Black Swan Green

I love this author!

Well-written coming of age story from an accomplished writer. Mitchell respects his readers and handles his characters with care. If you’re not familiar with his body of work, you can count on Easter eggs showing up in each book from previous publications. Read his books in order for a more enriching experience.

Black Swan Green is a novel about a thirteen-yr-old English boy right on the brink of family turmoil, girls who flirt with you and then shove you off their tractor, the popularity game, and older sisters you don't realize how much you love until they leave home. However, it's not a book just for the guys. It's actually pretty entertaining from a female point of view. It's a window into the trials and tribulations of male puberty and with all of the scenarios that happen in the book, you see exactly how much life can sort of happen to you all at once, no matter your age or what you are going through personally. I can honestly say that reading Black Swan Green was fun. Honest to God, FUN! It's a really hard book to put down once you get into the story line and the way the chapters end always leaves you wanting to read on. Being that I am a teenager myself, following Jason along for this year of his life was interesting, amusing, and even thought-provoking because Jason's was a life that was far different from my own, but one I could get into just from reading the book. You really feel like you know Jason, you feel bad for his stammer, you want everyone to know how good a poet he is as Bolivar, and you root for him in all aspects. I even enjoyed the way the book was written, like how Jason explains the hangman who only troubles him with certain words that start with certain words on certain days. The book on a whole has great imagery and such vivid descriptions that it's not hard to feel the cold weather of England, or the heat that surely rushes to Jason's face out of embarrassment when he has to say things in front of the class. Overall, I recommend this book highly. The chronology is a little difficult to grasp at first, but you get around to putting the pieces together just in time. I had to read this for school but i'm glad to own it and will probably read it again in the future when i'm just in the mood for a good book.

Black Swan Green was a very insightful novel with honest portrayals of its characters and their situations. It follows a 13-year-old boy named Jason through one year in his life and shows how he deals with those around him, how they influence him and how he chooses to portray himself to them. He is a closeted poet, who writes using the pen name Elliot Bolivar and enjoys poetry because it is the best way that he thinks there is to express himself. While this is a common reason that many people turn to the multi-expressive and multi-meaningfulness of poetry, it is especially important for Jason, because he suffers constantly with his spoken words because he has a stammer. At first I thought that this book was hard to understand because, being an American, I only speak American English and had a hard time with British slang that make up Jason's everyday vocabulary. And while this was difficult in the beginning, soon I was speaking his language and understanding words like snogging (kissing) and pongs (smells). By using these distinct words, Mitchell really pulled me into the mind of a thirteen-year-old British boy to the point where I felt like I knew him completely and was completely shocked when he could do something a little out of character. Jason is a very likable character from the start because he is the underdog. He is constantly conscious of his stammer, he takes mental notes of what the `hard' kids say and do, he lives in the shadow of his older sister and he is always trying to live up to what a normal thirteen-year-old boy is supposed to be. But he is also very smart. He understands the complex relationships that circle around him, from his pre-divorced parents to the rivalries among the other boys. He understands the various hierarchies that he lives in and the ways in which other people climb them and fall down them. With such a comprehensive grasp of his world, it is all the more interesting that he is so clueless about his own role in it and even more importantly who that character is. So yes, it is a coming of age story, but not just for Jason. Mitchell uses this book and Jason's coming of age to question whether people really do "come of age," and what the means for every person. With every chapter comes a new story, but they are all strung together by Jason's hilarious humor, witty commentary, comprehensive insight and honest reactions, which makes this book an awesome choice for anyone who want to be a teenager again and see how really hard it was or is.

