Publication
Amsterdam Querido 2006
ISBN
902147493X / 9789021474939
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Collections
Description
Fiction. Literature. HTML:By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Selected by Time as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year | A New York Times Notable Book | Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post Book World, The Christian Science Monitor, Rocky Mountain News, and Kirkus Reviews | A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist | Winner of the ALA Alex Award | Finalist for the Costa Novel Award 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 emigr� 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 subtlest and most effective achievement to date. Praise for Black Swan Green �[David Mitchell has created] one of the most endearing, smart, and funny young narrators ever to rise up from the pages of a novel. . . . The always fresh and brilliant writing will carry readers back to their own childhoods. . . . This enchanting novel makes us remember exactly what it was like.��The Boston Globe �[David Mitchell is a] prodigiously daring and imaginative young writer. . . . As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall.��Time.… (more)
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LibraryThing member brenzi
The town of Black Swan Green in 1982 provides the setting for David Mitchell’s adolescent coming of age story that might just be autobiographical. Jason Taylor is thirteen years old and serves as narrator of the story that describes one year in his life, a year full of possibilities and loaded
Jason is an aspiring poet who uses the pen name Eliot Bolivar to conceal his identity as his poetry is published in the local parish magazine. He becomes a regular contributor. This is something that no one at school can discover or his life would be even more hellish than it already is. He is a boy trying desperately to fit in and making a miserable job of it. He longs to be a boy called by his first name, like the other “cool” kids. In actuality, he’s called by his last name and lumped in with other boys also determined to be unworthy. Below him are those boys called by made up names, like Squelch. This three tier system exists solely for the amusement of those in the top tier, who regularly bully those below them. Jason’s position within the system deteriorates in time until he’s called Maggot and pushed to the breaking point.
Contributing to Jason’s despair and making him a prime target of the others is the fact that he stutters. He has named the thing that won’t allow the words to come out properly “Hangman.” Even his teachers contribute to this by forcing him to recite long passages aloud. His sessions with his speech therapist provide relief for him, a place where he can relax so much that his stuttering disappears, making it that much harder to treat.
As if all this isn’t enough for one teenager to endure, Jason’s parents fight continually and are heading towards a divorce and Jason has a crush on one of the cool girls, who is completely unaware of him.
The climax of the story occurs when Jason determines that he has to show these bullies that he’s not afraid of them. Stick it out for a little while and they’ll back off. There’s no fun in bullying someone and getting no response.
Throughout the book, Mitchell’s prose shines. He throws out one zinger after another, page after page:
“A cow of an awkward pause mooed.” (Page 52)
“A brick of loneliness is reaching terminal velocity inside me.” (Page 166)
“Sunlight on waves is drowsy tinsel.” (Page 173)
“Questions aren’t questions. Questions are bullets” and “Their arguments are speed chess these days.” (Page 223 and 224 referring to his parents’ fights)
“Poems are lenses, mirrors and x-ray machines.” (Page 224)
The writing is divine, the story is top notch, the young narrator is so vulnerable and likable that you want to take him home and protect him from all the nastiness in the world. Mitchell is a marvelous storyteller and I look forward to reading more of his books. Highly recommended.
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with teenage angst as well.Jason is an aspiring poet who uses the pen name Eliot Bolivar to conceal his identity as his poetry is published in the local parish magazine. He becomes a regular contributor. This is something that no one at school can discover or his life would be even more hellish than it already is. He is a boy trying desperately to fit in and making a miserable job of it. He longs to be a boy called by his first name, like the other “cool” kids. In actuality, he’s called by his last name and lumped in with other boys also determined to be unworthy. Below him are those boys called by made up names, like Squelch. This three tier system exists solely for the amusement of those in the top tier, who regularly bully those below them. Jason’s position within the system deteriorates in time until he’s called Maggot and pushed to the breaking point.
Contributing to Jason’s despair and making him a prime target of the others is the fact that he stutters. He has named the thing that won’t allow the words to come out properly “Hangman.” Even his teachers contribute to this by forcing him to recite long passages aloud. His sessions with his speech therapist provide relief for him, a place where he can relax so much that his stuttering disappears, making it that much harder to treat.
As if all this isn’t enough for one teenager to endure, Jason’s parents fight continually and are heading towards a divorce and Jason has a crush on one of the cool girls, who is completely unaware of him.
The climax of the story occurs when Jason determines that he has to show these bullies that he’s not afraid of them. Stick it out for a little while and they’ll back off. There’s no fun in bullying someone and getting no response.
Throughout the book, Mitchell’s prose shines. He throws out one zinger after another, page after page:
“A cow of an awkward pause mooed.” (Page 52)
“A brick of loneliness is reaching terminal velocity inside me.” (Page 166)
“Sunlight on waves is drowsy tinsel.” (Page 173)
“Questions aren’t questions. Questions are bullets” and “Their arguments are speed chess these days.” (Page 223 and 224 referring to his parents’ fights)
“Poems are lenses, mirrors and x-ray machines.” (Page 224)
The writing is divine, the story is top notch, the young narrator is so vulnerable and likable that you want to take him home and protect him from all the nastiness in the world. Mitchell is a marvelous storyteller and I look forward to reading more of his books. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member MikeFarquhar
David Mitchell has rapidly become one of my favourite authors, and Black Swan Green, his new book, does nothing to dissuade me from that.
Superficially at least, it's much more straightforward than his previous three novels; it tells of thirteen months in the life of 13 year old Jason Taylor in
Mitchell's strength in his previous books has been a blending of the fantastic and the real; of drawing connections between events and characters in such a way that expands the whole. Those elements, though still present, are more muted in Black Swan Green but what really marks this book out is a celebration of the ordinary; complex observations of relatively simple events and people. Jason, in Mitchell's hands, finds the magic and adventure of the best childrens' books from times past, and his life is by turn funny and sad. Mitchell's account of both Jason's stutter and what it is like to be a "middle-rank" 13 year old boy ring true; the only criticism is that on a few (though very few) occasions, Jason speaks too obviously with the older voice of his author rather than of his own, but in general the teenage narrator carries authenticity.
For anyone who grew up in Britain in the 80s, it's also at times a nostalgic look back at a world that seems both very close and very distant at the same time. I was a bit younger than Jason was in 1982, but the things he describes still resonate.
There is also a clear impression of semi-autobiography here, which gives the book some of the feel of a first novel. It is a first novel however written by a writer with considerable power with language, and conveys how that power can be used as a tool for change. In the seeds of Jason's adolescent poetry, shaped and defined by his utter reliance on manipulating language to avoid danger-words for his stutter, we can see the beginnings of Mitchell's own ability with language.
