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NUMBER9DREAM

by David Mitchell ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

Booker nominee Mitchell (Ghostwritten, 2000) offers fans of Kafka, Pynchon, and DeLillo state-of-the-art dreams of a Tokyo...

A wildly inventive set of variations on an abandoned young Japanese man’s Sisyphean search for his father under the aegis of John Lennon and the mystical number nine.

Eiji Miyake’s quest starts off with a bang as he proceeds from the Jupiter Café to the behemoth PanOpticon building, disguised as an aquarium serviceman, to extract at gunpoint his father’s address from his attorney, who turns out to be a bioborg replicant. Or he phones her in a halfhearted attempt to make an appointment. Or he follows her to a cinema where she’s meeting his father. Or—in a scenario that seems just as real as the others—he attempts to bluff his way into the building. This hall of mirrors opens into a roistering, episodic tale that moves back and forth between Eiji’s childhood—where, spurned by the minister who supported his illegitimate twins financially but refused to see them or their mother, Eiji unwittingly sacrificed his sister Anju to the thunder god—and his increasingly baroque plans to track down his father in a postmodern Tokyo where waking and dreaming, people and computers are virtually indistinguishable. His feckless schemes immerse him in an acquaintance’s hard-nosed plot to get revenge on the girlfriend who stood him up, as well as a Yakuza war over the market for illegally harvested human organs, and project his search onto his grandfather’s testing of a desperate WWII anti-American weapon and an alter ego who clamors for the audience his animal fable offers. All the while, apparently minor characters—a computer nerd at the lost-property office, a female private eye, a Jupiter Café waitress with a perfect neck—gradually assume an importance of truly paranoiac dimensions.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-375-50726-4

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2002

LITERARY FICTION

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BOOK REVIEW

by David Mitchell

by Naoki Higashida ; translated by KA Yoshida & David Mitchell

THE SECRET HISTORY

by Donna Tartt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 1992

The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992

ISBN: 1400031702

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Knopf

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992

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by Donna Tartt

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SEEN & HEARD

HOUSE OF LEAVES

by Mark Z. Danielewski ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2000

The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and...

An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale.

Texts within texts, preceded by intriguing introductory material and followed by 150 pages of appendices and related "documents" and photographs, tell the story of a mysterious old house in a Virginia suburb inhabited by esteemed photographer-filmmaker Will Navidson, his companion Karen Green (an ex-fashion model), and their young children Daisy and Chad.  The record of their experiences therein is preserved in Will's film The Davidson Record - which is the subject of an unpublished manuscript left behind by a (possibly insane) old man, Frank Zampano - which falls into the possession of Johnny Truant, a drifter who has survived an abusive childhood and the perverse possessiveness of his mad mother (who is institutionalized).  As Johnny reads Zampano's manuscript, he adds his own (autobiographical) annotations to the scholarly ones that already adorn and clutter the text (a trick perhaps influenced by David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest ) - and begins experiencing panic attacks and episodes of disorientation that echo with ominous precision the content of Davidson's film (their house's interior proves, "impossibly," to be larger than its exterior; previously unnoticed doors and corridors extend inward inexplicably, and swallow up or traumatize all who dare to "explore" their recesses).  Danielewski skillfully manipulates the reader's expectations and fears, employing ingeniously skewed typography, and throwing out hints that the house's apparent malevolence may be related to the history of the Jamestown colony, or to Davidson's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a dying Vietnamese child stalked by a waiting vulture.  Or, as "some critics [have suggested,] the house's mutations reflect the psychology of anyone who enters it."

Pub Date: March 6, 2000

ISBN: 0-375-70376-4

Page Count: 704

Publisher: Pantheon

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2000

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by Mark Z. Danielewski

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Number9dream by David Mitchell is an excellent postmodern bildungsroman with elements of surrealism

The way you see Eiji grow through increased awareness of his subconscious desires and familial history, told through a quest-lens rich with objects and obstacles, is nothing short of a joy. I really love a simple story told beautifully.

Who here is a Mitchell fan, and what did you all think of number9dream?

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Number 9 Dream By David Mitchell

Rating: excellent.