Some look back on their early adolescence with nostalgia, while others would rather forget the awkward stops and starts along the bumpy road where we begin as children and end as adults. Jason Taylor, narrator of David Mitchell's newest novel, reveals a life that is the source of both; he is a thirteen-year-old would-be poet navigating through one tragi-comic year in his young life. Each of the thirteen chapters in the novel chronicles a different month, and each features those moments in childhood that we believe at the time will mark (or scar) us forever. In Jason, Mitchell has conjured one of the most memorable and real narrators in literature; he reflects on girls, his parents' distintigrating marriage, the cruel initiations of adolescence, or the Falkland wars with equal pathos. Black Swan Green takes place in a small English countryside town in 1982, and the book is flavored with Thatcher politics, British vernacular , and early 80's pop music. Unlike Mitchell's earlier novels, Black Swan Green is in many ways a novel about the pains and pleasures of the ordinary, and Jason scrutinizes the everyday with as much perception as major life events. Thirteen is an age where an embarrassment at school or a fight with one's parents takes on epic proportions, and yet time passes in such a way that last month's tragedies seem to fade into the distant past. Mitchell conjures this sense with such ease that Jason is a completely believable character, even as his thoughts reveal a remarkable sophistication. In Cloud Atlas, Mitchell showed himself to be a master of the narrative voice, and in Black Swan Green he exceeds all expectations. Instead of writing what could have been an angst-ridden, self-fixated modern Holden Caulfield, Mitchell brings Jason out of himself with a well-rendered cast of supporting characters: his distant, workaholic father and his acidic mother, the merciless bullies at school, his fellow outcast friends, and various colorful townsfolk. Just as significant but more subtle are the internal characters that populate Jason's mind, including Unborn Twin (the voice of self-deprecation and fear) and his omnipresent arch-nemesis, the Hangman. Hangman is the embodiment of Jason's stammer, a speech impediment that often leaves "s" words frozen on his tongue. I honestly cannot say enough positive things about this book; Mitchell's writing is gorgeous, Jason's insights at turns comic and heartbreaking. Black Swan Green is perhaps Mitchell's most autobiographic, and it certainly feels like the most grounded of his novels. Beware of the seeming simplicity - this book is neither ordinary nor typical. Rather than produce another quaint coming of age tale, Mitchell delivers a subtle and masterful rendering of an age that is nearly impossible to capture. ~ Jacquelyn Gill

Man Booker Prize finalist David Mitchell's books have been praised for their complex themes and their out-of-the-box approach to storytelling. To read and understand one of his books is to feel as though you're taking apart and putting back together pieces of a puzzle in order to grasp a larger whole. Unlike his previous, more experimental novels (GHOSTWRITTEN, NUMBER9DREAM, CLOUD ATLAS), Mitchell's latest offering is more conventional and probably his most plot-driven to date --- except for the fact that nothing really happens. Nothing, that is, until after you've turned the last page. Months later, the novel's protagonist is still nestled comfortably in your brain and in your heart like a close friend who has moved away or a bittersweet memory leftover from childhood, still resonant with meaning. BLACK SWAN GREEN chronicles thirteen months in the life of thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor --- each one of the thirteen chapters mirrors each of the thirteen months during the time in which the novel takes place --- told from his perspective and at his own meandering pace. Jason, his older sister Julie, and his parents inhabit the posh countryside of Black Swan Green, a slumbering village in South Worcestershire, England. The year is 1982 and England is entrenched in both the Cold War and the short-lived war over the Falklands. Life is fairly ordinary in the small town, aside from the occasional news reel intrusion, and so are the events that transpire throughout the course of the book. What makes this book so captivating to read is precisely the simplicity of what's being described --- mainly, Jason's transition from adolescence into semi-adulthood. Over the course of thirteen months, he goes from being an awkward, prepubescent young boy with a pesky stammering problem to a soon-to-be young man with a backbone and a bit of experience under his belt. In the beginning, he is seen as an outcast, a weakling, a scab, and is relentlessly made fun of by his stronger, tougher peers. By the end, he has learned how to stand up for himself and has earned the respect not only of some of his tormentors, but of a certain young lady as well. Although many will find the pleasure in witnessing Jason's ongoing mental and physical maturation process as familiar as watching that of any young person, what stands out as unique is the progression of his own particular self-awareness and the purity of his heart. He is almost too creative and genuine for his own good (hence why he is constantly being picked on), yet completely unaware of his talents --- a rare occurrence in a boy that age. As a contrast to his gawky exterior, the way he expresses himself internally is downright poetic ("Listening to houses breathe makes you weightless"), and the steadfast earnestness with which he approaches life, albeit at an adolescent level, is incredibly humbling. Over the course of thirteen chapters, Mitchell mixes just the right combination of insecurity, indignation and yearning to

'Black swan green' has been descirbed as a simple touching tale i.e. it's more traditional in comparison with the brilliant cloud atlas, something the average might be more comfortable with. However if you look more closely the book is still very different for the genre.For a start it's divided into 13 tales which interlock rather than just being a story with one overarching narrative. Also the tales themselves have often slightly different feels .For example, the first story in the novel 'January man' feels more gothic horror or dickensian ghost story, as opposed to 'solarium' which uses a character from the robert frobisher section of cloud atlas and feels more early twentieth century french . However at no time does the reader feel that the tales don't belong together , something that requires quite considerable literary skill (which mitchell clearly possesses in spades)The other interesting thing is the age of the boy ..he's 13 .Usually these kind of tales feature boys of 16- 18 . By choosing this odd age, mitchell is able to investigate the twlight world of childhood which is beginning to be infused with sexual feeling. Consequently the novel feels fresher than a coming of age novel for example. Anyway its genius, genuinely moving at points with real heart and something i can imagine readers of all ages loving .Superb.