I have been a fan of Mitchell since Ghostwritten, and this book confirms it again. Having visited his past with this novel, I look forward to seeing where he goes next.
Superficially at least, it's much more straightforward than his previous three novels; it tells of thirteen months in the life of 13 year old Jason Taylor in
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rural England in 1982, structured formally as thirteen inter-linked stories. Jason's a pretty normal kid, and faces some fairly normal events - school, bullies, his parents' disintegrating marriage, first love, first kiss, that sort of thing. The only thing that marks him out is a stutter, which he manages to keep more or less hidden, through a controlled use of language that finds a secret alternate expression in poetry that Jason writes under an alias.Mitchell's strength in his previous books has been a blending of the fantastic and the real; of drawing connections between events and characters in such a way that expands the whole. Those elements, though still present, are more muted in Black Swan Green but what really marks this book out is a celebration of the ordinary; complex observations of relatively simple events and people. Jason, in Mitchell's hands, finds the magic and adventure of the best childrens' books from times past, and his life is by turn funny and sad. Mitchell's account of both Jason's stutter and what it is like to be a "middle-rank" 13 year old boy ring true; the only criticism is that on a few (though very few) occasions, Jason speaks too obviously with the older voice of his author rather than of his own, but in general the teenage narrator carries authenticity.
For anyone who grew up in Britain in the 80s, it's also at times a nostalgic look back at a world that seems both very close and very distant at the same time. I was a bit younger than Jason was in 1982, but the things he describes still resonate.
There is also a clear impression of semi-autobiography here, which gives the book some of the feel of a first novel. It is a first novel however written by a writer with considerable power with language, and conveys how that power can be used as a tool for change. In the seeds of Jason's adolescent poetry, shaped and defined by his utter reliance on manipulating language to avoid danger-words for his stutter, we can see the beginnings of Mitchell's own ability with language.
I have been a fan of Mitchell since Ghostwritten, and this book confirms it again. Having visited his past with this novel, I look forward to seeing where he goes next.
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LibraryThing member richardderus
Pearl Ruled: [BLACK SWAN GREEN] by [[DAVID MITCHELL]]
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
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.
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member Smiler69
Our narrator, Jason Taylor is thirteen years old at the beginning of 1982 and tells us about his daily life, his family, his experiences with boys in his neighbourhood of Black Swan Green, a fictional village in Worcestershire, England. Jason is an especially sensitive boy who publishes his poetry
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in the local parish bulletin, but as he tells us early on, writing poetry is "gay" so he does so under a pseudonym and is careful not to let his secret out. And with good reason; having developed a speech impediment, Jason sees his popularity sink over the course of the following year, becoming the victim of relentless bullying, while weathering through a tense environment at home, where his mother and father are continually at war with one another, with intimations that Mr Taylor has taken out a second mortgage on the family home secretly and that there might be another woman in the wings. This is very much a coming of age story, and what made it especially appealing to me is that it rung very true and seemed all too familiar. Like David Mitchell, I too was born in 1969 and saw life through a similar perspective as the author reveals to us in the in this semi-autobiographical novel. For me, the Falklands War was something happening very far away from Montreal, Canada, but for Jason it's an exciting event, and an opportunity for hero worship; his reverence and trust in Margaret Thatcher is endearing, and tells us not to rely entirely on this inexperienced narrator. Many references to pop culture, including the music and pastimes favoured by adolescents were similar to what I experienced, which may have influenced me in giving this novel what is I consider to be a high rating, as I would probably otherwise have given it a four-star rating. Mitchell writes very well, and very convincingly, as well as realistically; toward the end of the story, our hero makes large strides towards asserting himself and figuring out what his priorities are, while the rest of his world remains as imperfect and fragile as it is in real life. Definitely recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member lycomayflower
In Black Swan Green, thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor narrates a year in his life in early eighties England. The novel has elements of the coming-of-age story (dealing with bullies, feeling outsiderish, suddenly seeing parents differently, learning how to see girls as human beings), but the
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presentation makes it so much more than just another teenager-starts-to-grow-up book. Mitchell uses language brilliantly--both in the mouths of all his young characters though their slang and in Jason's observations of the world. Jason is honest with himself and with his feelings, and he comes to sometimes startlingly beautiful conclusions about what he sees around him. And his conclusions are always believably thirteen-y while still holding a ring of universal truth. The book's organization is also refreshing--each chapter could almost stand alone as a short story (though there is still a very strong sense of forward momentum across the whole novel) and tells of one set of connected events happening in one month of the year. An enjoyable read with moments of brilliance and characters who will stay with me a long time. Recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member lilywren
"Picked-on kids act invisible to reduce the chances of being noticed and picked on. Stammerers act invisible to reduce the chances of being made to say something we can't. Kids whose parents argue act invisible in case we trigger another skirmish. The Triple Invisible Boy, that's Jason Taylor. Even
It's 1982 and Jason Taylor is 13 years old. Jason narrates the story of a year in his life. Every day is a battle for Jason growing up in the fictitious English village of 'Black Swan Green'. He tries (and fails) to evade school bullies, he fights his stammer (otherwise known as 'The Hangman'), writes poetry under the pseudonym of Eliot Bolivar and at home his parents are going through one of those 'silent in front of the kids lets split up' periods. Growing up is tough for Jason. Despite all this, and maybe because of all this, Jason is one of the most rounded, level-headed and empathic characters I have read in a book for a long, long time.
It's beautifully written, witty, painful and wonderfully nostalgic. As someone who was a similar age to Jason at the time I found myself relating to some of Jason's woes, experiences and struggles. The sense of belonging Jason tries to attain with others at school, the bullying he endures and yet manages to come back from, the awkward crush on the local goth girl, his rather dysfunctional family, the embarrassment he feels as he tries to get his words out, the heartlessness displayed by some of the teachers and, in the midst of all this, some brighter moments portrayed in the warm relationship he develops with his friend Dean Moran, another school outcast, and his older sister Julia. Jason could easily become a pitiful character, a 'victim', but he doesn't and he isn't. Mitchell has created such a well-rounded and real character and one you can't help but feel affinity towards and root for.
Loved it!
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I don't see the real Jason Taylor much these days 'cept for when we're writing a poem, or occasionally in a mirror. Or just before sleep." p.296It's 1982 and Jason Taylor is 13 years old. Jason narrates the story of a year in his life. Every day is a battle for Jason growing up in the fictitious English village of 'Black Swan Green'. He tries (and fails) to evade school bullies, he fights his stammer (otherwise known as 'The Hangman'), writes poetry under the pseudonym of Eliot Bolivar and at home his parents are going through one of those 'silent in front of the kids lets split up' periods. Growing up is tough for Jason. Despite all this, and maybe because of all this, Jason is one of the most rounded, level-headed and empathic characters I have read in a book for a long, long time.
