摘要：Reading David Mitchell’s new novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, I was reminded of a review I read of a Meryl Streep movie. The reviewer said something like, ‘Now that she has exhausted all superlatives (in Mitchell’s case, “dazzling,” “brilliant,” “genius”), all one can say is, “She’s done it again!”’ In a completely different way from his innovative, genre-bending previous novels, Mitchell has shown again that he is a first-class story-teller with a keen sense of drama and style, and one of the most daring and talented writers at work today. I think it is safe to say, ‘He’s done it again!’ What Mitchell has masterly done is to take a finite world described almost street by street and building by building, and animate it with dozens of clearly drawn characters, all of which is set in an historical moment rife with culture clashes. Layered over that are intersecting plots and subplots. Open to any page and you are walking into a scene from a complete world. cobbl
