The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Write a summary of the plot or a synopsis of this book.

Characters edit see section history

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• Jacob de Zoet: The protagonist. A dutch clerk sent to the Asiatic trading post Dejima, off the coast of Japan.
• Orito Aibagawa: Japanese midwife with a disfigured face, with whom Jacob falls in love; student of Dr. Marinus when Jacob arrives at Dejima.
• Unico Vorstenbosch: Newly arrived chief resident of Dejima, charged with cleaning up the corruption of the trading post.
• Daniel Snitker: The outgoing chief of Dejima, imprisoned upon Jacob's arrival.
• Captain Anselm Lacy: Captain of the ship Shenandoah, anchored off the coast of Nagasaki and the island outpost of Dejima.
• Deputy Melchior van Cleef: Becomes Deputy Chief of Dejima when Daniel Snitker is removed from office.
• Peter Fischer: A Prussian clerk on Dejima who becomes Jacob's rival for the position of Chief Clerk.
• Con Twomey: Irishman whose real name is Fiacre Muntevary; works as a carpenter on Dejima.
• Arie Grote: A shady cook and card shark on Dejima.
• Doctor Marinus: Scholar, traveler, medical doctor. Takes Orito as a student.
• Eelattu: Dr. Marinus' assistant.
• Ogawa Uzaemon: Jacob's translator and confidant.
• Ponke Ouwehand: A junior clerk on Dejima.
• Kobayashi: Translator for Chamberlain Tomine.
• Enomoto: Abbott in charge of a dark and mysterious monastery/nunnery, Mt. Shiranui.
• Dr Maeno: Physician present at the beginning of the novel during the birth of Shiroyama's son; Orito was the mid-wife during the brith.
• Sister Yayoi: An imprisoned woman at Abbott Enomoto's fortress.
• Shiroyama: Powerful Japanese magistrate; because of her work assisting in the delivery of Siroyama's son, Orito earns the opportunity to study with Dr. Marinus.
• Ivo Ost: laborer on Dejima; half-caste, 18, gold-hair and oriental eyes.
• Iwase: Japanese interpretor, junior to Kobayashi.
• Chamberlain Tomine: Japanese nobleman in Nagasaki.
• Anna: Jacob agreed to serve five years on Dejima to earn his fortune and win the heart of Anna back in the Nethrelands.
• William Pitt: A monkey living on Dejima.
• Otane: Elderly woman in the small town of Kuozane near the monastery, Mt. Shiranui.
• Capt. John Penhaligon: British captain of the ship "Phoebus" who suffers from gout.
• Abel Wren: British lieutenant on the "Phoebus."
• Robert Hovel: British second lieutenant on the "Phoebus."

Quotes edit see section history

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• “So little is actually worthy of either belief or disbelief. Better to strive to coexist than seek to disprove...”

  Doctor Marinus

• “If only, Shiroyama dreams, human beings were not masks behind masks behind masks. If only this world was a clean board of lines and intersections. If only time was a sequence of considered moves and not a chaos of slippages and blunders.”

  Shiroyama, magistrate of Nagasaki

• “The world is a vale of tears.”

  Doctor Marinus

• “But erudition alone fills neither belly nor pocketbook....”

  Dr. Marinus

• “Guns make the best diplomats”

  Cutlip

• ““The Japanese, I read”, says Talbot, “give florid names to their kingdome...”...’The Land of a Thousand Autumns’or ‘The Root of the Sun.’””

  Talbot

• ““One may make most sense of all when one makes no sense at all.””

  Dr. Mariuns

• “I am a righteous man, he thinks, but see what righteousness has done.Going outside is intolerable. Staying inside is intolerable.”

  Jacob de Zoet

• “'Then in what light,' Marinus probes, 'do you see her?''As a . . .' Jacob searches for the right metaphor '. . . as a book whose cover fascinates, and in whose pages I desire to look, a little. Nothing more.'”

  Jacob de Zoet

• “'Blacks do lie,' Lacy opens his snuff-box, 'like geese shit slime.''Why,' Marinus places his pipe on its stand, 'would Sjako attack you?''Savages don't need motives!' Fischer spits in the spittoon. 'Your type, Dr Marinus, sit at your meetings, nod wisely at wind about "the true cost of the sugar in our tea" from an "Improved Negro" in wig and waistcoat. I, I, am not a man created by Swedish gardens but by Surinam Jungles where one sees the Negro in his natural habitat. Earn yourself one of these' - Peter Fischer unbuttons his shirt to display a three-inch scar above his collarbone - 'and thentell me a savage has a soul just because he can recite the Lord's Prayer, like any parrot.'”

• “This world, he thinks, contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.”

  Shiroyama

• “A crib for a coffin, she thinks, and a swaddling sheet for a shroud.”

  Orito Aibagawa

• “He inhales once; twice; three times; his crinkled facecrumples . . .. . . and the shuddering newborn boiled-pink despot howls at Life.”

• “He is too Japanese to leave, Jacob knows, but not Japanese enough to belong.”

• “. . . so that this proposal seems not a tether, or anoose, but a rope lowered to a drowning woman.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• “we have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.

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• ‘Our friends show us what we can do; our enemies teach us what we must do.’

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• “The soul is a verb.” He impales a lit candle on a spike. “Not a noun.”

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• Creation never ceased on the sixth evening, it occurs to the young man. Creation unfolds around us, despite us, and through us, at the speed of days and nights, and we like to call it “love.”

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• “The truth of a myth, Your Honor, is not its words but its patterns.”

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• Orito pictures the human mind as a loom that weaves disparate threads of belief, memory, and narrative into an entity whose common name is Self, and which sometimes calls itself Perception.

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• This world, he thinks, contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.

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• The purest believers, Shiroyama thinks, are the truest monsters.

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• The belly craves food, she thinks, the tongue craves water, the heart craves love, and the mind craves stories.

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• “I know what you don’t believe in, Doctor: what do you believe?” “Oh, Descartes’s methodology, Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas, the efficacy of Jesuits’ bark … So little is actually worthy of either belief or disbelief. Better to strive to coexist than seek to disprove …”

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Nagasaki, Japan
• Mount Shiranui: Abbott Enomoto's mysterious, mountainous, Japanese monastery/nunnery.
• Kurozane: Small town near Mt. Shiranui.
• The Shenandoah: A Dutch ship anchored off Dejima.
• The Phoebus: A British ship threatening Dejima.

Organizations edit see section history

• The Dutch East India Company: Add a description of this organization.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Love: Describe this theme.
• Colonialism
• Bondage
• Role of women in society

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. David Mitchell (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Amazon Best of the Month (July 2010, #4)
• Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (2010: Fiction)
• Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (2011: South Asia and Europe)
• Macavity Awards (2011: Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery)
• Man Booker Prize (Finalist, 2010, Longlist)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PR6063.I785 T47
• Dewey: 823.914

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Adult themes throughout.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › History & Criticism › Asian › Japanese
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Dutch East India Company

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history