3.5 stars ( )

After enjoying David Mitchell’s debut novel, Ghostwritten, I was eager for more. However, his follow-up, Number9Dream, was more difficult to like. Its protagonist, Eiji Miyake, a young boy from a rural island in southwest Japan, comes to Tokyo searching for his father. He doesn’t know the man’s name; his only point of contact is a lawyer through whom financial support had been channeled.
In the opening chapter, Eiji sits in a coffee shop across from the skyscraper housing the law office and fantasizes about various ways of meeting the lawyer and obtaining the name of his father. It took me a while to catch on to this —- I took the first fantasy for narrative rather than daydream and, from it, concluded that the story was set in a futuristic Blade Runner world (except for a few anachronistic details). By the time he gathers his courage and sallies forth, I wasn’t sure this, too, wasn’t a daydream.
This first chapter confused and irritated me with its several false starts. I considered giving up on the novel. Even in subsequent chapters, the ostensible narrative is interspersed with other stories. One is a fairy tale involving a goatwriter, and another is the diary of a Kaiten pilot in the closing days of the second world war. Even frequent dreams are often the seeds of possible short stories. Taken together, they gave me the impression of a supremely imaginative author still wrestling with how to harness his vision.
The chapter containing the goatwriter fairy tale ends “Reality is the page. Life is the word.” I’m still trying to decide if this is preternaturally profound or pretentious.
The title is relevant in two ways. First, dreams play a prominent role in the plot, as well as various attempts to define a dream. Example: “Dreams are shores where the ocean of spirit meets the land of matter.” At the same time, it is the title of a John Lennon song. Eiji is fascinated with Lennon; there are allusions to several of his other songs and snatches of lyrics from others, such as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.
Spoiler alert: Eiji finally sees his father without revealing that he is the abandoned son. “I feel that I found what I searched for, but no longer want what I found.” More satisfying, surprisingly, is his reconciliation with his alcoholic mother, whom he hadn’t seen in nine years, shortly before the death by drowning of his adventurous twin sister, Anju.
At heart, this is a classic quest. The young protagonist must endure hardship (one chapter is particularly gruesome), undertake arduous journeys, and learn who his allies and foes are through trial and error. But, in the end, discovering the identity of his father and meeting him is only the means to achieve the true goal of his quest, self-knowledge.
So now I’ve read my second David Mitchell. Will I read more? Probably. After all, Mitchell embedded a road sign forward in this text: “the cloud atlas turns its pages over.” ( )

srs. a cliffhanger ending! obvious inspiration from Murakami which i didn't mind that much. enjoyed some of the interchanging from the main timeline to Eiji's dreams and also his readings of Goatwriter's tale. Shoutout for frequent representation of Filipino's regardless of it being good or bad lol. idk just building up what has the potential to also be a wholesome friends into lovers story with Ai then inferring she dies along with Eiji's entire life in Tokyo due to a freak earthquake makes me wanna kms lol. decent-ish read overall - no rating though cause in my eyes this book isnt finished LOL (crying emoji)

I'm sure Mitchell is an excellent author. I've heard that his following book, Cloud Atlas, is amazing. This book, unfortunately, is nothing but a slavish imitation of Haruki Murakami. It's a competent imitation, to be fair, and it was an entertaining read, but everything from the setting (Tokyo, of course) to the writing style (dreamlike, sort of magical-realism) to the characters (unexceptional, sort of loserish guy who chases after and ends up dating a beautiful and exciting woman) right down to the Beatles/John Lennon references gave me a sense of deja vu. I know none of those things is really damning in its own right, but the overall effect is quite derivative. If you're considering reading it, I'd suggest just picking up an actual Murakami novel instead. ( )

p. 105 -- took me a little bit to get into it, but totally suck(er)ed in now. i do have to say, though, that despite the old adage to not judge a book by its cover, i totally do all the time, and this cover i find the opposite of pleasing. just makes me want to open the book more often, so i don't have to look at it.

page 155 of 416 of number9dream: i dunno. i'm fluctuating back and forth with whether i love this or am annoyed by it. this is a rare thing for me. usually i'm certain either way.

just finished this book and i still don't know what i think about it. hmmm. ( )