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Number9Dream
David Mitchell Book Review

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Plot Summary of Number9Dream
"20 year old Eiji Miyaki arrives in Tokyo on a mission to find the father he has never met. He finds a job working in the lost property office of a station and a room to live in above a video shop. Staking out the office of the lawyer who knows his father, he fantasies about storming in and confronting the lawyer and meets a waitress Ai Imajo with a beautiful neck who he later dates and falls in love with. Wandering alone around video arcades he meets wealthy Daimon and together they pick up two girls on a double date and Eiji loses his virginity (in a tribute to Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami). Next Eiji is involved in a blood bath with yakuza gangsters who know his fathers whereabouts and only just escapes with his life. Daydreaming and lovable Eiji dwells on the death of his twin sister and on his alcoholic mother who abandoned them both. He hides from the yakuza in an unremarkable house and reads tales that the owner has written. After placing an advert in a Tokyo paper appealing for his father to come forward he is visited by a private detective who is mixed up in a human organ stealing yakuza scam. He gets to meet his grandfather who gives him a journal about his days in the war as a torpedo pilot. Eiji scrapes through more encounters with the yakuza, never quite gets it together with Ai and is reconciled with his mother but does have a fleeting encounter with his father. This wonderful book is a coming of age, techno gangster thriller mixed with dreams and even reveals the meaning of life!   A worthy successor to Ghostwritten.

"

John Marcel, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of Number9Dream
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book? - thoughtful
Time/era of story - present (2000-2010)
Kids growing up/acting up? Yes
Inside culture (main char) - Japanese
Family, loving relations Yes
Special relationship with - father
Crime & Police story Yes
Story of - gang conflict
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Outside culture (society) - Japanese
Ethnic/regional/gender life Yes
Parents/lack of parents problem? - Dada gone
Loving/sexing? - girl chasing

Main Character
Gender - Male
Profession/status: - student
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
Ethnicity/Nationality - Japanese
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique

Main Adversary
Identity: - Female
Age: - 20's-30's
Profession/status: - student
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - an average amount
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - average physique

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 8 ()
Asia/Pacific Yes
Asian country: - Japan
City? Yes
City: - dirty, grimy (like New York)

Style
Person - mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death? - very explicit references to deaths and torture
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - descript of kissing - touching of anatomy - actual description of hetero sex - descript. of female anat. (the big B's)
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
Most similar books to Number9Dream
Out by Natsuo Kirino
Distant Thunder by Wahei Tatematsu
South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
Toraware by Robert W. Norris
Summer Of The Big Bachi by Naomi Hirahara


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