesn't come from Crass lyrics and images ("How does it feel?"). It's the rise of Thatcher, and of continuing economic troubles in the UK. Actually all of this sounds like like a Crass album. Except that those things are all going on in the background, and it's about the more general thing of growing up, getting picked on by your peers, about trying to figure out how to do what is right / staying true to yourself and still fitting in with the cool kids (or at least not getting beat up by them).
I probably liked the book more than my three star rating would make it seem. I think part of the problem was that I was expecting a more interesting narrative, or structure to the story from Mitchell. This was a fairly straight-forward coming of age story. Maybe there isn't a lot that can be done with this particular genre, but this book didn't feel like it really stood out from other movies and novels I've consumed. I think that my lowish star rating is also how I feel the book stands up to the other books of Mitchell's I've read, and as a kind of reaction to the gushing praise that is splashed all over the front and back cover of this book. This was one of the top ten books of the year by the New York Times? Really? Was it a slow year in literature?
The last couple of chapters in the book didn't help save the book for me, either. I was already feeling like the book was nothing spectacular when this happened. I'll save spoiling anything, but things started to feel a little unrealistic for the way things had been going in the book.
I'd probably recommend reading something by John Green if you want to read about precious slightly loser-ish teen boys navigating their adolescence. But there really isn't anything wrong with this book, it just never really did much for me though.
*Summer camp experiences for my own edification
1984 - One week away. Almost sent home for learning how the simple joy of making a blow torch using matches and aerosol bug spray. Forced to do some push-ups as punishment and got screamed at a lot by some jock asshole counselor.
1985 - I'm fairly certain I figured out how not to go to summer camp this year.
1986 - Went to the hellish summer camp for one week. Learned what a gang-bang was through an immature song my tent-mate sung constantly. Almost died rappelling and contracted food poisoning from eating raw chicken. Also spent most of the week in the pouring rain. Built character, I guess.
1987 - Went to the nice summer camp. Woke up every morning at around 5 AM to take field notes for a merit badge, discovered a beaver dam and watched a beaver swim around every morning. An enjoyable experience. Learned that I don't like boats at all and I have no skill in using them except for capsizing them. I also learned that playing a game where two teams fight each other in the water for control over a greased watermelon is stupid. I'm also inept at blowing up my clothes in the water.
1988 - Back to the hellish summer camp. I'm fairly certain that these two weeks are responsible for a host of my 'problems' of dealing with other people as a normal person. Swam a mile. Crashed a motor boat. Went on one of the worst trips ever. I guess this built character.
1989 - Last year of summer camp. Back to the nice camp. Almost stepped on a rattlesnake.
September 26, 2007
I remember describing this book to a coworker:
Me: "It's about this little stuttering English kid who lives out in some little village during the Thatcher era, and sort of like, his coming of age kind of experiences?"
Coworker: "Oh God, that sounds awful."
Me: "No! I mean, I know it sounds awful the way I just explained it, but the book's actually really, really great!"
Two days later....
Me: (privately, to self) "Oh, God, this is awful."
I don't know what happened! This book started out really amazing me, seeming superficially like one of those written-a-trillion-times quaint period piece preadolescent-boyhood novels, but somehow defied the genre and was just so wonderfully written and insided this kid's head and about a thousand times better than it had any right to be..... But then somehow, midway through, it tipped and twisted and turned into the most cliched, precious, tiresome crap I've read in awhile. Is that too harsh? Yeah. But it did suddenly get completely stupid, I'm pretty sure. It went from being this wonderfully phrased little shimmering gem with terrific dialogue, into... well, okay, spoiler alert: in the second half of this novel, the little boy meets an eccentric old lady who teaches him to believe in himself, copes with his parents' divorce, learns to overcome prejudice by befriending gypsies, stands up to bullies, gets his first kiss, and learns a few lessons about love and loss. Happily, our little hero Jason neatly resolves at least one of Erik Erikson's developmental stages and gains mastery over his environment, moving several strides closer to manhood in the great game of Life! If this sounds good to you, be my guest and pick up a copy of _Black Swan Green_. If you can't find this book, that's okay, because there are countless others which are very similar, many of them written for a young audience.
Okay, I'm a big jerk, and it really wasn't so terrible... But if you're interested in the coming-of-age experiences of little British boys in crappy towns during the Falklands war, I suggest you go see the movie _This is England_, which has not just a much fresher take, but also a better soundtrack.
Me: "It's about this little stuttering English kid who lives out in some little village during the Thatcher era, and sort of like, his coming of age kind of experiences?"
Coworker: "Oh God, that sounds awful."
Me: "No! I mean, I know it sounds awful the way I just explained it, but the book's actually really, really great!"
Two days later....
Me: (privately, to self) "Oh, God, this is awful."
I don't know what happened! This book started out really amazing me, seeming superficially like one of those written-a-trillion-times quaint period piece preadolescent-boyhood novels, but somehow defied the genre and was just so wonderfully written and insided this kid's head and about a thousand times better than it had any right to be..... But then somehow, midway through, it tipped and twisted and turned into the most cliched, precious, tiresome crap I've read in awhile. Is that too harsh? Yeah. But it did suddenly get completely stupid, I'm pretty sure. It went from being this wonderfully phrased little shimmering gem with terrific dialogue, into... well, okay, spoiler alert: in the second half of this novel, the little boy meets an eccentric old lady who teaches him to believe in himself, copes with his parents' divorce, learns to overcome prejudice by befriending gypsies, stands up to bullies, gets his first kiss, and learns a few lessons about love and loss. Happily, our little hero Jason neatly resolves at least one of Erik Erikson's developmental stages and gains mastery over his environment, moving several strides closer to manhood in the great game of Life! If this sounds good to you, be my guest and pick up a copy of _Black Swan Green_. If you can't find this book, that's okay, because there are countless others which are very similar, many of them written for a young audience.
Okay, I'm a big jerk, and it really wasn't so terrible... But if you're interested in the coming-of-age experiences of little British boys in crappy towns during the Falklands war, I suggest you go see the movie _This is England_, which has not just a much fresher take, but also a better soundtrack.
October 17, 2016
David Mitchell is known for dazzling innovation and dizzying ambition. Intricately structured novels such as Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten are grand kaleidoscopes of intersecting voices and places. This book is a change of pace, however. It focuses on a single character in a single location. But despite its narrowed scope, it is no less powerful or captivating than his other works.
Jason Taylor is our hero, a thirteen-year-old boy in the sleepy middle-class town of Black Swan Green, Worcestershire. On the surface all is well - he is a clever kid who has had poetry published in a local magazine, his family live in a wealthy estate and he has a loyal best friend in Dean Moran. But trouble is bubbling underneath. He is struggling to fit in at school, his stammer is becoming worse and lately his parents don't seem to be getting on with each other. And that's not to mention the ever-present threat of bullies, plus the head-scratching mystery of girls. 1982 will prove to be a tumultuous year in Jason's life and we have a front-row seat.
It seems quite a personal tale, in some aspects at least. Mitchell grew up in a similar Worcestershire town and would have been the same age as Jason at this time. He has also spoken openly about his own struggles with a speech impediment. Jason refers to the mental block he experiences when speaking as a Hangman which robs him of his words. The intense anguish and embarrassment it causes him is extremely moving. It opened my eyes to the trauma and suffering that a person with a speech disorder goes through. Mitchell has described this book as a kind of catharsis for him: "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."
We've all encountered coming-of-age stories before but this one is different. It understands the true anxieties of adolescence better than anything else I've read. It's also a love letter to the early 80s and Mitchell clearly remembers this period fondly, with myriad references to The Rockford Files, Big Trak, Angel Delight and the like. It makes me pine for a more innocent time, when simple pleasures were enough to satisfy, instead of the hyper-connected world we now live in. Black Swan Green is a nostalgic delight, a gorgeous and vibrant account of that volatile first teenage year.
Jason Taylor is our hero, a thirteen-year-old boy in the sleepy middle-class town of Black Swan Green, Worcestershire. On the surface all is well - he is a clever kid who has had poetry published in a local magazine, his family live in a wealthy estate and he has a loyal best friend in Dean Moran. But trouble is bubbling underneath. He is struggling to fit in at school, his stammer is becoming worse and lately his parents don't seem to be getting on with each other. And that's not to mention the ever-present threat of bullies, plus the head-scratching mystery of girls. 1982 will prove to be a tumultuous year in Jason's life and we have a front-row seat.