First Published: 2001 Pages: 400 Cover Illustration: Non-Sum Chung

Review © 2014 by Stephen Roof Genre:  Modern Fiction, Literature, Drama, Thriller

Number 9 Dream is a novel by David Mitchell about a young man’s quest to find the father he has never known in Tokyo Japan.  As he attempts to track down his father, Eiji Miyake, encounters a series of adventures which become life threatening when he stumbles into the organized crime world of the Yakusa.  For Eiji, finding his father may have to take a back seat to fighting for survival and the girl of his dreams.

Number 9 Dream alternates between the first person present tense narrative by Eiji and a variety of other narratives including daydreams, night dreams, flashbacks, a kamikaze submariner’s diary, and portions of a manuscript containing a surrealistic fable.  The main storyline is always engaging and it is generally fascinating to see the naïve young Eiji come to terms with the big city of Tokyo while learning about himself along the way.  Some of the dreams are highly amusing but a few dreams tend to go a long way.  The WWII diary entries add another very interesting view into Japanese culture.  All of the narratives were highly engaging except for the surrealistic fable written by a Japanese writer about an English writer.  The fable didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason and just didn’t work for me.  I kept reading these sections thinking there would be some kind of important connection to the main story but if there was, I missed it.  Perhaps it was meant to be some kind of commentary on how the Japanese might view the English culture but I thought this narrative was completely superfluous.

The best aspects of Number 9 Dream are the main character Eiji and how well this novel reveals the Japanese culture to westerners.  Eiji did not have an easy childhood as he was raised by his grandmother on a remote island while hardly knowing his mother and never meeting his father.  He also suffered through a horrible tragedy when he was 11 years old.  Nearing the age of 20, he decides to leave his small island for the big city of Tokyo to search for his father who he knows kept his mother as a mistress for a number of years before abandoning her and the children.  Throughout his quest, Eiji displays his hopes, fears, insecurities, and innermost thoughts.  Through Eiji’s thoughts and experiences the reader gains valuable insights into the Japanese culture.

When Eiji stumbles into the Japanese underworld, the novel takes a turn into a taught thriller with extreme violence.  Eiji sees gruesome crimes committed and ends up relying on his wits and luck to stay alive.  The Japanese underworld seems to be exceedingly vicious. 

The main storyline in Number 9 Dream is highly entertaining and rewarding, especially for those interested in Japan.  Some of the anciliary narratives are highly worthwhile while others are a bit distracting.  Despite this shortcoming, Number 9 Dream is highly recommended for those who have enjoyed any of Mitchell’s other novels.     

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number9dream

Written by David Mitchell

The second novel from David Mitchell, critically-acclaimed author of Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas, is a mysterious coming-of-age story, set in Japan.

As Eiji Miyake’s twentieth birthday nears, he arrives in Tokyo with a mission - to locate the father he has never met. So begins a search that takes him into the seething city’s underworld, its lost property offices and video arcades, and on a journey that zigzags from reality to the realm of dreams. But until Eiji has fallen in love and exorcised his childhood demons, the belonging he craves will remain, tantalizingly, just beyond his grasp.

David Mitchell

About the Author

Other nominated books by David Mitchell

The bone clocks, the thousand autumns of jacob de zoet, black swan green, cloud atlas.

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Everything you need to know about Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

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• Number9Dream

Number9Dream is the international literary sensation from a writer with astonishing range and imaginative energy – an intoxicating ride through Tokyo’s dark underworlds and the even more mysterious landscapes of our collective dreams.

David Mitchell follows his eerily precocious, globe-striding first novel, Ghostwritten , with a work that is in its way even more ambitious. In outward form, Number9Dream is a Dickensian coming-of-age journey: Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister’s death and his mother’s breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him. Stumbling around this strange, awesome city, he trips over and crosses – through a hidden destiny or just monstrously bad luck – a number of its secret power centers. Suddenly, the riddle of his father’s identity becomes just one of the increasingly urgent questions Eiji must answer. Why is the line between the world of his experiences and the world of his dreams so blurry? Why do so many horrible things keep happening to him? What is it about the number 9? To answer these questions, and ultimately to come to terms with his inheritance, Eiji must somehow acquire an insight into the workings of history and fate that would be rare in anyone, much less in a boy from out of town with a price on his head and less than the cost of a Beatles disc to his name.

• David Mitchell

David Stephen Mitchell (born 1969) is an English novelist. He has written six novels, two of which, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has lived in Italy, Japan and Ireland.