It's beautifully written, witty, painful and wonderfully nostalgic. As someone who was a similar age to Jason at the time I found myself relating to some of Jason's woes, experiences and struggles. The sense of belonging Jason tries to attain with others at school, the bullying he endures and yet manages to come back from, the awkward crush on the local goth girl, his rather dysfunctional family, the embarrassment he feels as he tries to get his words out, the heartlessness displayed by some of the teachers and, in the midst of all this, some brighter moments portrayed in the warm relationship he develops with his friend Dean Moran, another school outcast, and his older sister Julia. Jason could easily become a pitiful character, a 'victim', but he doesn't and he isn't. Mitchell has created such a well-rounded and real character and one you can't help but feel affinity towards and root for.
Loved it!
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LibraryThing member ChocolateMuse
A truly incredible book - the kind where as soon as I close it I itch to write to the author to tell him how impressed I am. A coming-of-age novel set in a small English town/village during the era of the Faulklands War. So many coming-of-age novels are saccharine, cliched or depressing - this is
It's not a YA book, not to my mind anyway. It's written for adults, insightful and intelligent (not that YA isn't that! It is!), aimed at an audience that has been there, rather than one that is there now. The main character is delightful, and his voice rings with truth.
What made this book for me above all else was a certain character who appears for just one chapter in the middle of the book, the Belgian old lady with her music, her truth and her 'butler'. I haven't met a character as captivating as her for years.
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none of those. It's incredibly real, with emotions, dialogue, events, and a whole atmosphere of how awful and amazing it is to be 13 years old.It's not a YA book, not to my mind anyway. It's written for adults, insightful and intelligent (not that YA isn't that! It is!), aimed at an audience that has been there, rather than one that is there now. The main character is delightful, and his voice rings with truth.
What made this book for me above all else was a certain character who appears for just one chapter in the middle of the book, the Belgian old lady with her music, her truth and her 'butler'. I haven't met a character as captivating as her for years.
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LibraryThing member gbill
Mitchell’s coming of age story is brilliant. There is adventure, touching emotion, and humor here, and it was a very enjoyable read. The story takes place in roughly monthly snippets over a year in the life of 13-year-old Jason Taylor. Mitchell is brutally honest to the experience of growing up:
There is a small connection to Cloud Atlas, in the form of Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, who Cloud fans may remember as the daughter of the famous composer who Robert Frobisher has a fling with. Here she’s an elderly lady who councils Jason on his poetry (which he writes under a pseudonym to avoid ridicule) in one of the chapters. There is also a brief reference to “Number Nine Dream”, by John Lennon, which Jason enjoys his first makeout session to.
Thumbs up! Mitchell remains must-read for me.
Quotes:
On art, and beauty:
“Idiots labor in this misconception. Beauty is not excellence. Beauty is distraction, beauty is cosmetics, beauty is ultimately fatigue. Here” – she read from the fifth verse – ‘Venus swung bright over the ear of the moon.’ The poem has a terminal deflation. Ffffffffft! Dead tire. Automobile accident. It says, ‘Am I not a pretty pretty?’ I answer, ‘Go to hell!’ If you have a magnolia in the moonlight courtyard, do you paint its flowers? Affix the flashy-flashy Christmas lights? Attach plastic parrots? No. You do not.”
And later:
“T.S. Eliot expresses it so – the poem is a raid on the inarticulate. I, Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, agree with him. Poems who are not written yet, or not written ever, exists here. The realm of the inarticulate. Art.’ – she put another cigarette in her mouth, and this time I was ready with her dragon lighter – ‘fabricated of the inarticulate is beauty. Even if its themes is ugly. Silver moons, thundering seas, clichés of geese, poison beauty. The amateur thinks his words, his paints, his notes, makes the beauty. But the master knows his words is just the vehicle in who beauty sits. The master knows he does not know what beauty is.”
On death:
“No Excalibur stuck in a stone, but I did find a tombstone from 1665; 1665 was the Plague Year. That was my record. Gravestones mostly flake away after a couple of centuries. Even death sort of dies. The saddest sentence I ever found was in a graveyard on Bredon Hill. HER ABUNDANT VIRTUES WOULD HAVE ADORED A LONGER LIFE.”
On writing, and critics:
“I felt giddy with importance that my words’d captured the attention of this exotic woman. Fear, too. 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.’”
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Jason suffers the awkwardness of stammering, bullies at school, and bickering parents and an older sister at home. It’s his most accessible novel, but has some of the themes of his other works, such as the need to stand up to the bad guys in life, and to persevere through difficulties. It’s not the 19th century or the distant future, but he is true to the time period (1982) as well.There is a small connection to Cloud Atlas, in the form of Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, who Cloud fans may remember as the daughter of the famous composer who Robert Frobisher has a fling with. Here she’s an elderly lady who councils Jason on his poetry (which he writes under a pseudonym to avoid ridicule) in one of the chapters. There is also a brief reference to “Number Nine Dream”, by John Lennon, which Jason enjoys his first makeout session to.
Thumbs up! Mitchell remains must-read for me.
Quotes:
On art, and beauty:
“Idiots labor in this misconception. Beauty is not excellence. Beauty is distraction, beauty is cosmetics, beauty is ultimately fatigue. Here” – she read from the fifth verse – ‘Venus swung bright over the ear of the moon.’ The poem has a terminal deflation. Ffffffffft! Dead tire. Automobile accident. It says, ‘Am I not a pretty pretty?’ I answer, ‘Go to hell!’ If you have a magnolia in the moonlight courtyard, do you paint its flowers? Affix the flashy-flashy Christmas lights? Attach plastic parrots? No. You do not.”
And later:
“T.S. Eliot expresses it so – the poem is a raid on the inarticulate. I, Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, agree with him. Poems who are not written yet, or not written ever, exists here. The realm of the inarticulate. Art.’ – she put another cigarette in her mouth, and this time I was ready with her dragon lighter – ‘fabricated of the inarticulate is beauty. Even if its themes is ugly. Silver moons, thundering seas, clichés of geese, poison beauty. The amateur thinks his words, his paints, his notes, makes the beauty. But the master knows his words is just the vehicle in who beauty sits. The master knows he does not know what beauty is.”