It seems quite a personal tale, in some aspects at least. Mitchell grew up in a similar Worcestershire town and would have been the same age as Jason at this time. He has also spoken openly about his own struggles with a speech impediment. Jason refers to the mental block he experiences when speaking as a Hangman which robs him of his words. The intense anguish and embarrassment it causes him is extremely moving. It opened my eyes to the trauma and suffering that a person with a speech disorder goes through. Mitchell has described this book as a kind of catharsis for him: "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."
We've all encountered coming-of-age stories before but this one is different. It understands the true anxieties of adolescence better than anything else I've read. It's also a love letter to the early 80s and Mitchell clearly remembers this period fondly, with myriad references to The Rockford Files, Big Trak, Angel Delight and the like. It makes me pine for a more innocent time, when simple pleasures were enough to satisfy, instead of the hyper-connected world we now live in. Black Swan Green is a nostalgic delight, a gorgeous and vibrant account of that volatile first teenage year.
January 11, 2019
What I noticed while reading this book spanning a year in the life of Jason Taylor, our main character and narrator, is how real it felt. Real enough to be biographical. Turns out that it is semi-biographical. One year that strictly followed David Mitchell's actual life at 13? No, probably not. Like most books written of memories plucked out of the past, I believe that much here is fiction, but who could say exactly, excepting Mitchell himself. I do know that pieces, whole sections even, were so real they felt like my own, or any person's adolescent life. Not that my childhood experience of 1982 was the same as Jason's, but some things sure were. Have not each of us experienced the dreaded hierarchy of school, navigating friendships - or bullies, those moments of adolescent loneliness, followed by a little bit of the wonder that occurs out of nowhere in particular, or the magic of being liked by a girl? How about family at that age, and realizing that our parents are experiencing some of those same things on a whole other level? Jason does, and more.
What I did not notice while reading was that this book is broken into 13 chapters with each chapter representing one month in that year's time. The chapters are slightly disjointed, meaning parts often began or ended abruptly with little connection to one another, and no explanation as to why. Later, I realized the sense of the month-to-month correspondence. Not that I was bothered by any disparity. I was not. It's just a very good book with a tender narrator, mostly understood in the final pages. That's when I knew that some things do work out in the end, even when you're only 13, and some things do not. There are new paths to be taken, often not by choice. Many things happen when you're thirteen, and it's only a start.
What I did not notice while reading was that this book is broken into 13 chapters with each chapter representing one month in that year's time. The chapters are slightly disjointed, meaning parts often began or ended abruptly with little connection to one another, and no explanation as to why. Later, I realized the sense of the month-to-month correspondence. Not that I was bothered by any disparity. I was not. It's just a very good book with a tender narrator, mostly understood in the final pages. That's when I knew that some things do work out in the end, even when you're only 13, and some things do not. There are new paths to be taken, often not by choice. Many things happen when you're thirteen, and it's only a start.
December 16, 2015
“Black Swan Green” is a tender story about 13-year-old Jason Taylor and the challenges of adolescence. The teenage years can be tumultuous but significantly harder for Jason on account of a debilitating stammer.
In Jason, Mitchell successfully created a young protagonist I quickly grew to love and wished to defend. He was having a tough time at school and even his older sister disdainfully referred to him as "Thing". But Jason was a bright kid with a gift of writing. Sadly for him, his poems, published under a pseudonym, were the only safe way to express himself. I felt Jason’s distress when he had to read in front of his form assembly: "By nine-fifteen my secret'll be spreading round the school like a poison-gas attack. By the end of first break my life won't be worth living." How poignant he had a name for his speech impairment - "Hangman". There was a mark of authenticity in Mitchell's portrayal of Jason's struggles, which carried echoes of Mitchell's own personal experience of living with a stammer as a child.
Mitchell has a good ear for the language and conversation of teenage boys and working knowledge of teen culture. For Jason and his classmates, "It's all ranks, being a boy, like the army." Mitchell understood developmental psychology. What was described is true of Erik Erikson's 5th stage of psychosocial development in which the search for identity predominates. The need to belong, to impress, to be adored was rendered very palpable. Jason wanted to be like his hunk of a cousin Hugo even though he realized how unkind, pretentious and dishonest he was. It was a treacherous age. Jason himself said it best in his confession to an unlikely elderly person: "I'm a kid. I'm thirteen. You said it's a miserable age, being thirteen, and you're right. If you don't fit in, they make your life a misery." Jason navigated a subversive world in which playing nasty pranks raised popularity several notches instantly and also guaranteed membership into an inner circle of daredevils. I suppose the price to be paid for popularity or loyalty is magnified when you are thirteen. That world was also described with humor that flowed naturally from the wonder of inexperienced youth encountering their brave new world.
It was sobering to think that school cannot be presumed to be a safe haven for some kids. The evil that youth were capable of was staggering. What the boys did reminded me of the antics of the children in Roddy Doyle's "Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha" except the mischief in "Black Swan Green" was a lot more vicious. Jason and his lowlife peers were victims of horrific bullying and intimidation. I empathized with the boys' long suffering and helpless teachers who battled daily belligerence and disdain for school.
Mitchell let on that behind the veneer of coolness, many teens led troubled lives. Dean Moran's father was a poisoned alcoholic; Ross Wilcox’s father was a wife-batterer. Cracks too were showing in Jason's parents' marriage. In the larger background loomed the Falklands War and more intimately, the domestic battles in the Taylor household. For one so young, Jason had some keen insights borne of his parents' marital conflicts and blatant hostility toward each other: "..not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more bloody important than being right."
There were a few chapters I loved. The first is "Bridle Path", a beautifully written chapter that documented a day Jason ventured out for a solitary walk to explore a tunnel. The prose on the charm of the countryside was exquisite.
The second and the best was a lovely chapter titled "Solarium" that captured with supreme hilarity Jason's meeting with a toady Miss Havisham-like lady who had invited him to discuss his poems with her. It was wonderful to observe Madame Crommelynck providing excellent tutelage in literary criticism and summoning Jason out of his depths into greater self-knowledge and truthfulness. It was precious and exhilarating to read gem lines on literary composition. 1. "If you are not truthful to the world about who and what you are, your art will stink of falsenesses." 2. "True poetry is truth. Truth is not popular, so poetry also is not popular." (Interestingly too, there was reference to the sextet of Robert Frobisher - one of the characters in “Cloud Atlas”. What lark! )
The third highlight was the excellent episode following Jason’s “grassing” on the bullies where Ms Lippetts (Jason's English teacher) led a discussion on secrets, the ethics of telling secrets, and reputation. Ms Lippetts aced that lesson!
Jason's school and domestic worlds were in shambles and when the story ended challenges loomed ahead as he relocated to a new city to begin life anew with just one parent. But something tells me he will be all right.
This is my second reading of “Black Swan Green” and I enjoyed it as much as I did the first. Highly recommended for Mitchell fans who prefer a straight-forward narrative.
December 30, 2011
A Spelling Test
I kept this book on the shelf for a few years, before thinking I was ready to read it.
I didn't want to break the spell of the first two David Mitchell books that I had read (I didn't really like Cloud Atlas) and I was a bit apprehensive about the subject matter of a young teenage boy.
Ultimately, it was very much a book of two halves for me.
Teenage Mates Land
The first half captured male teenagerdom in the period in the 60's and 70's (when I grew up) and the 80's (when Jason grew up) perfectly.
It was the tail end of a period of Empire, Britannia Rules the Waves, Scouting for Boys, Biggles books and playing British Bulldog.
It had nearly died by the time of Punk Rock for me, but it had one last inglorious revival when Maggie Thatcher invaded the Falklands, before deflating altogether, so much so that Tony Blair couldn't even revive it.
Teenage Wasteland
The trouble and the troubles set in in the second half.
Things start to challenge the relative security of Jason's adolescent world view.
Girls, gangs, crime, conflict, insecurity, parental estrangement, divorce.
Teenage Resolution
The problem is that the two halves are juxtaposed, but not sewn together in a narrative that resolves them in any way.
It's like a photo album with two photos of the one boy at different ages.
In one, he's fresh-faced and enthusiastic, in the next he's pimply and troubled.
The reader might know or guess what comes next, but David Mitchell stops short of telling us.
I can't help thinking that, if Jason was important enough to care about, David Mitchell could have finished off the story.