Number9Dream

Ambition can sometimes get the best of you. Thus is the fate of David Mitchell’s second novel. Meant to be a sort of metaphysical coming of age story, it turns into a weird hodgepodge of mystery, sci-fi, Yakuza gangster and familial reconciliation. Each of these parts could have been interesting on its own, but as a comprehensive narrative only served to create a story full of cul-de-sacs. It’s as if Mitchell started off writing one novel and changed his mind abruptly four or five times in the midst of typing. Even the title’s reference to the John Lennon song of the same name seems to be a toss away in the book. Granted, our Japanese main character mentions Yoko Ono on an occasional basis in a kind off-handed way, and owns some of Lennon and Ono’s music, but I’m not sure exactly what the connection is. How anyone could listen to Yoko Ono is beyond me, and may be some sort of inside joke that I’m not getting. The main plot of the story revolves around Eiji, our 19-year-old protagonist, who has moved from his small town in the sticks to Tokyo to find his biological father, whom he has never known. His twin sister died when he was younger and his mom is an estranged drunk who hasn’t been around since he was very young. His plan consists of staking out an office building in which he believes his father’s lawyer works. But inside his head he’s a futuristic super spy with gadgets and skillz he uses to infiltrate the guarded building that houses his father’s secret identity. Of course the truth is that he’s a fish out of water, a hick in the big city with a minimum wage job and a cubbyhole apartment over a video store. In his search for his father he runs into the powerful Yakuza set, underground sex clubs and all sorts of other fun. It’s not to say the book isn’t well written and entertaining to read, but it’s just so all over the place. Even our hero’s fantasy world, such a dynamic part of the beginning of the story, fades quickly and disappears all together by the middle. Perhaps it’s because his real life actually becomes as bizarre as his dream world, vanquishing the need to imagine being someone else. It’s sort of clear what Mitchell is going for in terms of an overarching idea, but it’s all the stuff inside that at times feels kind of forced or contrived to forward a point. In fact there is a point where even one of the characters mentions all of the coincidences that have happened to bring about the situation in which Eiji ends up. So the individual pieces are well written and engaging, but hanging together isn’t their thing. It’s almost as if Mitchell, surprised by the success of his first novel, Ghostwritten , thought it was a fluke and wanted to shove every idea he had in his head into his follow-up just in case he was never allowed to publish again. Mitchell is clearly in touch with the Japanese experience, though, which is impressive in and off itself for a wacky Westerner like him. I guess I could say I was disappointed after reading several other of his books, but compared to most stuff I read this year, it’s still a fun treat of a novel.

number9dream by David Mitchell

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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B : entertaining and imaginative, though somewhat scattershot

See our review for fuller assessment.