On death:
“No Excalibur stuck in a stone, but I did find a tombstone from 1665; 1665 was the Plague Year. That was my record. Gravestones mostly flake away after a couple of centuries. Even death sort of dies. The saddest sentence I ever found was in a graveyard on Bredon Hill. HER ABUNDANT VIRTUES WOULD HAVE ADORED A LONGER LIFE.”
On writing, and critics:
“I felt giddy with importance that my words’d captured the attention of this exotic woman. Fear, too. 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.’”
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LibraryThing member jeniwren
This is about thirteen year old Jason Taylor between childhood and that awkward time of adolescence. Each chapter reads like a short story as he deals with schoolyard bullies, those strange creatures called girls and his first kiss all the while living with stuttering!
Wonderful with many laugh at
Wonderful with many laugh at
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loud moments. One of those books that make you realise why it is you love to read. Show Less
LibraryThing member clfisha
David Mitchell is at heart a superb storyteller and this semi-autobiographical 'coming of age' tale is no exception. It doesn't matter it's set in boring old England or that it ticks all the standard tropes (you know the kind of thing boyhood adventures, bullying, family problems and first love) it
We follow thirteen months of the life of 13 yr old Jason Taylor, a chapter for every month. At first this technique is jarring, especially as the 1st story stops so abruptly (familiar eh?) however as story progress the plots and themes mesh wonderfully into one strong linear tale and all you are left with are the hooks of our unanswered questions, with which we are occasionally rewarded a answer.
The setting is pitch perfect, as a child of 80s Britain myself I found the decade brought vividly and scarily to life. From food and music through to the Falklands war and bitter antagonism with gypsies, it's all there. Sadly this means it's hard for me to say whether the colloquiums are too much, I don't think though do.
One warning, I would read his other books first, because he does reference them. Characters such as Frobisher's love from Cloud Atlas make an appearance and this does impact your view of the story. On one level a dizzy sense of time flowing is gained, Black Swan Green is their past or their future and events outside Jason's world. On another level a question of unreality seeps into the novel, were these events inspiration or do these parts indicate the falsehoods in the tale.
These feelings are also enhanced by the rare sentence commenting on events, assuring us this event did or did not happen. Mix this with a sometimes profound and mature musing, sudden awareness of an authors presence and his manipulations. It maybe be obvious that memoir isn't always true but this deft touch adds insecurity and depth to a simple memoir.
Or course after my blatherings I must add it's not a tricksy post modernist book, it's just a damn fine tale and can be enjoyed as such.
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is a captivating, emotional and fun tale.We follow thirteen months of the life of 13 yr old Jason Taylor, a chapter for every month. At first this technique is jarring, especially as the 1st story stops so abruptly (familiar eh?) however as story progress the plots and themes mesh wonderfully into one strong linear tale and all you are left with are the hooks of our unanswered questions, with which we are occasionally rewarded a answer.
The setting is pitch perfect, as a child of 80s Britain myself I found the decade brought vividly and scarily to life. From food and music through to the Falklands war and bitter antagonism with gypsies, it's all there. Sadly this means it's hard for me to say whether the colloquiums are too much, I don't think though do.
One warning, I would read his other books first, because he does reference them. Characters such as Frobisher's love from Cloud Atlas make an appearance and this does impact your view of the story. On one level a dizzy sense of time flowing is gained, Black Swan Green is their past or their future and events outside Jason's world. On another level a question of unreality seeps into the novel, were these events inspiration or do these parts indicate the falsehoods in the tale.
These feelings are also enhanced by the rare sentence commenting on events, assuring us this event did or did not happen. Mix this with a sometimes profound and mature musing, sudden awareness of an authors presence and his manipulations. It maybe be obvious that memoir isn't always true but this deft touch adds insecurity and depth to a simple memoir.
Or course after my blatherings I must add it's not a tricksy post modernist book, it's just a damn fine tale and can be enjoyed as such.
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LibraryThing member alana_leigh
During his lunch break, a co-worker went into the bookstore by our office. There, in the bargain section, was a stack of Black Swan Green, one of his favorite books. For whatever reason, no book lover likes to see one of their favorites in the bargain section. Sure, it's probably just the product
Black Swan Green is composed of thirteen chapters that chart thirteen months in the life of a thirteen year old boy. Jason Taylor is growing up in the English town of Black Swan Green (located in Worchestershire, which is "somewhere in the middle") in 1982. For England at large, that means Maggie Thatcher, the end of the Cold War, recession, and the Falklands War. For Jason Taylor, it means those things, but they tend to serve as background to his life spent navigating the complicated adolescent world of school, bullies, girls, secret clubs, bickering parents, and speech therapy.
It should come as no surprise that Black Swan Green is semi-autobiographical. Some critics have grumbled about this fact, saying that it restricted Mitchell's movements when he normally plays much more with form in his other work. The novel frames a little over a year in Jason's life, resulting in the fact that there isn't a single narrative arch to the novel. Instead, it could be taken as thirteen short stories, each highlighting an encounter or an experience that the reader can see will help shape his life and his character. Mitchell is then free to linger over details and characters, evoking a sense of what one really remembers about growing up. After reading this, I feel as though I've been given a very intimate glance into Mitchell's life. It went beyond the facts and illuminated the core of what it means to be on the cusp of adulthood, no longer a child but not quite a man. Black Swan Green might not have had a fancy literary format, meant to impress and surprise, but I was certainly dazzled with its quiet beauty and truth. It was quite a bargain indeed.
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of an overzealous print-run, but if I found something meaningful in that book, then I would tend to think it's being undervalued, and perhaps even tainted by the scarlet sticker emblazoned on its cover. Rather than leave them there to be passed over by those who didn't realize they were walking past a true gem, my co-worker bought them. All. The whole pile of approximately twenty copies. He brought them back to work and started passing them out to anyone who he knew enjoyed reading. His sole caveat was that if you didn't think it would be your cup of tea, pass it along to someone else. The warm and fuzzy feeling elicited by this display of loyalty to a book meant that I simply dove into Black Swan Green, confident that here, I would find an excellent novel.Black Swan Green is composed of thirteen chapters that chart thirteen months in the life of a thirteen year old boy. Jason Taylor is growing up in the English town of Black Swan Green (located in Worchestershire, which is "somewhere in the middle") in 1982. For England at large, that means Maggie Thatcher, the end of the Cold War, recession, and the Falklands War. For Jason Taylor, it means those things, but they tend to serve as background to his life spent navigating the complicated adolescent world of school, bullies, girls, secret clubs, bickering parents, and speech therapy.