I kept this book on the shelf for a few years, before thinking I was ready to read it.
I didn't want to break the spell of the first two David Mitchell books that I had read (I didn't really like Cloud Atlas) and I was a bit apprehensive about the subject matter of a young teenage boy.
Ultimately, it was very much a book of two halves for me.
Teenage Mates Land
The first half captured male teenagerdom in the period in the 60's and 70's (when I grew up) and the 80's (when Jason grew up) perfectly.
It was the tail end of a period of Empire, Britannia Rules the Waves, Scouting for Boys, Biggles books and playing British Bulldog.
It had nearly died by the time of Punk Rock for me, but it had one last inglorious revival when Maggie Thatcher invaded the Falklands, before deflating altogether, so much so that Tony Blair couldn't even revive it.
Teenage Wasteland
The trouble and the troubles set in in the second half.
Things start to challenge the relative security of Jason's adolescent world view.
Girls, gangs, crime, conflict, insecurity, parental estrangement, divorce.
Teenage Resolution
The problem is that the two halves are juxtaposed, but not sewn together in a narrative that resolves them in any way.
It's like a photo album with two photos of the one boy at different ages.
In one, he's fresh-faced and enthusiastic, in the next he's pimply and troubled.
The reader might know or guess what comes next, but David Mitchell stops short of telling us.
I can't help thinking that, if Jason was important enough to care about, David Mitchell could have finished off the story.
December 28, 2022
I am not much of a fan of coming-of-age stories but David Mitchell won me over in this one with his excellent characterisation of Jason Taylor. One certainly has to feel for him, thirteen years old, subject to a speech impediment, seriously bullied at school, and feeling the effects of his parents marriage as it starts to break down.
All this happening at once should be too much for anyone but Jason is made of pretty stern stuff. He mostly manages to negotiate the bullies - at least for a while. He writes poetry which is occasionally published without anyone knowing. He recognises right from wrong and treads a balance between the two. He is a smart boy and I felt hope for him all through the book.
The writing is beautiful, the characters intriguing - a couple I had met before in another book which was fun. The setting of a small English village in the 1980's was perfectly done, with Maggie Thatcher and the Falklands War in the background, and mentions of books and music of the day. I enjoyed it very much.
All this happening at once should be too much for anyone but Jason is made of pretty stern stuff. He mostly manages to negotiate the bullies - at least for a while. He writes poetry which is occasionally published without anyone knowing. He recognises right from wrong and treads a balance between the two. He is a smart boy and I felt hope for him all through the book.
The writing is beautiful, the characters intriguing - a couple I had met before in another book which was fun. The setting of a small English village in the 1980's was perfectly done, with Maggie Thatcher and the Falklands War in the background, and mentions of books and music of the day. I enjoyed it very much.
July 8, 2012
Just as I opened the cover of the book, I was hit by a barrage of praise for the book comments. May be I should have stopped right there. But I didn't. Hence this review.
When I watch a Hollywood movie or a TV show involving American schools, I see schoolkids overly concerned with social status and pecking order. There are these popular and cool kids, then there are nerds and other such stereotypes. They have to constantly worry about whose parties they get invited to, who they are seen talking to in public, what table they sit at during lunch, which co-curricular activities they participate in. It's their "coolness points" that are stake here. If you don't wear make-up or fancy clothes, no one wants to talk to you. If you are fat or wear braces, you are at risk of being an outcast.
Geez, kids. Take it easy, will ya?!
Who is teaching these kids to be so class-conscious? Who is teaching them to be so judgmental and critical of each other - that too based on superficial factors? Who is teaching them that they need to try to be someone they are not? Why can't kids just be kids?
I once asked some of my American colleagues if their school lives were anything like what they show in movies. They told me that what they show in movies is highly exaggerated. As expected. But some kind of social hierarchy can be seen, however vaguely, in real life schools too. Our school life was just so different. Admittedly it has changed a bit by now, given I have been out of high school for almost 10 years. But things were, and are, so much simpler.
And I wish they would be simple for Jason too. I understand him being conscious about his stammer. But I wish he didn't have to worry about being a social pariah for being a stammerer. And why don't his parents even attempt to make him feel comfortable and assure him that at least at home he doesn't need to feel shy? His dad's face turns a shade darker if the topic of stammering comes up. His mom talks about it in hushed tones to Aunt Alice. By avoiding the topic, the only message they are sending across is that they are embarrassed by Jason's problem and so should be Jason.
Poor Jace the ace! I have all the sympathy for Jason, as will any other reader. Because Mitchell didn't leave us any other choice. If the characters aren't complex, the reader's emotional response to them is pretty much pre-defined. Jason is just a western adolescent boy, trying to be a regular western adolescent boy and a bunch of problems befall him through no fault of his own. What is a reader going to say - "Take that, you ape!"? Nope.
And all the middle school drama - no thanks. Right off the bat, Jason establishes the social order. There are these rules about how you don't say no to cigarette if an "upper class" kid offers it to you. You can't say no to playing a game you hate, because that makes you look weak. There are detailed scenes about one schoolkid fighting another. Haven't we heard this story so many times before?
This has to be one of the better written books on this topic though. I liked Mitchell's writing, but he needs to decide if it is a 13 year old boy who is narrating or a 35 year old man. The narrator is too eloquent and insightful for a 13 year old. I would give Mitchell the benefit of the doubt and assume that it's the adult Jason who is narrating the 13th year of this life. But then he keeps using teenage slang too. Well....?
September 10, 2017
Το να πω ποσο λατρευω τον David Mitchell ,για αλλη μια φορα, θα καταντησει γραφικο.κανονικα δε θα εγραφα καν κριτικη για αυτο το βιβλιο.θα εβαζα τα 4.5 αστερια μου και θα καθαριζα.ωστοσο , αυτο το βιβλιο ηταν τοσο διαφορετικο απο τα υπολοιπα δικα του που εχω διαβασει και ταυτοχρονα το ιδιο υπεροχο, ωστε θεωρησα πως αξιζει να πω 2 πραγματα.αυτη λοιπον ειναι η ιστορια ενηλικιωσης του Τζεισον δωσμενη σαν παραμυθι.με τα αστεια περιστατικα, τις αγωνιες, τους ηρωες, τους δρακους, τον "δημιο" και την τελικη καθαρση.πιστευα οτι ειχα ηδη διαβασει τετοιου ειδους λογοτεχνιας δοσμενη αριστοτεχνικα απο αναλογα μυθιστορηματα του Bukowski ή του Salinger.ωστοσο τολμω να πω οτι και ο Mitchell εκανε μια εξαιρετικη δουλεια σε αυτο το ειδος κι ας μην τον εχω συνηθισει σε κατι τετοιο.λατρεψα τον κεντρικο ηρωα, τις αμετρητες αναφορες σε εξαισια κομματια δεκαετιας 80 που σε εκαναν να θες να φτιαξεις το δικο σου mixed tape, τις αναφορες σε αλλα εργα του Mitchell για τους φανς του.κυριως λατρεψα το μοναδικο τροπο του Mitchell να σε τραβα μεσα στην ιστορια και να σε κανει να την σκεφτεσαι ακομη και οταν δεν εχεις το βιβλιο στα χερια σου. #γραφικημιτσελοχτυπημενη
εχω διαβασει μολις 25 σελιδες και ηδη εχω ενθουσιαστει...#μιτσελοχτυπημενη
εχω διαβασει μολις 25 σελιδες και ηδη εχω ενθουσιαστει...#μιτσελοχτυπημενη
October 16, 2013
This warm and big-hearted coming-of-age tale of a 13-year old boy, Jason Taylor, set in rural south central England in the early 80’s has plenty of charm. It’s sweet, but not sappy. Its magic lies in the capturing of innocence of that age at that time and place, from the electricity of a first kiss and sickness from a first cigarette to the pull of dancing to the Talking Heads and of jingoistic feelings inspired by Maggie Thatcher’s war for the Falkland Islands. The dark side of things in this story are pretty mild. Mitchell isn’t going for the drama of surviving that typically anguished period of life, the twisted impacts of a dysfunctional family, or a satirical expose of the British middle class. Instead, the overall effect of my read is a sense of adventure and empathy for this boy at the cusp between the handicaps of naivete and confidence of adult sensibilities.