   Review Consensus :   Talented writer, interesting bits, otherwise no consensus    From the Reviews : "The endlessly side-tracking narrative moves through a vast repertoire of genres - quest, quirky romance, cyber-thriller, family saga. At times, the different voices verge on cacophony. But that's the point. The wonderfully energetic prose is constantly entertaining, filled with daring imaginative stunts and the crackling rhythms of the digital age." - Jerome Boyd Maunsell, Evening Standard "The prose bespeaks a kind of observational rapture that offers the smell of Tokyo streets or even the movements of a cockroach as tiny, cherishable shards. Mitchell also adores larger-scale formal tricks, which are not always convincingly integrated with his subject matter." - Steven Poole, The Guardian " Number9dream is a delirious mix of thriller, tragedy, fantasy, video games and a portrait of uneasy modern Japan" - Carrie O'Grady, The Guardian "Mitchell has produced a novel as accomplished as anything being written. Funny, tenderhearted and horrifying, often all at once, it refashions the rudiments of the coming-of-age novel into something completely original. (...) Number9Dream is always at least as much fun as a good carnival ride -- or a good pop tune" - Malcolm Jones, Newsweek "Mitchell successfully adopts Murakami's catchy style: potboiler escapism with experimental tweaks and melancholy humour. Some parts are more successful than others, however, and not all the digressions are worthwhile. (...) So Mitchell couldn't think of a proper ending; but much of the book is a riot, expertly staged." - Hugo Barnacle, New Statesman "(O)dd, fitfully compelling (.....) Mitchell's pyrotechnics are never less than interesting, but they are often less than satisfying" - The New Yorker "Although Eiji is an otherwise engaging character, his dreams will put most readers to sleep. (...) Mitchell's problem is a lack of control. (...) (T)he dreams dominating this fitfully brilliant book are a nightmare to read." - Daniel Zalewski, The New York Times Book Review "The most engaging character of number9dream is the city itself, a zirconium-gothic Weberian nightmare, a metal-and-glass superbeast of energy and automation. (...) number9dream is a sprawling, wanton affair. For all its attractions, the book suffers from an imaginative hyper-fecundity. What with the alternative realities, the narrative byways and cul-de-sacs, there is just too much information coming at you." - Robert MacFarlane, The Observer "As much as Number9Dream is a traditional quest and coming-of-age novel, it's also an examination of consciousness, of how we navigate the tenuous borders that separate fact and fantasy, dreams and waking life, the virtual and the authentic. (...) (T)he novel dips and drags in places, and the final paragraph hits a dissonant note (...) With his kaleidoscope eyes affixed to the pulse of modern Japan, Mitchell writes like a dream, the kind you don't want to end." - Andrew Roe, San Francisco Chronicle "Nothing could be less ethereal, lucid or zen-like than the overwrought and overwritten prose on display here. (...) There is no selection, no paring away of excess, no attention to the single, telling detail, and the effect of this, over 400 pages, where all these supposedly inter-connected narrative forms and styles are meant to combine into a seamless whole, is to leave the reader numbed and clamouring for less. (...) The centre does not hold." - Robert Edric, The Spectator "Halfway through the novel you care less about Eiji finding his father than you do about finding your own way out of this labyrinthine, multi-genre tale. What it all means is hard to say, but the number nine is a key. (...) Number9dream is not a great deed, but Mitchell is certainly a gifted and unusual writer" - Russell Celyn Jones, The Times "While Number9dream may not have the satisfying of coherence of Ghostwritten , with its nine artfully interwoven parts, it more than compensates with its sheer abundance of ideas, its linguistic invention and its stylistic display. The stories of Eiji and Anju and of Goatwriter and his madcap household may be enjoyed independently, but the book as a whole clearly attests, David Mitchell's considerable gifts and perhaps augurs even greater things to come." - Shomit Dutta, Times Literary Supplement "Imagine a Philip K. Dick tale interpreted by a coked-up Salman Rushdie impersonator. It's show-offy fiction on a bad hair day. (...) Number9Dream is a muddle of missed opportunities and loose ends" - Joy Press, The Village Voice Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

The complete review 's Review :

       David Mitchell's number9dream is set in Japan. It is narrated by Eiji Miyake, a twenty year-old who has just come to the Tokyo and is on a quest to find his father. A bastard, he doesn't even know his father's name. Eiji's family life wasn't a particularly happy one: his mother was and is a wreck and only briefly had a role in raising him, his twin sister Anju was a suicide when they were children.        Reality and fantasy overlap throughout the book. Eiji has dreams and nightmares, and he imagines other realities. The influence of role-playing video games and manga cartoon magazines is everywhere. And even the reality he faces is often cartoonish and unlikely. "Your imagination has gotten the better of you", someone tells him early on, and it is a recurring problem.        The father-quest is a complicated undertaking. His father's lawyer and his new wife threaten Eiji, others mislead and use him. There are false trails galore.        "We all get the nightmares we deserve. No more, no less" someone explains. Eiji's are dramatic enough -- both the real-life nightmares and the sleeping one. He makes friends, finds mysterious clues, gets himself in dangerous situations. It appears his father might be a powerful politician, or perhaps associated with the yakuza, or perhaps a surgeon. Each variation comes with its own problems. And then there's that computer disk with some compromising information that he gets, which people are apparently willing to kill for .....        Eiji also tries to work out other problems. He hears from his mother again. Remembers his sister. Meets a girl named Ai Imajo.        Mitchell invents lots of fine episodes, though he does stray a bit far and wide. He mixes fantasy and reality quite well: this annoying device -- is it a dream ? is it real ? -- can easily ruin a book, but Mitchell does a decent job with it. Some of the the book is dreadful -- "Eiji finds it hard to concentrate because his head keeps rolling into the corner so he has to get up and screw it back on" -- but at least he is willing to take risks, indeed to barrel ahead full-steam, come what may. Mitchell steers clear of sounding too portentous and serious (though one suspects that he means the book to be a serious one): number9dream is, in fact, a silly book, but in a good way. One can revel in its enjoyable bits and ignore its larger ambition (where Mitchell fails completely).         number9dream doesn't just invite comparison to Murakami Haruki's work, it demands it. Mitchell is obviously and openly following in the footsteps of the master. His characters, their concerns, and what happens to them are all Murikamiesque. The quirky occurrences, the strong but lost girls, the ominous forces all about are all pages out of Murakami's books. Everything one might find (and has found) in a Murakami-novel is there: "Goatwriter" tales interspersed in the story, Beatles-songs (and a lot of John Lennon), a few popular-literary titles, and even a diary from World War II.        Mitchell emulates the man well. number9dream can pass as a decent piece of Murakami-lite. One might wonder: why bother ? why can't Mitchell find his own distinctive voice, or at least a halfway original story and some new characters ? One hopes he has his reasons.         number9dream is a varied, entertaining, easy read. It is light entertainment, with some clever touches and wild twists. It reads well -- consistently so, unlike Mitchell's far more uneven Ghostwritten (see our review ) -- but ultimately it is fairly insubstantial.

