Book Log 2016 #7: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

As someone whose experience with David Mitchell started with the unique narrative of Cloud Atlas and then moved to the supernatural sprawl of The Bone Clocks, this book proved to be a total surprise given that it is a fairly straightforward historical novel. The very good news is that Mitchell is as skilled with the straightforward as he is with the experimental and fantastical.

Jacob is a young Dutchman who has signed on with the Dutch East India company to serve at it Japanese outpost, whose provision of copper to headquarters in Batavia is critical to the continued operation of the outposts. He is there to earn enough money and status to marry (his intended is back at home), but he quickly falls afoul of a faction of his coworkers who are using the trading post for their own enrichment. This is compounded by his smuggling in of a psalter (religious books being banned by the Japanese), which further exposes Jacob to risk.

Jacob also proves to be a quick convert to local ways, befriending an interpreter and falling for a local midwife. He doesn't go fully native, but he develops an interest and sympathy in Japanese ways pretty quickly, and risks his future as a married man of means to get closer to the midwife, thanks in part to the outpost's doctor, who is providing medical training to the locals.

Jacob finds himself tested in various ways - when the midwife disappears, whe she's discovered to be working at a mysterious fertility cult, and when the British pay a less than pleasant visit to the outpost (among other things). It's these clashes that shape the story, and show how this young, pious, naive man grows and becomes everything he is expected to be, and a bit more.

Very much recommended.