We do get the typical challenges of bullies and cliques at school. And the dawning of knowledge that his parents are hiding troubles in their marriage. The sad truth that his government can lie about the dangers and purposes of the war and that boys he knows can die needlessly there. And that sex may not be all it’s cracked up to be. But the overwhelming challenge for Jason is his stammer. His brave struggle to deal with fears of ridicule and feelings of shame is wonderfully portrayed. He personifies the problem as the “Hangman”, always waiting to catch him. He hasn’t seen the movie we have, “The King’s Speech”. He can’t imagine want job he might hold which would not require speaking:
Being trapped in a monestary’d be murder. How about a lighthouse keeper? All those storms, sunsets, and Dairylea sandwiches’d make you lonely in the end. But lonely is something I’d better get used to. What girl’s go out with a stammerer? Or even dance with one? The last song at the Black Swan Green Village Hall Disco’s be over before I could spit out D-d-d-you want to d-d-d-d-d-dance. Or what if I stammered at my wedding and couldn’t even say “I do”?
We root for him to get past all these hurdles and know that he will. It becomes evident that Jason’s inner voice is too strong for him to fail. It spills out into secret poetry he submits under a pseudonym for the parish newsletter, and he continually harnesses his poetic ways of looking at the world through metaphors, myths, and hyperbole. The structure of the book is of thirteen chapters for thirteen months, each of which is like a short story on a theme. In each case, we see him growing up a little more before our eyes. In one chapter, he gets some brief tutoring on life and his poetic aspirations from an ancient Belgian émigré, Eva. He confesses to keeping his writing secret because he doesn’t want to be considered gay. She nails him with: “You are afraid the hairy barbarians will not accept you into your tribe if you write poetry.” Though Mitchell leans mostly toward simple realism,, he periodically infuses some welcome comic relief, as here in this exchange with Eva:
“…what are the writers you revere most greatly?”
“Oh.” I mentally scanned my bookshelf for the really impressive names. “Isaac Asimov. Ursula Le Guin. John Wyndham.”
“Assy-smurf? Ursular Gun? Wind-‘em? These are modern poets?”
“No. Sci-fi, fantasy. Stephen King, too. He’s horror.”
“ ‘Fantasy’? Pfffft! Listen to Ronald Reagan’s homilies! ‘Horror’? What of Vietnam, Afganistan, South Africa? Idi Amin, Mao Tse-Tung, Pol Pot? Is not enough horror? I mean, who are your masters? Chekhov?”
“Er …no.”
“But you have read Madame Bovary?”
(I’d never heard of her books.) “No.”
Each name climbed up the octave. “Hermann Hesse?”
“No.” Unwisely, I tried to dampen Madame Crommelynck’s disgust. “We don’t really do Europeans at school ---“
“ ‘Europeans’? England is now drifted to the Caribbean? Are you African? Antarctican? You are European, you illiterate monkey of puberty! …”
Another of the chapters treads a little along the lines of a boy-level parody of mythic adventures and quests in the woods of the Malvern Hills. But it’s not far from the fantasy games and challenges we got up to in my rural youth decades earlier. Have a sample of the spooky poetry Jason’s mind comes up with (a case where purple patch has a good excuse):
Squeezing through a missing slat in a mossy fence, we found ourselves at the bottom of lumpy lawn. Molehills mounted up here and there. A big, silent mansion with turret things watched us from the top of the slope. A peardrop sun dissolved in a sloped pond. Superheated flies grandprixed over the water. Trees at the height of their blossom bubbled dark cream by a rotted bandstand.
I admit I was a little disappointed not to have another advance in the art of the novel along the lines of “Cloud Atlas”, but I got over that attitude. In a great 2010 interview in “The Paris Review”, Mitchell explained:
After doing a half Chinese-box, half Russian-doll sort of a novel, I wanted to see if I could write a compelling book about an outwardly unremarkable boy stuck in an outwardly unremarkable time and place without any jiggery-pokery, without fireworks—just old-school..
I refer the curious reader to the same interview to learn how much this novel is autobiographical, and why the interviewer was led to remark: “It was perverse of you to write a first novel after having written three others.”
We do get the typical challenges of bullies and cliques at school. And the dawning of knowledge that his parents are hiding troubles in their marriage. The sad truth that his government can lie about the dangers and purposes of the war and that boys he knows can die needlessly there. And that sex may not be all it’s cracked up to be. But the overwhelming challenge for Jason is his stammer. His brave struggle to deal with fears of ridicule and feelings of shame is wonderfully portrayed. He personifies the problem as the “Hangman”, always waiting to catch him. He hasn’t seen the movie we have, “The King’s Speech”. He can’t imagine want job he might hold which would not require speaking:
Being trapped in a monestary’d be murder. How about a lighthouse keeper? All those storms, sunsets, and Dairylea sandwiches’d make you lonely in the end. But lonely is something I’d better get used to. What girl’s go out with a stammerer? Or even dance with one? The last song at the Black Swan Green Village Hall Disco’s be over before I could spit out D-d-d-you want to d-d-d-d-d-dance. Or what if I stammered at my wedding and couldn’t even say “I do”?
We root for him to get past all these hurdles and know that he will. It becomes evident that Jason’s inner voice is too strong for him to fail. It spills out into secret poetry he submits under a pseudonym for the parish newsletter, and he continually harnesses his poetic ways of looking at the world through metaphors, myths, and hyperbole. The structure of the book is of thirteen chapters for thirteen months, each of which is like a short story on a theme. In each case, we see him growing up a little more before our eyes. In one chapter, he gets some brief tutoring on life and his poetic aspirations from an ancient Belgian émigré, Eva. He confesses to keeping his writing secret because he doesn’t want to be considered gay. She nails him with: “You are afraid the hairy barbarians will not accept you into your tribe if you write poetry.” Though Mitchell leans mostly toward simple realism,, he periodically infuses some welcome comic relief, as here in this exchange with Eva:
“…what are the writers you revere most greatly?”
“Oh.” I mentally scanned my bookshelf for the really impressive names. “Isaac Asimov. Ursula Le Guin. John Wyndham.”
“Assy-smurf? Ursular Gun? Wind-‘em? These are modern poets?”
“No. Sci-fi, fantasy. Stephen King, too. He’s horror.”
“ ‘Fantasy’? Pfffft! Listen to Ronald Reagan’s homilies! ‘Horror’? What of Vietnam, Afganistan, South Africa? Idi Amin, Mao Tse-Tung, Pol Pot? Is not enough horror? I mean, who are your masters? Chekhov?”
“Er …no.”
“But you have read Madame Bovary?”
(I’d never heard of her books.) “No.”
Each name climbed up the octave. “Hermann Hesse?”
“No.” Unwisely, I tried to dampen Madame Crommelynck’s disgust. “We don’t really do Europeans at school ---“
“ ‘Europeans’? England is now drifted to the Caribbean? Are you African? Antarctican? You are European, you illiterate monkey of puberty! …”
Another of the chapters treads a little along the lines of a boy-level parody of mythic adventures and quests in the woods of the Malvern Hills. But it’s not far from the fantasy games and challenges we got up to in my rural youth decades earlier. Have a sample of the spooky poetry Jason’s mind comes up with (a case where purple patch has a good excuse):
Squeezing through a missing slat in a mossy fence, we found ourselves at the bottom of lumpy lawn. Molehills mounted up here and there. A big, silent mansion with turret things watched us from the top of the slope. A peardrop sun dissolved in a sloped pond. Superheated flies grandprixed over the water. Trees at the height of their blossom bubbled dark cream by a rotted bandstand.
I admit I was a little disappointed not to have another advance in the art of the novel along the lines of “Cloud Atlas”, but I got over that attitude. In a great 2010 interview in “The Paris Review”, Mitchell explained:
After doing a half Chinese-box, half Russian-doll sort of a novel, I wanted to see if I could write a compelling book about an outwardly unremarkable boy stuck in an outwardly unremarkable time and place without any jiggery-pokery, without fireworks—just old-school..
I refer the curious reader to the same interview to learn how much this novel is autobiographical, and why the interviewer was led to remark: “It was perverse of you to write a first novel after having written three others.”
October 2, 2017
Δεν είχα ξαναδιαβάσει David Mitchell. Τα σχόλια όμως των "μιτσελικών" φιλενάδων μου εδω στο GR, με βάλανε σε πειρασμό. Οπότε, με το που το είδα στη βιβλιοθήκη, το άρπαξα χωρίς δεύτερη σκέψη.