About the Author :

       English author David Mitchell was born in 1969. He currently lives in Ireland.

© 2002-2011 the complete review Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links

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Review: Number 9 Dream

The beginning of “Number 9 Dream” is tough to get into. Eiji Miyake, a young man in Tokyo for the first time, is searching for clues to the identity of his father, but sorting out his fantasies from reality is challenging; like the flood that overtakes him (or does it?), we are plunged into his narrative with little preparation or context. But the story eventually sorts itself out, the magical realism elements fall into their place, and Eiji’s story moves along.

Each of the first eight sections of “Number 9 Dream” is split between the present day narrative and some other narrative, whether youthful fantasies, dreams, letters or memories from the past, or something else. In most cases, the “background” narrative provides support and foundation for the ongoing one. In a couple of the chapters, the foreground narrative actually becomes more bizarre than the background. Through all of it, Mitchell explores the lines of reality and fantasy, desire and expectation, promise and hope with all the skill you’d expect from his other works.

One of the reasons I think he likes to play with split narratives (“Black Swan Green” is his only single-narrator book) is that he is so good at character voice. Eiji has a distinctive voice, but so do his fantasies, so do the memories and the other characters he encounters, and so, in fact, does each setting he passes through, from his job at the train station to the gleaming corporate tower where his father’s attorney works to his filthy apartment with its transient feline roommate to the countryside where he grew up.

If there is one flaw in “Number 9 Dream,” it is that, being used to Mitchell’s transcendant endings, the finale of this one does not quite measure up. Either it requires a bit more study and thought than I’ve put into it, or it simply leaves the narrative somewhat unresolved–which, given the rest of the story and the style, is fine. I’m not sure what I was expecting, only that “ Ghostwritten ,” “ Cloud Atlas ,” and “<a href=" http://timsusman.blogspot.com/2009/05/review-black-swan-green.html”>Black Swan Green” all had terrific endings, with “Cloud Atlas” and “Black Swan Green” among the best in modern fiction.

Still, as with a few creators like Kazuo Ishiguro, Pixar, and the Beatles, the weakest of Mitchell’s books is still a delightful, thoughtful experience, well worth picking up and enjoyable from beginning to end. Its complexity makes it probably the first of his books I would want to re-read, if only because of the feeling that there were connections between the various parts that I’d missed. If nothing else, it’s instructive to see him develop the techniques that allowed him to write “Cloud Atlas,” and to see parts of the stories begun in “Ghostwritten” continued here.

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ebook ∣ A Novel

By david mitchell.

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9780375507267

David Mitchell

Random House Publishing Group

18 December 2007

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The Only Way is Books

“We lose ourselves in books, we find ourselves there too."

Number 9 Dream

So the second book in my Challenge 2020 is a book that was gifted to me as a part of my Secret Santa gift at work. The person gave it to me as they viewed this as their favourite book and they wanted to share that with another lover of books, me. Essentially what I’m doing to all you lovely followers!

“It is so much simpler to bury reality than it is to dispose of dreams.” – Don Delillo, Americana

Number 9 Dream is about a twenty-year-old called Eiji Miyake who has arrived in Tokyo with one single goal…to find his father who he has never met.

“It is a simple matter. I know your name, and you knew mine, once upon a time. Eiji Miyake…I am in Tokyo to find my father.”

