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Black Swan Green David Mitchell 9780812974010 Books

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Black Swan Green David Mitchell 9780812974010 Books

I developed a LOT more empathy for boys and men after reading Black Swan Green! I also thought it was a brilliant exposition on how all people grow from self-absorbed pre-teen/young teen into a more aware teen/young adult. Mitchell's writing is just astonishing, and totally absorbing. I completely identified with his young narrator, and was pulled along with his descriptions of his world. I think I like this book even better than Mitchell's other books such as Cloud Atlas. Less showy authorial tricks, yet really more depth, subtlety and character development. I prefer an author who builds some empathy for his character(s), as well as building a story and perhaps a surprise and a punchy message or theme. This is a great book. I bought it as a gift for my sister, and expect it to make the rounds after that!


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Black Swan Green David Mitchell 9780812974010 Books Reviews

I really like all of his books and I don't really have a favorite, but if I had to choose I think I would choose this David Mitchell novel over the others. Not because it's the most traditional either, but because it's autobiographical to some degree. David grew up as a teenager in the 80s and also has a stammer (not a stutter - the book explains the difference). I got to know David a little bit in a sense while enjoying another one of his wonderful books. You don't get the autobiographical experience to this degree from any of his other books. But as I said, I love all of his books. His works transport the reader not just in a physical-location-of-the-story sense, but in an into-the-head-and-heart-of-the-protagonist sense like no other writer. Remarkable.
I bought this book because of Cloud Atlas - I just wanted to get grounded a little more in his work before attacking his most recent. I must say, for the first 25 pages or so I wasn't sure it was a good decision - early, odd work by developing young author??? But I am so glad I hung in there. First, some of the early difficulty comes from being put firmly and deeply inside the mind of an adolescent male. Secondly, the narrator thinks/speaks in a punk/young/British patois which takes some time to become fluent in. I suspect, in retrospect, that it may be a little autobiographical - how else could he have captured the mind of this young man so deeply, so well? For those of you looking for specifics, the subject is a young upper middle-class boy who stutters and so is the victim of bullying at school, and a failing marriage at home. And, BTW, for fellow Cloud Atlas fanatics there are a couple of clever references here that only you and your ilk will get. Anyway, buy it, read it, fall in love.
This is the story of a British boy with the heart of a poet struggling with himself, his family, his stutter, his poetry, and the normal trials and tribulations of being 13. The story is set in 1982, the year of the Falklands war.

What I loved about this book was the beauty and truth that the boy, Jason, sees through his thoughtful and poetic eyes. At the same time, he struggles with bullies, friends, teachers, his sister, his parents--the whole nine yards of angst experienced by your typical 13-year-old. There are a lot of Britishisims, some of which confused me, but most have meanings discernible from the context.

Since the language and insight are what I liked the most, let me provide a few examples.

Eavesdropping's sort of thrilling 'cause you learn what people really think, but eavesdropping makes you miserable for exactly the same reason.

War may be an auction for countries. For soldiers it's a lottery.

...understands that not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more bloody important than being right.

The clock on the mantelpiece shaved minutes into seconds.
I should probably start with a confession I am in the minority of people who didn't particularly like Catcher in the Rye. I didn't necessarily dislike it, but it just never spoke to me in the way it spoke to so many others. I didn't fully understand why until I read Black Swan Green. For me (and I suspect many others), my youth was not one of prep schools, running away, prostitutes, or mental breakdowns. Most importantly, it was not full of dramatic ANGST, in the way that it is portrayed in Catcher in the Rye. Instead, like Jason Taylor in Black Swan Green, life was simply too busy for wallowing in angst ... "busy" in the sense of mundane adventures (that nevertheless feel more consequential than anything else in the world at the moment), family drama, and the interminable boredom punctuated by moments of terror known as school! As much as one would like to hit the pause button, the merry-go-round of life never stops, especially for a young adult. Mitchell does an outstanding job capturing the day to day excitement, fear, loneliness, and dilemmas actually faced by a 13 year old--many of which can be easily generalized to the world of adults, which is no less full of pecking orders, pressure to look cool/competent, jingoism, fear of failure, etc. than the world of children. In fact, this is part of what makes Mitchell's story so gripping despite the incredible detail and the specific setting in 1980s England, this is a microcosm representative of the world at large. As a result, Black Swan Green is an extremely universal tale--I felt like I could relate incredibly well to the story, despite growing up neither in the 1980s nor in England!

Black Swan Green was the third tale of Mitchell's that I've read (Cloud Atlas was the first; a character or two from that tale make a brief cameo in this book, in what felt like a slightly self-indulgent move by Mitchell, although it also was a bit clever as a meta-motif of the "everything-is-interconnected" lessons from that novel). Whereas Cloud Atlas is extremely "macro" in scope, Black Swan Green is much more "micro" in terms of geographic scope and time. Yet, it is equally gripping and has an equally important message. I fell in love with Mitchell's writing thanks to Cloud Atlas ... the infatuation only deepened thanks to Black Swan Green this is an intelligent, gripping, and moving tale that easily belongs in the same conversation with some of literature's great works in the bildungsroman genre.
I developed a LOT more empathy for boys and men after reading Black Swan Green! I also thought it was a brilliant exposition on how all people grow from self-absorbed pre-teen/young teen into a more aware teen/young adult. Mitchell's writing is just astonishing, and totally absorbing. I completely identified with his young narrator, and was pulled along with his descriptions of his world. I think I like this book even better than Mitchell's other books such as Cloud Atlas. Less showy authorial tricks, yet really more depth, subtlety and character development. I prefer an author who builds some empathy for his character(s), as well as building a story and perhaps a surprise and a punchy message or theme. This is a great book. I bought it as a gift for my sister, and expect it to make the rounds after that!