Το βιβλίο αφηγείται ένα χρόνο απ�� την ζωή του δεκατριάχρονου Τζέισον. Περιέχει σκηνες απο την καθημερινότητά του, τις δυσκολίες που περνάει λόγω της βραδυγλωσσίας του, τα συναισθήματα του, τη σχέση του με τους γονείς και την αδερφή του.
Αυτό που είναι εκπληκτικό με το Μαύρος κύκνος, ειναι οτι ο Μιτσελ, δεν παλιμπαιδιζει προσπαθώντας να αφηγηθεί την ιστορία του Τζέισον, ούτε η ιστορία είναι δοσμένη μέσα από τα μάτια ενός ενήλικα που αναπολεί την εφηβεία του. Είναι σαν ο συγγραφέας του βιβλίου να ανήκει πραγματικά στην τρυφερή ηλικία των 13 ετών..
Το βιβλίο αφηγείται ένα χρόνο απ�� την ζωή του δεκατριάχρονου Τζέισον. Περιέχει σκηνες απο την καθημερινότητά του, τις δυσκολίες που περνάει λόγω της βραδυγλωσσίας του, τα συναισθήματα του, τη σχέση του με τους γονείς και την αδερφή του.
Αυτό που είναι εκπληκτικό με το Μαύρος κύκνος, ειναι οτι ο Μιτσελ, δεν παλιμπαιδιζει προσπαθώντας να αφηγηθεί την ιστορία του Τζέισον, ούτε η ιστορία είναι δοσμένη μέσα από τα μάτια ενός ενήλικα που αναπολεί την εφηβεία του. Είναι σαν ο συγγραφέας του βιβλίου να ανήκει πραγματικά στην τρυφερή ηλικία των 13 ετών..
October 10, 2017
Είναι χαρακτηριστικό των προικισμένων συγγραφέων, αυτών που ακολουθούν το δικό τους όραμα, η δουλειά τους να μην μπορεί να περιγραφεί τηλεγραφικά. Διαφορετικοί αναγνώστες μπορεί να αποτιμήσουν διαφορετικά τα έργα τους, τα οποία δεν κατατάσσονται εύκολα. Ωστόσο, με κάθε καινούρια ανάγνωση, θα αναφωνήσει κανείς πως, ναι, αυτή είναι άλλη μια χαρακτηριστική δουλειά του συγγραφέα. Ο Μίτσελ, πολυσχιδής, με ετερόκλητες αναφορές που διατρέχουν είδη όπως φαντασία, ε.φ., ιστορική λογοτεχνία, κλπ, με κάθε του βιβλίο προσθέτει έναν λίθο στο οικοδόμημα της καλής λογοτεχνίας, της ωραίας.
Εδώ γράφει κάτι πραγματικά διαφορετικό: μια εν μέρει αυτοβιογραφική αφήγηση, όπου ο ομοδιηγητικός ήρωας, στις παρυφές της εφηβείας, μας δίνει μια ματιά της ζωής του, σε μια χρονιά στην μικρή πόλη της Βρετανίας - black swan green, σαν αστείο, δίχως ούτε καν λευκούς κύκνους στην λίμνη του, όπως λέει προσπαθώντας να κάνει απεγνωσμένα φλερτ σε μια τουρίστρια. Έχει προβλήματα τραυλισμού, αντιμετωπίζει εκφοβισμό και τραμπουκισμό στο σχολείο, η οικογένεια αντιμετωπίζει τα συνήθη προβλήματα που μπορεί να μαυρίσουν τα ψυχή ενός παιδιού. Κι ενώ τίποτα δεν εξωραίζεται, η ιστορία είναι ένα παραμύθι με την ανέμελη φωνή του πρωταγωνιστής της. Τα καθημερινά βιώματά του γίνονται ένα παραμύθι που θα διασκεδάσει τον αναγνώστη, θα τον κανει να στεναχωρηθεί με την σκληρότητα των νταήδων, με την ρουτινιάρικη σχολική ζωή, με εκείνη την προσμονή για το αύριο. Μα τελικά, πόσο όμορφη μπορεί να είναι η ζωή μέσα από τα μάτια ενός παιδιού; Πολύ!
Και εκεί είναι που ο Μίτσελ επιστρατεύει το μέγιστο όπλο του - αυτή την διαολική ευχέρεια με την οποία μπορεί να μπαίνει στο πετσί των ηρώων του. Θαρρείς πως δεν γράφει, αλλά ερμηνεύει. Όπως ερμηνεύει μάγους, σοφούς, επηρμένους φοιτητές, δαιμονικούς λόγιους, γιατρούς, εμπόρους και αιωνόβιους υπερανθρώπους, εδώ μπαίνει μέσα στον νεαρό ήρωα και μας παίρνει μαζί του.
Μα ό,τι και διαβάσουμε έτσι, θα είναι μια περιπέτεια δίχως προηγούμενο. Ο Μίτσελ είναι εγγύηση σε αυτό: να βγαίνεις από το σαλόνι σου, από το σπίτι σου και να μεταφέρεσαι στα μέσα της δεκαετίας του '80, να μπαίνεις στις ντισκοτέκ, να ακούς τα χιτ της εποχής στην Βρετανία της νεολαίας, να μυρίζεις τα καθίσματα από τα αμάξια και τα τρένα.
Α, και φυσικά διαβάζεται όπως λέμε απνευστί! Ειδικά κάποια αδηφάγα πλάσματα της ανάγνωσης θα το τελειώσουν σε 2-3 καθισιές.
Καλή ανάγνωση!
Εδώ γράφει κάτι πραγματικά διαφορετικό: μια εν μέρει αυτοβιογραφική αφήγηση, όπου ο ομοδιηγητικός ήρωας, στις παρυφές της εφηβείας, μας δίνει μια ματιά της ζωής του, σε μια χρονιά στην μικρή πόλη της Βρετανίας - black swan green, σαν αστείο, δίχως ούτε καν λευκούς κύκνους στην λίμνη του, όπως λέει προσπαθώντας να κάνει απεγνωσμένα φλερτ σε μια τουρίστρια. Έχει προβλήματα τραυλισμού, αντιμετωπίζει εκφοβισμό και τραμπουκισμό στο σχολείο, η οικογένεια αντιμετωπίζει τα συνήθη προβλήματα που μπορεί να μαυρίσουν τα ψυχή ενός παιδιού. Κι ενώ τίποτα δεν εξωραίζεται, η ιστορία είναι ένα παραμύθι με την ανέμελη φωνή του πρωταγωνιστής της. Τα καθημερινά βιώματά του γίνονται ένα παραμύθι που θα διασκεδάσει τον αναγνώστη, θα τον κανει να στεναχωρηθεί με την σκληρότητα των νταήδων, με την ρουτινιάρικη σχολική ζωή, με εκείνη την προσμονή για το αύριο. Μα τελικά, πόσο όμορφη μπορεί να είναι η ζωή μέσα από τα μάτια ενός παιδιού; Πολύ!
Και εκεί είναι που ο Μίτσελ επιστρατεύει το μέγιστο όπλο του - αυτή την διαολική ευχέρεια με την οποία μπορεί να μπαίνει στο πετσί των ηρώων του. Θαρρείς πως δεν γράφει, αλλά ερμηνεύει. Όπως ερμηνεύει μάγους, σοφούς, επηρμένους φοιτητές, δαιμονικούς λόγιους, γιατρούς, εμπόρους και αιωνόβιους υπερανθρώπους, εδώ μπαίνει μέσα στον νεαρό ήρωα και μας παίρνει μαζί του.
Μα ό,τι και διαβάσουμε έτσι, θα είναι μια περιπέτεια δίχως προηγούμενο. Ο Μίτσελ είναι εγγύηση σε αυτό: να βγαίνεις από το σαλόνι σου, από το σπίτι σου και να μεταφέρεσαι στα μέσα της δεκαετίας του '80, να μπαίνεις στις ντισκοτέκ, να ακούς τα χιτ της εποχής στην Βρετανία της νεολαίας, να μυρίζεις τα καθίσματα από τα αμάξια και τα τρένα.
Α, και φυσικά διαβάζεται όπως λέμε απνευστί! Ειδικά κάποια αδηφάγα πλάσματα της ανάγνωσης θα το τελειώσουν σε 2-3 καθισιές.
Καλή ανάγνωση!