From the city’s underworld, video arcades and lost property, this is a journey that isn’t plain sailing. No, this is a journey that takes us from reality to the realms of dreams and nightmares. But it’s not long before Eiji’s idealistic dreams of Tokyo are revealed as just that…Tokyo isn’t the place of dreams he once thought it was.

“Tokyo is so close up you cannot always see it.”

But until Eiji has fallen in love and rid himself from the demons of his past then everything he craves will always be tantalisingly out of reach.

“A black-and-white day gone by. This is the closest we get. Stars.”

There’s an end to every journey and Eiji must learn this on his own accord and understand it.

“Fear is not necessarily a weakness.”

In all honesty, this novel isn’t one I would have picked for myself but that’s why I was excited to read it, because this is new to me. I wouldn’t attribute it as a coming of age novel…perhaps more science fiction in places, where we must discover the meaning we find in this book and unravel all the layers of meaning that Mitchell has left in our wake. But in all honesty, this isn’t a book I would be reading again in a hurry. It confuses you and I found I sometimes had to read a section twice before figuring out what was going on. It’s quite a fast paced novel, where everything comes and go’s.

“Death gives me a choice.”

This novel is based around imagination and how we attribute the meaning, after all, David Mitchell was inspired by John Lennon.

“All we are is our memories.”

I implore you all to find the meaning of this novel, your own meaning.

“Reality is the page. Life is the word.”

Happy reading everyone! Check out Number 9 Dream if you fancy an escape from your everyday life!

“#9dream’ is a descendant of ‘Norwegian Wood’ curses you with loneliness. The ‘two spirits dancing so strange’ in ‘#9dream’ bless you with harmony. But people prefer loneliness to harmony…The ninth dream begins after every ending.”

Until our next read on Challenge 2020,

Keep reading,

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I do like David Mitchell, but haven’t read this one yet: it sounds great. And what a lovely Secret Santa work colleague! I never get anything other than a bottle of wine- and I dont drink!

This is the first book of his that i’ve read! I know, I was totally chuffed! I did get some wine too, haha! Oh no that’s no fair! I hope you get better ones in the future!

Let me know what you think! Cancel reply

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Number 9 Dream Summary & Study Guide

Number9Dream

By david mitchell.

• ★ ★ ★ ★ 4.00 ·
• 14 Want to read
• 0 Currently reading
• 12 Have read

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"Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister's death and his mother's breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him. Stumbling around this strange, awesome city, he trips over and crosses - through a hidden destiny or just monstrously bad luck - a number of its secret power centers. Suddenly, the riddle of his father's identity becomes just one of the increasingly urgent questions Eiji must answer.

Why is the line between the world of his experiences and the world of his dreams so blurry? Why do so many horrible things keep happening to him? What is it about the number 9? To answer these questions, and ultimately to come to terms with his inheritance, Eiji must somehow acquire an insight into the workings of history and fate that would be rare in anyone, much less in a boy from out of town with a price on his head and less than the cost of a Beatles disc to his name."--BOOK JACKET.

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Book Details

Edition notes, classifications, the physical object, source records, work description.

At age twenty, Eiji goes to Tokyo to search for the wealthy father he's never known. He stumbles upon the hidden power centers of the Japanese underworld and instead of finding his father, finds himself.

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Dream's Pizza On The 9

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“ I have eaten Giordanos, Italian Fiesta , Beggars, Ninos, Aurelio's, and Chicago Dough just to name a few. ” in 5 reviews

“ We had a large sausage and cheese and a small chicken sausage with giardiniera and man oh man was is good. ” in 2 reviews

“ Today the wifey and I decided to take the advice of food reviewers " The Black Foodies ". ” in 2 reviews

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Spirited ‘Funny Girl’ captures excitement of early musical theater

The show that made Barbra Streisand famous is playing at Maine State Music Theatre through July 13.

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Jenna Lea Rosen as Fanny Brice with the cast of “Funny Girl” at Maine State Music Theatre. Photo by MSMT/Jared Morneau Photography

Who are the luckiest people in the world? At least for theater fans, the answer is “people who need people,” a line made famous well over half a century ago by Barbra Streisand in the original production of the musical “Funny Girl.”