It should come as no surprise that Black Swan Green is semi-autobiographical. Some critics have grumbled about this fact, saying that it restricted Mitchell's movements when he normally plays much more with form in his other work. The novel frames a little over a year in Jason's life, resulting in the fact that there isn't a single narrative arch to the novel. Instead, it could be taken as thirteen short stories, each highlighting an encounter or an experience that the reader can see will help shape his life and his character. Mitchell is then free to linger over details and characters, evoking a sense of what one really remembers about growing up. After reading this, I feel as though I've been given a very intimate glance into Mitchell's life. It went beyond the facts and illuminated the core of what it means to be on the cusp of adulthood, no longer a child but not quite a man. Black Swan Green might not have had a fancy literary format, meant to impress and surprise, but I was certainly dazzled with its quiet beauty and truth. It was quite a bargain indeed.
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LibraryThing member edgeworth
"Black Swan Green" is a break from Mitchell's usual style. Previously, he rivalled Michael Chabon as an author commendably unafraid to plunge into the waters of speculative fiction, despite what the long-beards on the Pulitzer and Booker boards might have to say about it. His previous novel, "Cloud
Yet "Black Swan Green" is what some might call a "maturation." Split into thirteen chapters and set from January 1982 to 1983, it chronicles a year in the life of Jason Taylor, growing up in the titular village in Worcestershire. It is clearly, to some extent, a fictionalised autobiography. Jason is a shy and quiet boy, intelligent but not a genius, an aspiring poet. The novel follows his typical teenage trials - popularity at school, his parents' rocky marriage, the inevitable encounters with girls - with barely a whisper of the more exotic and imaginative flair that rapidly made David Mitchell my favourite author. "Black Swan Green" holds no fabricants, no non-corpus, no nuclear wars, no expeditions to the ruined observatories atop Mauna Kea. Instead we have Margaret Thatcher, the Falklands War, Woodbines, Beta and the jingoism of the Daily Mail.
This is not entirely a bad thing; "Black Swan Green" is still an excellent novel. David Mitchell is endlessly readable; he could write a novel about bricklaying and I'd buy it. His effortless use of prose to create beautiful, elegant sentences is something I've mentioned before, and of equal merit is the wide range of themes he weaves into his stories.
Not since "Ender's Game" have I read something that so hideously reminded me of what those early years of high school are like: the savagery and the cruelty, the constant fear and anxiety, a few asshole kids capable of making me miserable on a whim ("Picked on kids act invisible to reduce the chances of being noticed and picked on," Jason notes). Once you become an adult, when people automatically treat each other with civility and respect, it's easy to forget what wretched pieces of shit most young teenagers are. "It's all ranks, being a boy, like the army," Jason says, and while his own popularity rises considerably over the course of the year, it all comes crashing down with a single act - one which any adult would characterise as selfless and brave.
Jason eventually learns to fight back, and stand up for himself, and repels his tormentors in a story arc I found to be entirely too convenient. You change fast when you're thirteen - but not quite that fast.
Jason's thoughts and feelings are livened up somewhat by the presence of three voices in his head, facets of his personality. Hangman is the personification of his stutter, a cruel monster that strangles his words, forcing him to live in constant fear that his secret will be discovered and he will be forever pegged "Stutterboy" by the other kids. Maggot represents everything he hates about himself, all his worst desires, particularly his desperate need to be accepted by his peers, no matter what the cost to his personal values and integrity. Unborn Twin is the most mysterious, sometimes a guiding angel and sometimes a luring demon, never fully explained.
There are a few shout-outs to Mitchell's other novels - Neal Brose, one of Jason's bullies, is the narrator of the Hong Kong segment in "Ghostwritten," a shady financial lawyer who will one day experience his own epiphany and drop dead of a heart attack. The Neal Brose of "Ghostwritten" is not a good person, but not a bad one either - he is a human being, flawed and complex, containing multitudes. Mitchell's choice of this character is not an accident; he is reminding us that everybody grows, that while Jason's peers may be dickheads, they won't always be. As Jason points out, though, "How does that help me?"
The more interesting second encounter is with Eva van Crommelynck, who was a teenager in "Cloud Atlas," and the object of Robert Frobisher's desire. She is an old woman now, tutoring Jason in poetry, and at one point they leaf through her old photo album together. Robert Frobisher, "Cloud Atlas"' greatest character, is enshrined in black and white, and Eva spends a page or two recounting his fate and revealing the terrible guilt she felt over his suicide. Zedelghem, we learn, was destroyed during World War II. Now it's just "little boxes for houses, a gasoline station, a supermarket."
And, of course, we revisit Mitchell's favourite themes. Aside from the obvious presence of predation in schoolyard bullying, we see bigotry and hatred and ignorance cropping up everywhere. Walking down a country lane, Jason is told to clear off by a farmer who then sets his dogs loose. Jason escapes, and is "Okay, but poisoned. The dog man despised me for not being born here. He despised me for living down Kingfisher Meadows. That's a hate you can't argue with. No more than you can argue with mad Dobermanns." The casual racism flung about by Jason's older relatives, pompously waffling on in the assumption that their younger audience agrees with them, felt very familiar: "The fact of the matter is" (Uncle Brian doesn't hear what he doesn't want to) "the Japs are still fighting the war. They own Wall Street. London's next. Walking from the Barbican to my office, you'd need... twenty pairs of hands to count all the Fu Manchu look-alikes you pass by." And when the council proposes a permanent gypsy settlement next to Black Swan Green, the villagers assemble an "emergency" meeting to protest it. Jason is repulsed by their violent prejudice, but when he encounters some gypsies himself, he finds that they too hold similar prejudices against the townfolk, and uses the same metaphor twice to describe their narrow minds and blinkered eyes.
It is a cruel world we live in. And there's nothing we can do about that. For the October edition of The Atlantic magazine, Andrew Sullivan wrote an open letter to George Bush, urging him to personally take responsibility for the countless acts of torture that occurred during his administration. Sullivan was formerly an advocate of prosecution, arguing that Cheney and Bush and their ilk needed to be held fully accountable for their actions if the United States was to truly live up to its ideals. Now he argues that this would "tear the country apart" (a cop-out excuse used during every season finale of 24). Instead he urges Bush to take personal responsibility, to apologise, to demand an independent inquiry and to admit that he was wrong.
We all know that Bush will never do this - even this, this small and tiny thing, far easier than what he truly deserves, which is to be tried in the Hague as a war criminal. He will remain encapsulated in Texas, living amongst the 20% of the American population who still think he was a great President. He will deny even to himself that he ever did the wrong thing.