June 8, 2011
In every review of "Black Swan Green" I've read, the reviewer made sure to include some remark like "This isn't nearly as ambitious as 'Cloud Atlas'" or "I was expecting this to be more like 'Cloud Atlas' and, like, it totally wasn't." And that's really not fair to BSG because the two books are delightful and beautiful in their own ways for different reasons.
I had no idea what to expect from this book. I picked it up because I bloody love David Mitchell (and, yes, "Cloud Atlas," which I do adore so very much, WAS my introduction to his brand of wonderful) and the beautiful things he does with language as both a wordsmith and a storyteller. So when the adolescent narrator mentioned his stammer the first time, my stuttering self needed a second to regroup. Seeing one of my favorite writers tackle a speech impediment much like the one I've struggled with since first grade? Yeah, it was a combination of a little too much at once and everything I wanted.
And you know what? In less than 300 pages, thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor perfectly described all of the hang-ups and anxieties and fears and Catholic-sized guilt it's been taking me 20 years to figure out. It's intimidating to feel that in sync with a fictional pre-teen. But Jason Taylor is a young lad in early '80s England, so there's a lot going on both around and inside him; thus, his stammer -- our biggest commonality -- was not the central plot from which the story radiates. This book couldn't win me over solely on my overwhelming empathy for an invented youth -- though it certainly helped.
Like the other Mitchell books I've read, BSG is, at its core, a series of intertwining vignettes (in this instance, each chapter represents a month in Jason's life for 13 consecutive months); the most obvious dissimilarity comes from how immediately apparent the connecting thread is. Instead of multiple narrative voices, Mitchell stuck to one this time -- with much success. Coming-of-age tales can be so damn onerous and so immersed in self-aggrandizing observations that reading them is as unpleasant as actually going through puberty again. Jason is such a charming, observant and conflicted child that I was taken with him at once. The truths he sprinkles throughout his narration are said with such reverence and awed discovery that it keeps the typically cloying sentiment found in lesser examples of the bildungsroman genre at bay.
I had no idea what to expect from this book. I picked it up because I bloody love David Mitchell (and, yes, "Cloud Atlas," which I do adore so very much, WAS my introduction to his brand of wonderful) and the beautiful things he does with language as both a wordsmith and a storyteller. So when the adolescent narrator mentioned his stammer the first time, my stuttering self needed a second to regroup. Seeing one of my favorite writers tackle a speech impediment much like the one I've struggled with since first grade? Yeah, it was a combination of a little too much at once and everything I wanted.
And you know what? In less than 300 pages, thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor perfectly described all of the hang-ups and anxieties and fears and Catholic-sized guilt it's been taking me 20 years to figure out. It's intimidating to feel that in sync with a fictional pre-teen. But Jason Taylor is a young lad in early '80s England, so there's a lot going on both around and inside him; thus, his stammer -- our biggest commonality -- was not the central plot from which the story radiates. This book couldn't win me over solely on my overwhelming empathy for an invented youth -- though it certainly helped.
Like the other Mitchell books I've read, BSG is, at its core, a series of intertwining vignettes (in this instance, each chapter represents a month in Jason's life for 13 consecutive months); the most obvious dissimilarity comes from how immediately apparent the connecting thread is. Instead of multiple narrative voices, Mitchell stuck to one this time -- with much success. Coming-of-age tales can be so damn onerous and so immersed in self-aggrandizing observations that reading them is as unpleasant as actually going through puberty again. Jason is such a charming, observant and conflicted child that I was taken with him at once. The truths he sprinkles throughout his narration are said with such reverence and awed discovery that it keeps the typically cloying sentiment found in lesser examples of the bildungsroman genre at bay.
January 19, 2019
So ends my reading of all of David Mitchell’s published material to date!
Black Swan Green is Mitchell’s most personal work to date and it’s also one of his stronger novels. There’s none of the experimental, fractured narrative that made Cloud Atlas such a unique read, nor are there the magical, mystical, or otherwise supernatural individuals that populate The Bone Clocks. Instead, it seems like Mitchell decided to tell more straightforward narratives in the wake of his most famous work. Both Black Swan Green and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet share linear narratives, but are otherwise totally different in tone, plot, and writing style.
Black Swan Green follows thirteen year-old Jason Taylor over the course of a year in the early eighties. The cold war brews in the background of this tale set in the fictional town of Black Swan Green, which happens to find itself Worcestershire where Mitchell grew up. Jason stammers, stutters, and can’t help but find himself the victim of childhood ridicule. Mitchell seems to be pulling from an well of experience with this one, and it is no secret that the author suffers from a speech disorder.
The most effective scenes in the novel are those set amongst family, for which Mitchell has a keen eye. The slow dissolution of his parent’s marriage hovers at the edge of Jason’s understanding, but is easily recognizable to the reader. The appearance of a smug and crafty Hugo Lamb was a welcome cameo, as was Madame Crommelynck’s unexpected tutelage of Jason. Knowing how these characters appear in more sinister roles in The Bone Clocks makes for an interesting reading experience. Is Crommelynck simply being generous, or is she scoping out Jason’s abilities?
As it is will all of his novels, Black Swan Green can be appreciated on its own and need not be examined from the full angle of Mitchell’s übernovel experiment. What Mitchell has done with this novel is a convincing portrait of small-town life in the 1980’s with great specificity, while simultaneously making a heartfelt bildungsroman. Given the rest of his output, Black Swan Green is both unexpected and familiar in its difference to his other novels.
Black Swan Green is Mitchell’s most personal work to date and it’s also one of his stronger novels. There’s none of the experimental, fractured narrative that made Cloud Atlas such a unique read, nor are there the magical, mystical, or otherwise supernatural individuals that populate The Bone Clocks. Instead, it seems like Mitchell decided to tell more straightforward narratives in the wake of his most famous work. Both Black Swan Green and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet share linear narratives, but are otherwise totally different in tone, plot, and writing style.
Black Swan Green follows thirteen year-old Jason Taylor over the course of a year in the early eighties. The cold war brews in the background of this tale set in the fictional town of Black Swan Green, which happens to find itself Worcestershire where Mitchell grew up. Jason stammers, stutters, and can’t help but find himself the victim of childhood ridicule. Mitchell seems to be pulling from an well of experience with this one, and it is no secret that the author suffers from a speech disorder.
The most effective scenes in the novel are those set amongst family, for which Mitchell has a keen eye. The slow dissolution of his parent’s marriage hovers at the edge of Jason’s understanding, but is easily recognizable to the reader. The appearance of a smug and crafty Hugo Lamb was a welcome cameo, as was Madame Crommelynck’s unexpected tutelage of Jason. Knowing how these characters appear in more sinister roles in The Bone Clocks makes for an interesting reading experience. Is Crommelynck simply being generous, or is she scoping out Jason’s abilities?
As it is will all of his novels, Black Swan Green can be appreciated on its own and need not be examined from the full angle of Mitchell’s übernovel experiment. What Mitchell has done with this novel is a convincing portrait of small-town life in the 1980’s with great specificity, while simultaneously making a heartfelt bildungsroman. Given the rest of his output, Black Swan Green is both unexpected and familiar in its difference to his other novels.
February 25, 2012
Black Swan Green surfed out of David Mitchell after the literary ocean had swept up Cloud Atlas and smashed it repeatedly against the shore marked "greatness", where it burst open and loads of critical acclaim and literary awards came gushing out. I read Cloud Atlas first and managed to protect myself against the gushing geyser of praise by having a suitably large umbrella. Sadly my umbrella is mostly made of a thin but impermeable layer of cynicism so I didn't have as many lovely things to say about Cloud Atlas as many others did.
This book made me re-evaluate the thoughts I'd had after reading Cloud Atlas although I still wasn't prepared to join in the gush-fest. Black Swan Green seemed to be more genuine read/ write and I've subsequently learned through the lazy joy of Wikipedia, that this is because it is semi-autobiographical. I also learned that this book is actually classed by some as YA lit which means that I've accidentally read my first YA novel without even realising.
The epic Jason Taylor (maggot, unborn twin and Hangman)acts as narrator and humorous and self-depreciating tour guide to the events and landmarks which define a benchmark year in his young life.
While the YA narrator, Jason Taylor clearly has more guile and experience than that of an actual teenager (he is after all the vehicle of the adult Mitchell, who presumably has the benefit of hindsight, not being a virgin etc) he still appears as a credible and likeable narrator. Part of me is tempted think, well how hard can it be to write about being a child? After all we were all children once, right? However creating a believable and even likeable teen protagonist is probably a lot harder than it seems so I have to give credit as at no point did I scoff at the plausibility of the narrator.