THEATER REVIEW

WHAT: “Funny Girl: the Musical” by Maine State Music Theatre

WHERE: Pickard Theater, Bowdoin College Campus, Brunswick

REVIEWED: June 28 (matinee); continues through July 13

TICKETS: Starting at $93

CONTACT: 207-725-8769, msmt.org

On the heels of the show’s recent Broadway revival, the Maine State Music Theatre has opened a spirited production of the classic musical on its home stage at the Pickard Theater on the campus of Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

The show primarily captures the rousing excitement of early musical theater while unavoidably making us think about how it launched the career of Streisand. At a lengthy but enjoyable two-and-one-half hours, plus intermission, it’s a show that still charms with its memorable songs, old-style comedy and bittersweet love story.

The impressive production, directed and choreographed by Kenny Ingram and with the time-honored music of Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill and book by Isobel Lennart, tells the semi-fictionalized story of Fanny Brice, a real-life figure who rose from humble origins to showbiz stardom as a give-it-everything-you’ve-got performer in the early 20th century.

At first socially awkward and vulnerable, but with a unique talent and an admirable determination to succeed, Fanny gained the attention of famed impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. and went on to star in many of his glitzy stage shows. At the same time, Fanny’s personal life was a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

Jenna Lea Rosen takes the lead role and scores comedically with her initially wide-eyed approach to Fanny’s personal and professional challenges. Armed with a feisty “New Yawk” accent, the actress easily takes charge of backstage, front stage and offstage scenes. Her vocals are compelling on both comic numbers (“Sadie, Sadie” and “Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat”) and in more intimate moments (“People” and “Don’t Rain On My Parade”). Advertisement

Douglas Raymond Williams plays Fanny’s handsome rogue of a love interest who brings her to a fuller life but fails her in the end. His opera-trained vocals alongside Rosen (“I Want to be Seen With You” and “You are Woman, I am Man”) establish both the heat and uncertainties within their relationship.

Among the many standout secondary actors and choristers, Tyler Johnson-Campion is a tap-dancing whiz. His work with Sue Cella, who plays Fanny’s mom, is a treat on “Who Taught Her Everything.” Cella also has some fun moments squabbling with a competitive friend played by Maine State favorite Charis Leos.

Tommy Betz shines as a Tenor and David Girolmo returns to the Pickard stage as the stern but supportive Mr. Ziegfeld. Jeremiah Valentino Porter gets to toot a hot horn on “Cornet Man.”

The Maine State Music Theatre Orchestra, led by Jason Wetzel, mixes up the period flavors with a newer Broadway expansiveness. The costumes designed by J. Theresa Bush and scenic design by Jeffrey D. Kmiec take the audience back to a distant era when musical theater and its early stars were on the rise.

Steve Feeney is a freelance writer who lives in Portland.

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Number9Dream: A Novel Kindle Edition

• Print length 418 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Random House
• Publication date December 18, 2007
• File size 1887 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

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Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From The New Yorker

From library journal, amazon.com review.

Number9Dream is crafted from too many disparate components; it does not seem to be a full expression, but an overly crowded one. Readers will sympathize with Eiji and his search, but in the end will wonder what effect, if any, all the extraneous forces had on him. The book provides many fun moments, but ultimately it doesn't really add up to the sum of its parts. --Michael Ferch

From Booklist

About the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0012SMGOC
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House; 1st edition (December 18, 2007)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 18, 2007
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 1887 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 418 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0812966929
• #658 in British & Irish Literary Fiction
• #845 in Contemporary Fantasy Fiction
• #2,960 in Magical Realism

About the author

David mitchell.

Born in 1969, David Mitchell grew up in Worcestershire. After graduating from Kent University, he taught English in Japan, where he wrote his first novel, GHOSTWRITTEN. Published in 1999, it was awarded the Mail on Sunday John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His second novel, NUMBER9DREAM, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and in 2003, David Mitchell was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. His third novel, CLOUD ATLAS, was shortlisted for six awards including the Man Booker Prize, and adapted for film in 2012. It was followed by BLACK SWAN GREEN, shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award, and THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET, which was a No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller, and THE BONE CLOCKS which won the World Fantasy Best Novel Award. All three were longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. David Mitchell’s seventh novel is SLADE HOUSE (Sceptre, 2015).

