The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Acclaimed British novelist David Mitchell published The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet in 2010. This work explores the relationship between the Dutch East Indies Company and Japan in the 18th century, a time when Japan was desperately trying to avoid becoming “contaminated” by outside influence. The novel follows the lives of a Dutch shipping clerk, newly arrived to the tiny manmade island that functions as a trading post, and a young midwife who is kidnapped by a sinister, magical cult. Mitchell combines several genres – thoroughly researched historical fiction, adventure thriller, and supernatural fantasy – in a novel that divided critics, but ended up long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.

The novel opens in 1799 on Dejima, a walled-in tiny island off the coast of Nagasaki. This island is the only place where the Dutch are allowed to be – access to the mainland is over a heavily guarded bridge, the Japanese language is off limits for foreigners, and all things associated with Christianity are forbidden for fear of proselytizing.

Jacob de Zoet, a young, intelligent, and ethical clerk is a new arrival to Dejima. He’s been hired to audit the company’s books and clean up rampant corruption, which is a difficult task because of just how widespread and universal bribery and skimming have become. Jacob is smart but naïve. He cleverly outwits some cheating clerks, catches a Japanese interpreter mistranslating on purpose to steal, and makes friends with the honest and amusingly cranky Dr. Marinus. At the same time, though, Jacob doesn’t realize that his seemingly honest boss Vorstenbosch, the man who hired Jacob to clean up the corruption, is actually the most corrupt of all. When Jacob refuses to sign a falsified document for Vorstenborsch, his punishment is not to be allowed to leave Dejima on the last ship sailing for the Netherlands. This means virtual imprisonment for many years.



Jacob falls in love with Orito Aibagawa, a Japanese midwife who is Dr. Marinus’s student. She is too high-born to become Jacob’s lover, but he sends her presents and the two grow close enough that her behavior attracts unwelcome attention. Just as Jacob is trapped on Dejima, Orito finds out that her stepmother has sold her into virtual slavery to a nunnery to stave off the family’s bankruptcy. Since Orito has a scar on her face, she is unlikely to make a good marriage match.

The novel now suddenly flips into a completely different genre – a supernatural thriller. The nunnery is run by Abbott Enomoto, who also runs an associated monastery that functions as a baby factory. On a strict schedule, the monks rape the nuns, and then seize their babies. The nuns are led to believe that these children are raised by loving families in a nearby village – and that they will go to join these kids when they stop being of childbearing age.

Orito doesn’t believe this story, however, and her investigation leads her to find out that the babies are actually killed and drained of blood in an occult ceremony that powers the ageless and vampiric Enomoto – a being who has lived for 600 years. In a daring escape attempt, Orito makes her way through the mazelike walls of the nunnery and breaks through to the outside world – only to decide to return in order to midwife a pregnant nun whom she thinks she can rescue.



Meanwhile, we learn that Uzaemon, one of the interpreters on Dejima, is also in love with Orito – his family forced him to give her up after her father’s business failure. By accident, he comes across a scroll that outlines the practices of Enomoto’s monastery. Horrified by Orito’s fate, Uzaemon leaves the scroll with Jacob, gets the help of a sensei, and fights his way into the monastery fortress to confront Enomoto.

We now switch genres again, this time to a sea-going adventure story. Captain Penhaligon and the crew of an English frigate are determined to force Japan to open to trade. They anchor by Dejima and send word that the island is now under new command – that of England, not of the Netherlands. The men on Dejima don’t want to accept this offer – they realize that as soon as the English get their own Japanese translators, they won’t need the Dutch around anymore.
The situation becomes even more fraught as there are now three languages being spoken and mistranslated. The only person who can use this to his advantage is Jacob: he speaks English since he spent time in London, and he has taught himself Japanese to translate the scroll that Uzaemon left with him.

Captain Penhaligon tries to take Dejima by force, bombarding the island from the ship. Jacob leads the Dutch resistance, which prevails, but only because Jacob’s red hair makes Penhaligon think of his own red-headed son who died in a different battle.



However, the bombardment reveals a different problem – the city of Nagasaki is entirely unprotected from this kind of attack from the sea. The city’s magistrate reels from his failure – only ritual suicide can remove him from the situation honorably. The Magistrate often plays games of Go with Enomoto, whom he now invites to witness and second the ritual suicide. Through some last-minute trickery, both the Magistrate and Enomoto end up drinking poisoned sake, and the Magistrate’s self-sacrifice also kills the evil Abbot.

The novel now switches genres one last time, and we learn the extremely ordinary conclusion to the so far quite wild life of Jacob de Zoet. Jacob marries a Japanese woman who isn’t Orito and has a son. After 17 years on Dejima, Jacob must go back to the Netherlands, and is forced to leave his son behind because of Japanese law. Back in Holland, Jacob remarries and has another son, who eventually inherits his father’s smuggled Bible.

David Mitchell is acknowledged to be one of the best modern novelists, but his work tends to divide critics. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was no exception, garnering both praise and criticism from the same reviewer. James Wood wrote in the New Yorker, “By any standards, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a formidable marvel… It is a brilliant fairy tale [but] even nightingales, as a Russian proverb has it, can't live off fairy tales.” Similarly, The Guardian’s Christopher Tayler wrote about his enjoyment of the book, but also pointed out that “the characters fall into goodies and baddies as well, and their doings – including the central love story – don't often rise above the needs of the plot.”