David Mitchell, now in his late thirties, has made a remarkable name for himself as a novelist. His first three works — Ghostwritten, Number9dream and Cloud Atlas — have all been acclaimed in various ways, and he has twice had a novel shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
With this success under his belt his new novel is very different from the first three, which were notably not the autobiographical works that early novels often are. Here, finally, is a glimpse of himself and his pretty normal childhood. And this is not the only difference — whereas his previous novels have been characterised by elegantly complex plots and wildly zany imaginative writing, Black Swan Green is a straight story. Mitchell himself has said as much.
The narrator is Jason Taylor, a 12-year-old boy whose neat, suburban and nuclear family life in a new housing development outside an old English village is painfully well caught. It’s so English it is almost a caricature: the green, the vicarage, the pub, the woods nearby, the fields, the boys playing on a frozen pond, the first sexual stirrings. The last is reminiscent of Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie, which Mitchell gives a mention in his hallmark fashion. Throughout the novel, he connects his work to many other writers’ with hints in the text.
At the heart of all this safety and certainty in Thatcher’s Britain (only the Falklands War shakes them up a bit, and then only because a village soldier actually dies), Mitchell reveals the anxious terror of negotiating survival among his peers, as well as the dark side of village life — the gossip, the insularity and the brutality.
His depiction of the other world of adolescence is precise, amusing and tender. In a brief aside on why he can’t wear his new black parka — ‘It means you would fancy yourself as a hard knock” — he ends with the comment: ‘You can’t expect adults to understand.” It is from perspectives such as these that Mitchell sketches out the niceties of the hierarchy of the tribe of boys and youths that holds sway in almost every corner of the village.
It turns out that young Jason secretly writes poems, which he posts through the door of what he thinks is the vicarage. In this way he makes the acquaintance of Madame Crommelynck, who features as a young woman in Cloud Atlas. Here she is an ancient Belgian émigré (Mitchell loves the interconnectedness of lives) and it is here that Jason, and Mitchell, are liberated from the speech impediment from which they both suffer. Not only do we get a glimpse of an intellectual world far beyond the confines of the village, but we are offered a bracing discourse on the nature of writing.
Mitchell’s forte is using different voices, and he perfects his characters’ use of language and dialect in an astonishing variety of ways. In Cloud Atlas, two of the novellas are written in future forms of English, still perfectly comprehensible to us, even if weirdly distorted.
His renderings of past forms are also entirely convincing. It is in these ways that Mitchell transports readers on unexpected flights into other worlds, using voices that are neither his nor ours — neutral territory, so to speak.
It seems fitting that he has returned to his roots, literarily speaking, to address the issue of an adolescent stammer, a devastating block to his early voice. In this novel plain speaking prevails, though in Mitchell’s hands it is no blunt instrument. The village oafs are gently but firmly excoriated.
It is an engaging read, perfectly executed, but this reader is hoping for a return to the extraordinary in his next novel.
Black Swan Green has been longlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. Go to www.mg.co.za/booker for more info