A reader wrote in to the Sullivan shortly afterwards: "What I saw was the final summation of a very fine attorney - an attorney for the defence of this nation and our deepest values. It was a summation made not to a jury and a courtroom, but to everyone in the nation, and to history; a summation made in the clear knowledge that no actual indictments will ever be brought against these men in the real world, no verdicts entered, no sentences handed down. It was left to the power of the pen and the pixel to render judgement - which you did, brilliantly... You indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced them all in one grand piece."
This is how I feel about David Mitchell, not as an author or an entertainer, but as an observer of the world around us. It is a world of unspeakable cruelty, of barbarity and violence, from the sickening taunts of bullies in "Black Swan Green" to the savage rape and murder perpetrated by Kona tribesman in "Cloud Atlas," to the very real torture inflicted on detainees of questionable guilt in CIA black sites all over the world. It is a world full of hatred and prejudice, which Jason aptly describes as "poison." As infuriating as the poison itself is, the most frustrating and heartbreaking part is its inexplicable nature - the lack of a why. This will never change. But as long as we have writers like David Mitchell (and Andrew Sullivan), gifted wordsmiths and good people, to at least acknowledge and decry the poison, we'll be okay.
I just hope that in the future, Mitchell will return to combining this with the imaginative, exotic adventures I came to love in his previous novels.
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Atlas," was a dazzling trip through space and time, from the South Pacific in the 19th century to the dystopic, Gibsonesque streets of a 22nd century Korea, to the savage and brutal islands of Hawaii long after life has been snuffed out in the rest of the world. It's partly because of this that "Cloud Atlas" is my favourite book. There are very few writers in the world who are able (and willing) to approach genre fiction with genuine literary skill, and I love them all.Yet "Black Swan Green" is what some might call a "maturation." Split into thirteen chapters and set from January 1982 to 1983, it chronicles a year in the life of Jason Taylor, growing up in the titular village in Worcestershire. It is clearly, to some extent, a fictionalised autobiography. Jason is a shy and quiet boy, intelligent but not a genius, an aspiring poet. The novel follows his typical teenage trials - popularity at school, his parents' rocky marriage, the inevitable encounters with girls - with barely a whisper of the more exotic and imaginative flair that rapidly made David Mitchell my favourite author. "Black Swan Green" holds no fabricants, no non-corpus, no nuclear wars, no expeditions to the ruined observatories atop Mauna Kea. Instead we have Margaret Thatcher, the Falklands War, Woodbines, Beta and the jingoism of the Daily Mail.
This is not entirely a bad thing; "Black Swan Green" is still an excellent novel. David Mitchell is endlessly readable; he could write a novel about bricklaying and I'd buy it. His effortless use of prose to create beautiful, elegant sentences is something I've mentioned before, and of equal merit is the wide range of themes he weaves into his stories.
Not since "Ender's Game" have I read something that so hideously reminded me of what those early years of high school are like: the savagery and the cruelty, the constant fear and anxiety, a few asshole kids capable of making me miserable on a whim ("Picked on kids act invisible to reduce the chances of being noticed and picked on," Jason notes). Once you become an adult, when people automatically treat each other with civility and respect, it's easy to forget what wretched pieces of shit most young teenagers are. "It's all ranks, being a boy, like the army," Jason says, and while his own popularity rises considerably over the course of the year, it all comes crashing down with a single act - one which any adult would characterise as selfless and brave.
Jason eventually learns to fight back, and stand up for himself, and repels his tormentors in a story arc I found to be entirely too convenient. You change fast when you're thirteen - but not quite that fast.
Jason's thoughts and feelings are livened up somewhat by the presence of three voices in his head, facets of his personality. Hangman is the personification of his stutter, a cruel monster that strangles his words, forcing him to live in constant fear that his secret will be discovered and he will be forever pegged "Stutterboy" by the other kids. Maggot represents everything he hates about himself, all his worst desires, particularly his desperate need to be accepted by his peers, no matter what the cost to his personal values and integrity. Unborn Twin is the most mysterious, sometimes a guiding angel and sometimes a luring demon, never fully explained.
There are a few shout-outs to Mitchell's other novels - Neal Brose, one of Jason's bullies, is the narrator of the Hong Kong segment in "Ghostwritten," a shady financial lawyer who will one day experience his own epiphany and drop dead of a heart attack. The Neal Brose of "Ghostwritten" is not a good person, but not a bad one either - he is a human being, flawed and complex, containing multitudes. Mitchell's choice of this character is not an accident; he is reminding us that everybody grows, that while Jason's peers may be dickheads, they won't always be. As Jason points out, though, "How does that help me?"
The more interesting second encounter is with Eva van Crommelynck, who was a teenager in "Cloud Atlas," and the object of Robert Frobisher's desire. She is an old woman now, tutoring Jason in poetry, and at one point they leaf through her old photo album together. Robert Frobisher, "Cloud Atlas"' greatest character, is enshrined in black and white, and Eva spends a page or two recounting his fate and revealing the terrible guilt she felt over his suicide. Zedelghem, we learn, was destroyed during World War II. Now it's just "little boxes for houses, a gasoline station, a supermarket."
And, of course, we revisit Mitchell's favourite themes. Aside from the obvious presence of predation in schoolyard bullying, we see bigotry and hatred and ignorance cropping up everywhere. Walking down a country lane, Jason is told to clear off by a farmer who then sets his dogs loose. Jason escapes, and is "Okay, but poisoned. The dog man despised me for not being born here. He despised me for living down Kingfisher Meadows. That's a hate you can't argue with. No more than you can argue with mad Dobermanns." The casual racism flung about by Jason's older relatives, pompously waffling on in the assumption that their younger audience agrees with them, felt very familiar: "The fact of the matter is" (Uncle Brian doesn't hear what he doesn't want to) "the Japs are still fighting the war. They own Wall Street. London's next. Walking from the Barbican to my office, you'd need... twenty pairs of hands to count all the Fu Manchu look-alikes you pass by." And when the council proposes a permanent gypsy settlement next to Black Swan Green, the villagers assemble an "emergency" meeting to protest it. Jason is repulsed by their violent prejudice, but when he encounters some gypsies himself, he finds that they too hold similar prejudices against the townfolk, and uses the same metaphor twice to describe their narrow minds and blinkered eyes.