In fact, despite myself I even enjoyed my own little trip down a retro memory lane because this book is laden with 1980s pop-culture references. As a child of the 80s myself I will proudly announce that I refused to have dinner until after I'd watched the A-Team and when I grew up I wanted to be Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith, aka George Peppard - at this point I clearly had not grasped core gender differences, but whatever.
So what is the verdict? If you loved Cloud Atlas, you'll like this (spot the recurring characters po-mo style) and if you hated Cloud Atlas, well you might enjoy this despite yourself. I did.
This book made me re-evaluate the thoughts I'd had after reading Cloud Atlas although I still wasn't prepared to join in the gush-fest. Black Swan Green seemed to be more genuine read/ write and I've subsequently learned through the lazy joy of Wikipedia, that this is because it is semi-autobiographical. I also learned that this book is actually classed by some as YA lit which means that I've accidentally read my first YA novel without even realising.
The epic Jason Taylor (maggot, unborn twin and Hangman)acts as narrator and humorous and self-depreciating tour guide to the events and landmarks which define a benchmark year in his young life.
While the YA narrator, Jason Taylor clearly has more guile and experience than that of an actual teenager (he is after all the vehicle of the adult Mitchell, who presumably has the benefit of hindsight, not being a virgin etc) he still appears as a credible and likeable narrator. Part of me is tempted think, well how hard can it be to write about being a child? After all we were all children once, right? However creating a believable and even likeable teen protagonist is probably a lot harder than it seems so I have to give credit as at no point did I scoff at the plausibility of the narrator.
In fact, despite myself I even enjoyed my own little trip down a retro memory lane because this book is laden with 1980s pop-culture references. As a child of the 80s myself I will proudly announce that I refused to have dinner until after I'd watched the A-Team and when I grew up I wanted to be Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith, aka George Peppard - at this point I clearly had not grasped core gender differences, but whatever.
So what is the verdict? If you loved Cloud Atlas, you'll like this (spot the recurring characters po-mo style) and if you hated Cloud Atlas, well you might enjoy this despite yourself. I did.
January 18, 2019
Filled with 1980’s nostalgia, Black Swan Green transports the reader to a small town in Worcestershire, England, where thirteen-year-old narrator and protagonist Jason Taylor is dealing with the familiar challenges of adolescence. We follow his life in this small town as he seeks acceptance, observes the growing disharmony in his parents’ marriage, clashes with schoolyard bullies, battles a stammer that makes him agonizingly self-conscious, secretly writes poetry, and begins to mature into a more self-aware individual.
This book paints a portrait of an innocent youth starting to deal with the often-painful realities of life and learning that appearances can be deceptive. It is a character-driven story told linearly in thirteen chapters. I thought Mitchell did an excellent job of capturing the voice of a teenage boy, and the writing is reflective of how an adolescent would talk. A large portion of the book is spent inside Jason’s head listening to his inner dialogue around such topics as his discomfort around his parents’ marital troubles, dealing with the ridicule of his schoolmates, his push/pull relationship with his sister, his attempts to overcome speech difficulties, reactions to the Falklands War, and guilt over specific actions. I felt his pain and became invested finding out what was going to happen with him.
It takes a while to ramp up and builds momentum towards the end. I thought certain chapters were brilliant. I especially enjoyed the chapter entitled “Solarium” that features a flamboyantly eccentric character, Madame Crommelynck, an elderly Belgian woman who engages him in conversations about art, music, poetry, literature, and language. It contains elegant observations about youth and age, life and death, beauty and truth.
This book is filled with meaningful examinations on the vulnerabilities in human relationships and the difficulties in being true to oneself while feeling pressured to fit in. Although the story is narrated by a teen, I felt I got more out of it reading it as an adult than I would have when I was much younger. Recommended to those that enjoy subtle, contemplative, character-driven stories, especially those related to coming-of-age.
This book paints a portrait of an innocent youth starting to deal with the often-painful realities of life and learning that appearances can be deceptive. It is a character-driven story told linearly in thirteen chapters. I thought Mitchell did an excellent job of capturing the voice of a teenage boy, and the writing is reflective of how an adolescent would talk. A large portion of the book is spent inside Jason’s head listening to his inner dialogue around such topics as his discomfort around his parents’ marital troubles, dealing with the ridicule of his schoolmates, his push/pull relationship with his sister, his attempts to overcome speech difficulties, reactions to the Falklands War, and guilt over specific actions. I felt his pain and became invested finding out what was going to happen with him.
It takes a while to ramp up and builds momentum towards the end. I thought certain chapters were brilliant. I especially enjoyed the chapter entitled “Solarium” that features a flamboyantly eccentric character, Madame Crommelynck, an elderly Belgian woman who engages him in conversations about art, music, poetry, literature, and language. It contains elegant observations about youth and age, life and death, beauty and truth.
This book is filled with meaningful examinations on the vulnerabilities in human relationships and the difficulties in being true to oneself while feeling pressured to fit in. Although the story is narrated by a teen, I felt I got more out of it reading it as an adult than I would have when I was much younger. Recommended to those that enjoy subtle, contemplative, character-driven stories, especially those related to coming-of-age.
January 12, 2010
Why is it that bad memories from adolescence never seem to fade away? I mean really, it's been a pretty long time since I was in junior high, yet there's certain times that those memories come flooding back to the point where it feels like all those events just happened yesterday. Being a shy, bookish type girl did not go over well in the junior high social scene, believe me. I remember one day getting off the bus after school, enduring more than the usual amount of name calling and laughing, when one of the "cool" girls who got off at the same bus stop told me not to listen to them, that they were just stupid jerks. Hearing that one nice comment gave me such a sense of relief, and made me realize that not everyone was a complete asshole. Thanks Heather Daniels, wherever you are.
The point is, reading this book brought a lot of those memories back, but almost in a good way, not where they just make me cringe. Black Swan Green gives a glimpse into the life of Jason Taylor, a stammering, thirteen year-old growing up in a little village outside Worcestershire in the early eighties. While Jason goes through the normal trials of trying to fit in with the popular crowd, hiding his stammer as best he can, and tolerating middle-school torture, he witnesses and experiences so much actual life, it's amazing.
Black Swan Green touches on love, death, beauty, war, family, politics, marriage, prejudice, and so much more, all through the eyes of a thirteen year-old boy. It made this book so much more powerful, knowing that the character himself couldn't even comprehend the magnitude and meaning of all of these life lessons at the time. I love David Mitchell's writing, and though this was different from Cloud Atlas or Ghostwritten, I think he did a great job at this coming-of-age novel.
And, as a bonus, this book is full of British slang and expressions, which I will now insert and overuse in my vocabulary until I drive everyone around me crazy and they scream at me to stop. Not just British slang, eighties British slang. Heh. This'll be fun.
The point is, reading this book brought a lot of those memories back, but almost in a good way, not where they just make me cringe. Black Swan Green gives a glimpse into the life of Jason Taylor, a stammering, thirteen year-old growing up in a little village outside Worcestershire in the early eighties. While Jason goes through the normal trials of trying to fit in with the popular crowd, hiding his stammer as best he can, and tolerating middle-school torture, he witnesses and experiences so much actual life, it's amazing.
Black Swan Green touches on love, death, beauty, war, family, politics, marriage, prejudice, and so much more, all through the eyes of a thirteen year-old boy. It made this book so much more powerful, knowing that the character himself couldn't even comprehend the magnitude and meaning of all of these life lessons at the time. I love David Mitchell's writing, and though this was different from Cloud Atlas or Ghostwritten, I think he did a great job at this coming-of-age novel.
And, as a bonus, this book is full of British slang and expressions, which I will now insert and overuse in my vocabulary until I drive everyone around me crazy and they scream at me to stop. Not just British slang, eighties British slang. Heh. This'll be fun.
October 31, 2015
There is little narrative drive, but Mitchell is pretty much my age and this is heavily autobiographical, so I enjoyed being transported to a fairly accurate version of a world I remember. I could imagine knowing someone like Jason, maybe even being him some of the time.
The narration by a stuttering 13 year old boy is slightly reminiscent of Mark Haddon's Curious Incident, but not as convincing or interesting.
