Black Swan Green

By David Mitchell

I knew Cloud Atlas would not be the last novel I would be reading of David Mitchell. Black Swan Green is his latest and is really quite different from Cloud Atlas, though there is a character from Cloud Atlas here too. Mitchell seems to love carrying forward characters from one book to another. A slightly endearing trait, I find.

BSG is a book much narrower in scope than Cloud Atlas. It is a simple narration of a 13 year old boy with a stammer and a skill for poetry. It traces a single year in the life of this boy Jason Taylor, the year of the Falklands war. Through him we live his life filled with all the angst of a pre-teen boy with a stammer in a school full of bullies. It does not help that he is a poet, a skill that is seen as so ‘gay’. And that his parents are in a relationship that is not so healthy and that his sister, who was a hated character till recently, is now going away to college.

It’s an uncomplicated tale of the complications in Jason’s 13^th year. The Belgian émigré, the gypsies who come into town and the tangled emotions girls as a species generates allow for excitement in the boy’s life.

Through this straightforward narration, Mitchell manages to make Jason Taylor a fairly interesting character, parts of whom are recognizable in any 13 year old boy. BSG makes for a compelling read, mainly because of Jason Taylor’s wry and vibrant voice. I am sure to continue reading Mitchell.