It is a cruel world we live in. And there's nothing we can do about that. For the October edition of The Atlantic magazine, Andrew Sullivan wrote an open letter to George Bush, urging him to personally take responsibility for the countless acts of torture that occurred during his administration. Sullivan was formerly an advocate of prosecution, arguing that Cheney and Bush and their ilk needed to be held fully accountable for their actions if the United States was to truly live up to its ideals. Now he argues that this would "tear the country apart" (a cop-out excuse used during every season finale of 24). Instead he urges Bush to take personal responsibility, to apologise, to demand an independent inquiry and to admit that he was wrong.
We all know that Bush will never do this - even this, this small and tiny thing, far easier than what he truly deserves, which is to be tried in the Hague as a war criminal. He will remain encapsulated in Texas, living amongst the 20% of the American population who still think he was a great President. He will deny even to himself that he ever did the wrong thing.
A reader wrote in to the Sullivan shortly afterwards: "What I saw was the final summation of a very fine attorney - an attorney for the defence of this nation and our deepest values. It was a summation made not to a jury and a courtroom, but to everyone in the nation, and to history; a summation made in the clear knowledge that no actual indictments will ever be brought against these men in the real world, no verdicts entered, no sentences handed down. It was left to the power of the pen and the pixel to render judgement - which you did, brilliantly... You indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced them all in one grand piece."
This is how I feel about David Mitchell, not as an author or an entertainer, but as an observer of the world around us. It is a world of unspeakable cruelty, of barbarity and violence, from the sickening taunts of bullies in "Black Swan Green" to the savage rape and murder perpetrated by Kona tribesman in "Cloud Atlas," to the very real torture inflicted on detainees of questionable guilt in CIA black sites all over the world. It is a world full of hatred and prejudice, which Jason aptly describes as "poison." As infuriating as the poison itself is, the most frustrating and heartbreaking part is its inexplicable nature - the lack of a why. This will never change. But as long as we have writers like David Mitchell (and Andrew Sullivan), gifted wordsmiths and good people, to at least acknowledge and decry the poison, we'll be okay.
I just hope that in the future, Mitchell will return to combining this with the imaginative, exotic adventures I came to love in his previous novels.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jayne_charles
This was a year in the life of 13 year-old Jason, the year in question being 1982. Particularly fascinating for me as I was also 13 in 1982. It was one long nostalgia-fest, and I could almost hear the author ticking off his 1982 memorabilia list as he went (Falklands ... VHS vs Betamax ... E.T.
Jason is a stammerer (not a stutterer – there is a difference, as the book makes clear) and much of the plot revolves around his attempts to hide this fact. He also writes poetry. I was never sure whether this was a plot device to permit the use, by a teenage narrator, of phrases like “Birdsong strafed and morsed from the oak on the village green”. Whatever... the language was poetic,expressive, and just a little bit wacky throughout. The observation that ‘Neil Young sings like a barn collapsing’ was a case in point. No matter how often I played ‘Heart of Gold’ on my iPod I couldn’t see what he was on about, but what the heck – I was impressed.
I enjoyed this book so-o-o-o much. It was profound but never preachy and it had me splitting my sides with laughter. So what if the bit of adolescent fumbling that passed for romance at the end reminded me of the godawful Preston Pig book ‘Ooomph’, this was a brilliant, brilliant read. I realised by the end that I knew everyone that lived in the eponymous village, and pretty much everyone in Jason’s year at school, and all the teachers. A tremendous feat of writing, and I really need to get to work pretty soon reading this author’s other books.
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...Casio .... Adam and the Ants ..... CHECK). It was a look at what the other half of the teenage population was up to in those days, and though I had always thought girls were cruel to eachother, boys clearly are too. The insights into the ins and outs of being a teenage boy – the almost military rules that apply to their associations with eachother – were fascinating. As Jason puts it “Boys’re bastards, but at least they’re predictable bastards”Jason is a stammerer (not a stutterer – there is a difference, as the book makes clear) and much of the plot revolves around his attempts to hide this fact. He also writes poetry. I was never sure whether this was a plot device to permit the use, by a teenage narrator, of phrases like “Birdsong strafed and morsed from the oak on the village green”. Whatever... the language was poetic,expressive, and just a little bit wacky throughout. The observation that ‘Neil Young sings like a barn collapsing’ was a case in point. No matter how often I played ‘Heart of Gold’ on my iPod I couldn’t see what he was on about, but what the heck – I was impressed.
I enjoyed this book so-o-o-o much. It was profound but never preachy and it had me splitting my sides with laughter. So what if the bit of adolescent fumbling that passed for romance at the end reminded me of the godawful Preston Pig book ‘Ooomph’, this was a brilliant, brilliant read. I realised by the end that I knew everyone that lived in the eponymous village, and pretty much everyone in Jason’s year at school, and all the teachers. A tremendous feat of writing, and I really need to get to work pretty soon reading this author’s other books.
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LibraryThing member eilonwy_anne
I have a hard time saying why this book is so charming. Perhaps it's Jason's naked honesty as a narrator, the way he lays bare his own insecurity. Perhaps it's the way he anthropomorphizes his own impulses and problems, or how the initially de rigeur contempt/resentment relationship with his older
At any rate, Black Swan Green manages to make a memorable voice and an individual story out of what seems like very ordinary material: young boy struggles with identity and social acceptance in small English town in the 80s. The plot does have its predictable moments, but also its surprises. I enjoyed the book, read it quickly, and liked Jason much more than the average teen protagonist.
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sister rapidly becomes something more respectful and interesting. Perhaps it's that he writes poetry under the name of Eliot Bolivar.At any rate, Black Swan Green manages to make a memorable voice and an individual story out of what seems like very ordinary material: young boy struggles with identity and social acceptance in small English town in the 80s. The plot does have its predictable moments, but also its surprises. I enjoyed the book, read it quickly, and liked Jason much more than the average teen protagonist.
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LibraryThing member kinsey_m
This was an uneven book. Some parts of it were great writing and rang completely true. Others were just felt fake (the old Belgian lady, meeting the gyspies).
Given that the first chapter is quite self-contained and already presents all the elements in the novel, I'm left with the impression that
Nevertheless, I'll be interested in reading more books by the same author.
Given that the first chapter is quite self-contained and already presents all the elements in the novel, I'm left with the impression that
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this book strated off as a short story (chapter 1) and that if had stayed like this, would have been a terrific short story, but that Mitchell stretched it to a novel, with mixed results. Another thing pointing at the possibility of the first chapter initially being conceived as a short story is that it ends on a cliffhanger that could be an excellent open ending for a terror story. That cliffhanger not (half-)resolved until... the last chapter! Without this adding anything to the story.Nevertheless, I'll be interested in reading more books by the same author.