It mentions specific 70s brands and products too deliberately - as if he's trying to make it understandable far in the future, not at all how such a boy would have described things at the time. Also, it makes it read rather like Nigel Slater's Toast and Andrew Collins' opposite of misery-lit, Where Did it All go Right? autobiogs, which at least had a more valid reason for so doing - and he does credit the latter.
Overall, disappointing - even if not comparing it with his brilliant "Ghostwritten" and "Cloud Atlas".
Uses his trick of inserting characters from other books:
* Madame Crommelynck is the composer's daughter from Cloud Atlas
* Neal Brose is a an entrepreneurial bully who becomes a major character in Ghostwritten
* Number 9 Dream is a Beatles song that plays at a disco as well as being the title of another Mitchell book Number 9 Dream
* The dodgy older cousin, Hugo Lamb, is a major character in The Bone Clocks
The narration by a stuttering 13 year old boy is slightly reminiscent of Mark Haddon's Curious Incident, but not as convincing or interesting.
It mentions specific 70s brands and products too deliberately - as if he's trying to make it understandable far in the future, not at all how such a boy would have described things at the time. Also, it makes it read rather like Nigel Slater's Toast and Andrew Collins' opposite of misery-lit, Where Did it All go Right? autobiogs, which at least had a more valid reason for so doing - and he does credit the latter.
Overall, disappointing - even if not comparing it with his brilliant "Ghostwritten" and "Cloud Atlas".
Uses his trick of inserting characters from other books:
* Madame Crommelynck is the composer's daughter from Cloud Atlas
* Neal Brose is a an entrepreneurial bully who becomes a major character in Ghostwritten
* Number 9 Dream is a Beatles song that plays at a disco as well as being the title of another Mitchell book Number 9 Dream
* The dodgy older cousin, Hugo Lamb, is a major character in The Bone Clocks
June 1, 2022
“Hangman” is the name Jason Taylor gives to his stammer, humanizing his affliction perhaps making it a little easier to manage. He has become used to Hangman interrupting his speech, now able, with difficulty, to change his sentences on the fly.
“I envy anyone who can say what they want at the same time as they think it, without needing to test it for stammer-words”.
Taylor is thirteen years old and lives in Black Swan Green, Worcestershire, described by Jason as the deadest village in the world.
Black Swan Green is very different to Mitchell’s previous three novels. The novel chronicles a year (1982) in Jason’s life, the problems he faces, everyday ordinary thirteen-year-old problems. Bullies, girls, family, the fear of ostracism and social standing. Each chapter a month, a single word title hinting at relevance to the contents of the chapter.
By his own admission, Jason is not one of the really popular kids, not even one of the popular ones. He is on the next rung down, the one where everybody calls you by your surname. The liminal zone where you are seen but not known. Face and name your only attributes. But it could be worse, he could be on the lowest rung, where his friend, Moran, resides. On this level you receive the “piss-take” nicknames and are the butt of all the jokes. Sometimes anonymity can be a blessing.
And anonymity is what he uses writing his poetry in the Black Swan Green parish magazine under the penname “Eliot Bolivar”. He knows what would happen if his schoolmates ever found out. He must use a penname because poetry is “gay” and “gay” for a thirteen-year-old boy in 1982 is not what it is today.
It would not be a Mitchell book, if there were not some characters carried over from previous novels. Readers will recognize Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, the aging Belgian aristocrat who discovers Jason’s poetry and identity, as the young teenager, who Robert Frobisher falls in love with in “Cloud Atlas”. Although her appearance is short, she is one of my favourite characters, and to find out what has happened to her since “Cloud Atlas”, and the relationship she has with Jason, is worth every page.
Another carry over, is Mitchell’s humour and wit. Sometimes it creeps up on you slowly, while other times it hits you like a battering ram. I am surprised that more readers don’t mention his humorous side. I believe it is one of his strengths.
Reading this novel in 2020, you realize how much the world has changed. Everything is different. Clothes, hair, music, attitude, politics. There is no internet. If you want to see the latest movie, you hop in a line and hope there will be a seat left for you at the theatre, rather than stream it on your phone.
Many things considered the norm in 1982 are deemed as politically incorrect in today’s world. Many things the norm, deemed taboo now. Many justified; violence, racism, sexism, going to war over some insignificant islands a world away just to save face. 😊
When you are firmly ensconced in the narrative, these differences seem as glaring as the strobe lights at the disco in one of the latter chapters. Discos, another norm for the early eighties. What’s a disco? Google it. GOOGLE!!! How in the world did they survive without google???
This novel is not just about Jason. The dynamics and his relationship with his family, a family, unbeknown to Jason, that is splitting apart, play a major role in this year of his life. It is mortifying to see what is happening, while Jason is none the wiser. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself rooting (politically incorrect) for Jason. Hoping that things will turn out bright for him. He’s a good kid.
This is truly a wonderful, beautiful book. Jason is such an authentic character, as are all the characters revolving around him throughout the year. Another five-star read from one of the best contemporary writers writing today.
This was the fourth book in the David Mitchellathon that I am reading with the wonderful Nat K. I’m assuming that you have probably read her brilliant review but if you have not please have a read.
Oh, and another disappearance, perhaps the saddest of all. Big black vinyl LPs and Album covers. Google them. 😊
“I envy anyone who can say what they want at the same time as they think it, without needing to test it for stammer-words”.
Taylor is thirteen years old and lives in Black Swan Green, Worcestershire, described by Jason as the deadest village in the world.
Black Swan Green is very different to Mitchell’s previous three novels. The novel chronicles a year (1982) in Jason’s life, the problems he faces, everyday ordinary thirteen-year-old problems. Bullies, girls, family, the fear of ostracism and social standing. Each chapter a month, a single word title hinting at relevance to the contents of the chapter.
By his own admission, Jason is not one of the really popular kids, not even one of the popular ones. He is on the next rung down, the one where everybody calls you by your surname. The liminal zone where you are seen but not known. Face and name your only attributes. But it could be worse, he could be on the lowest rung, where his friend, Moran, resides. On this level you receive the “piss-take” nicknames and are the butt of all the jokes. Sometimes anonymity can be a blessing.
And anonymity is what he uses writing his poetry in the Black Swan Green parish magazine under the penname “Eliot Bolivar”. He knows what would happen if his schoolmates ever found out. He must use a penname because poetry is “gay” and “gay” for a thirteen-year-old boy in 1982 is not what it is today.
It would not be a Mitchell book, if there were not some characters carried over from previous novels. Readers will recognize Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, the aging Belgian aristocrat who discovers Jason’s poetry and identity, as the young teenager, who Robert Frobisher falls in love with in “Cloud Atlas”. Although her appearance is short, she is one of my favourite characters, and to find out what has happened to her since “Cloud Atlas”, and the relationship she has with Jason, is worth every page.
Another carry over, is Mitchell’s humour and wit. Sometimes it creeps up on you slowly, while other times it hits you like a battering ram. I am surprised that more readers don’t mention his humorous side. I believe it is one of his strengths.
Reading this novel in 2020, you realize how much the world has changed. Everything is different. Clothes, hair, music, attitude, politics. There is no internet. If you want to see the latest movie, you hop in a line and hope there will be a seat left for you at the theatre, rather than stream it on your phone.
Many things considered the norm in 1982 are deemed as politically incorrect in today’s world. Many things the norm, deemed taboo now. Many justified; violence, racism, sexism, going to war over some insignificant islands a world away just to save face. 😊
When you are firmly ensconced in the narrative, these differences seem as glaring as the strobe lights at the disco in one of the latter chapters. Discos, another norm for the early eighties. What’s a disco? Google it. GOOGLE!!! How in the world did they survive without google???
This novel is not just about Jason. The dynamics and his relationship with his family, a family, unbeknown to Jason, that is splitting apart, play a major role in this year of his life. It is mortifying to see what is happening, while Jason is none the wiser. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself rooting (politically incorrect) for Jason. Hoping that things will turn out bright for him. He’s a good kid.
This is truly a wonderful, beautiful book. Jason is such an authentic character, as are all the characters revolving around him throughout the year. Another five-star read from one of the best contemporary writers writing today.
This was the fourth book in the David Mitchellathon that I am reading with the wonderful Nat K. I’m assuming that you have probably read her brilliant review but if you have not please have a read.
Oh, and another disappearance, perhaps the saddest of all. Big black vinyl LPs and Album covers. Google them. 😊
Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,819 reviews