In 2013, THE REASON I JUMP: ONE BOY'S VOICE FROM THE SILENCE OF AUTISM by Naoki Higashida was published by Sceptre in a translation from the Japanese by David Mitchell and KA Yoshida and became a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. Its successor, FALL DOWN SEVEN TIMES, GET UP EIGHT: A YOUNG MAN’S VOICE FROM THE SILENCE OF AUTISM, was published in 2017, and was also a Sunday Times bestseller.

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Customer reviews

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Customers say

Customers find the plot intricate, impressive, and well-handled. They also praise the writing style as astonishing and imaginative. However, some find the book difficult to follow and hard to keep interest in. Opinions are mixed on the characters, with some finding them engaging and interesting, while others say they're not well developed or interesting.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the plot intricate, poignant, and rich. They also describe the book as impressive, full of shocking grit, and mesmerizing.

"...time I picked back up number9dream, I lost myself in its intricate, rich , imaginative world, whether it was all real, daydreamed, written, imagined,..." Read more

"...there's anything necessarily profound here, but it still makes for an interesting story and some of his ruminations on the nature of dreams,..." Read more

"...while the complex links between chapters of the first book were impressive and well-handled, in this book Mitchell set himself a more difficult..." Read more

"...startlingly graphic and real, most of the time cryptic, and always poignant , Number9Dream will hook you and draw you in compelling you forward right..." Read more

Customers find the writing style astonishing, inventive, and beautiful. They also say the plot is intelligent and enjoyable, featuring a talented and unique voice. Readers also mention that the characters immerse them in fascinating perspectives from across the spectrum of humanity.

"...read, and within an hour, I knew this was one of the most astonishing pieces of writing I'd ever experience...." Read more

"...Mitchell is truly a talented and unique voice ; having read his extant works, I look forward to seeing where he goes in the future." Read more

"...Any one of these is extremely well written , but taken as a whole they make for a disjointed reading experience...." Read more

"David Mitchell continues to astonish me - what a gifted writer !..." Read more

Customers find the book incredibly imaginative, ambitious, unpredictable, full of life, and masterful. They also say it's engaging, cleverly constructed, and shows the greatest attention to detail.

"...and every time I picked back up number9dream, I lost myself in its intricate , rich, imaginative world, whether it was all real, daydreamed, written..." Read more

"...contend remains Mitchell's masterpiece to this day, this is a highly imaginative , clever work that takes the reader on a wild and enjoyable ride...." Read more

"In "Ghostwritten" David Mitchell produced a novel that was stylish, engaging , and above all, clever...." Read more

"...search is unsatisfying, but up until the last page, it is wonderful, exciting , comedic, horrific and dreamlike...." Read more

Customers find the emotional content of the book touching, strange, horrible, and unreal. They also describe the work as strong, gentle, and intellectually challenging.

"...I wish everyone in the world would read his work, which is strong and gentle , and intellectually challenging in a way that doesn't merely proclaim..." Read more

"...The book is at once beautiful, touching , strange, horrible, unreal, dream-like - enough adjectives. Just read this book." Read more

"...However they are not a series. They just touch on each other very well ." Read more

Customers find the narrative style engaging, interesting, and surprisingly action-packed. They also say the characters are engaging and the setting interesting enough to get them through the book.

"...is entertaining, the characters engaging, and the setting interesting enough to get you through ." Read more

"Davids story telling is magnificent. A true master of tempo and setting . This one will stick with you for years. Bravo!" Read more

"...you from dream to reality and back to dream again, with surprisingly a lot of action . Brilliantly written. Can't wait to read it again." Read more

Customers have mixed opinions about the characters in the book. Some find them engaging and interesting, while others say they're not well developed or interesting.

"... Eiji's character is consistently drawn , as are most of the other characters - they seem fleshed out, fully formed real people...." Read more

"...I also liked the interconnectedness of the characters , especially his work relations and friends...." Read more

"...juvenile at times, the pace is inconsistent, and the characters are not as well developed or interesting...." Read more

"David Mitchell shows an uncanny ability to inhabit unique characters and submerge the reader in fascinating perspectives from across the spectrum of..." Read more

Customers find the book difficult to follow, confusing, and complicated. They also say it makes for a disjointed reading experience.

"...well written, but taken as a whole they make for a disjointed reading experience ...." Read more

"Loved this book. Really really like david mitchell. Beginning is a bit confusing , but much more conventional (relatively) starting in the second part" Read more

" Difficult to follow .....hard to keep my intrest" Read more

"Confusing, Complicated , and Wonderful..." Read more

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