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LibraryThing member JBD1
Another good story from David Mitchell; I'm surprised I had missed this one for so long, since I'm usually pretty diligent about reading his books shortly after publication. A great, amusing narrator, matched with Mitchell's usual lively writing and just a hint of the fantastic.
LibraryThing member nocto
I kept picking up David Mitchell's previous book (Cloud Atlas) in bookshops and then putting it down as I wasn't sure about it. So when I read reports of this book, generally saying something along the lines of "Yes, Cloud Atlas was good, but this is better." I decided I'd try this one first.
The
In the end I really liked the storytelling and the characters, and I will probably go back and read David Mitchell again, and I certainly think I'll read whatever he writes next.
The
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story is a year in the life of 13 year old Jason Taylor; the year is 1982, the place is a village in Worcestershire. In the beginning I wasn't at all convinced. It seemed to be "fiction by brand name": give everything from 1982 its proper name and pretend you're evoking the time and place. I don't need to be told what an eighties comprehensive in middle England was like - been there, done that! However I enjoyed the book a lot more as it went on and the story unfolded. The first person narration works because the reader can see what is happening when the narrator himself can't read the signs. Being 1982 we go through the Falklands War and I wonder whether deliberately Mitchell meant to parallel The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (another 13 year old in 1982). In the end I really liked the storytelling and the characters, and I will probably go back and read David Mitchell again, and I certainly think I'll read whatever he writes next.
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LibraryThing member deargreenplace
Am I the only person who didn't like this book? I am normally a huge fan of David Mitchell, but Black Swan Green was dull.
It is the suburban and pedestrian tale of 13 year-old Jason Taylor. Middle class, middle England. Crushes, fights, adventures, gangs, adolescent discoveries, families. Not a lot
Mitchell seemed to get a huge kick out of dropping in references to long-gone relics of the 1980s in just about every paragraph. If this is what you want, I recommend watching the tv compilation I Love The 1980s instead.
It is the suburban and pedestrian tale of 13 year-old Jason Taylor. Middle class, middle England. Crushes, fights, adventures, gangs, adolescent discoveries, families. Not a lot
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happened.Mitchell seemed to get a huge kick out of dropping in references to long-gone relics of the 1980s in just about every paragraph. If this is what you want, I recommend watching the tv compilation I Love The 1980s instead.
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LibraryThing member nagem13
Well, I suppose I should preface this by saying that I LOVED Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, but I can definitely see where it's not for everyone. Part of what I loved about it is the way that Mitchell uses structure to add to the story, and he pays attention to structure in Black Swan Green as
Black Swan Green is significantly more accessible than Cloud Atlas, although 80s British slang is sometimes like a different language. It's kind of like A Clockwork Orange though... you get used to it. And then you start wanting to whip out words from it and no one knows what the hell you're trying to say... unless they've read the book.
The narrator, Jason Taylor, is sometimes incredibly acute, but then also sometimes things go way over his head. It's also quite interesting to try to work out Jason's contradictions throughout the novel. For example, my favorite quote from the novel: "Me, 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" (118). The following chapter makes this a very interesting statement indeed. By the end of the novel, though, Jason has moved forward.
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well. It's more reader friendly in Black Swan Green though. Cloud Atlas cuts each of the stories except for the last one in half and wraps them around each other, like Russian dolls. In Black Swan Green, both the passage of time and the number 13 are important, and so there are 13 chapters, one for each month that the book spans. You get an episode that happens each month rather than a completely continuous narrative. It works for me.Black Swan Green is significantly more accessible than Cloud Atlas, although 80s British slang is sometimes like a different language. It's kind of like A Clockwork Orange though... you get used to it. And then you start wanting to whip out words from it and no one knows what the hell you're trying to say... unless they've read the book.
The narrator, Jason Taylor, is sometimes incredibly acute, but then also sometimes things go way over his head. It's also quite interesting to try to work out Jason's contradictions throughout the novel. For example, my favorite quote from the novel: "Me, 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" (118). The following chapter makes this a very interesting statement indeed. By the end of the novel, though, Jason has moved forward.
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LibraryThing member leahdawn
Pretty awful. An uneventful, boring plot that lurches along painfully. David Mitchell's other books are MUCH better.
LibraryThing member michaeldwebb
Is it OK to admit that I've not really got David Mitchell before. I plodded through number9dream without enjoying it, and had to miss some of the chapters to get through Cloud Atlas. This, though, I really adored, a wonderfully nostalgic (but not in a bad way) simply told story of childhood, or
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rather thirteen months of it for a stammering boy in Black Green Swan. You get tales of failure, humiliation, that weirdness that only exists in childhood imagination, but overall, an underlying feel good story, one of triumph (if only in small way) of the underdog. Recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jaie22
really, really good. Needs to be sold with a soundtrack CD, though.
LibraryThing member framberg
This is a wonderfully funny, wonderfully poignant, wonderfully vivid novel. The story of Jason Taylor's 13th year, with all of its attendant miseries and triumphs, is told by Jason with honesty, imagination, and just the right amount of insight. Mitchell's protagonist is a completely believable 13
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year old boy, worried about war and cigarettes and kisses, curious about everything, and struggling desperately to maintain (or improve!) his social standing at his comprehensive school. Jason's stammering problem is particularly well described - the image of the Hangman, preventing Jason from using certain words and circumscribing his conversation, hovers over his every utterance. Only in his poetry can Jason speak freely, yet he writes anonymously, sure that his classmates will label his efforts "gay". Jason's growth over the course of the year chronicled in the novel is substantial, but Mitchell never forces his character, letting his maturation unfold naturally as he faces the trials and tribulations of youth. Show Less
LibraryThing member stubbyfingers
I loved this book! While I was never a teenage boy and my life never had nearly this much drama when I was a kid, I could still definitely relate to a lot of it. I'm amazed by how well the author remembers what it was like to be 13. His narrator was totally believable. And a lot of the writing was
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absolutely beautiful. "If swans weren't real, myths'd make them up." Plus, reading all that British 80's slang makes me want to talk nonsense words and pretend they mean something! Show Less
LibraryThing member LizzySiddal
My first instinct is to say that I much prefer Michael Frayn's Spies as a coming-of-age novel.
Awards
Booker Prize (Longlist — 2006)
Costa Book Awards (Shortlist — Novel — 2006)
LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — Fiction — 2006)
Alex Award (2007)
Bad Sex in Fiction Award (Shortlist — 2006)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction & Poetry — 2006)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2006)
Christian Science Monitor Best Book (General Fiction — 2006)
Best Fiction for Young Adults (Selection — 2007)
Notable Books List (Fiction — 2007)
Original publication date
2006