Black Swan Green

Jace’s ace!

Jason Taylor is Will McKenzie, Adrian Mole and Benjamin Trotter with spokey dokeys on. I just loved everything about Black Swan Green – the characters, the content, the style, the setting, the local dialect, the humour and the nostalgia.

The characters spring to life in a single sentence.
“Alex is seventeen but he’s got bubonic zits and his body’s three sizes too large for him”.
“The man’s lips were gnarled and his sooty hair had a streak of white like combed-in bird crap”.

The cultural references to the early Eighties are spot on and I was instantly transported back to 1982 relishing Findus Crispy Pancakes and Butterscotch Angel Delight for tea and finding a furry stick of Wrigley’s juicy fruit chewing gum in my duffle coat pocket.

Adolescent angst - the horrors of school discos, wanting to be one of cool kids but knowing you’ll always be middle-ranking at best, trying to stay well below the radar and finding your parents cringingly embarrassing - was made all too real.

The reported speech had the local Worcestershire accent down to a T and the lyrical language reflecting Jason’s poetic bent was simply heavenly.
“The big field was full of wary ewes and spanking-new lambs. The lambs tiggered up close, bleeping like those crap Fiat Noddy cars, idiotically pleased to see me.”

I read most of this book with a smile on my face and laughed out loud in places.
But it’s not all ha-ha-ha. There’s serious stuff in here too. Coping with and trying show more to overcome a speech defect, being bullied, marriage break-ups, dementia, dysfunctional families, the personal consequences of the Falklands War and life-changing motorbike accidents. A little bit of everything.

This was my first David Mitchell novel and I hit pay dirt.
I can’t recommend Black Swan Green highly enough. show less

Black Swan Green – David Mitchel
Audio version performed by Kirby Heybourne
4 stars

Thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor remembers Black Swan Green. He remembers village life, Upton-on-Seven Comprehensive School, the frozen pond, the Goose Fair and the Falklands War. Jason Taylor remembers 1982. This is a great coming of age story told in the voice of a perceptive, intelligent boy who suffers the growing pangs of being different from the pack.

Portions of this book made me uncomfortable. Jason is painfully self-conscious of his stammer. His parents argue. He is severely bullied. I felt his pain so acutely that I wanted to put the book down. But I couldn’t walk away. I liked Jason Taylor too much. He is typical in his imaginative, exaggerated fantasies, but atypical in his acute observations and pithy commentary. Sticking with the story paid off. Jason perseveres through the tough times and triumphs through at least one year of adolescence.

Bullying is a hot topic in today’s schools. Jason Taylor and Black Swan Green could make a great contribution to any discussion of this problem. When Jason Taylor has finally reached his limit and takes decisive action, there are immediate consequences for his class. From my point of view, Mr. Kempsey exemplifies how an educator should not respond to bullying. On the other hand, Miss Lippits’ lesson on secrets and reputation is ‘spot on’. (“Miss Lippets loves her job on good days.”)

"Picked-on kids act invisible to reduce the chances of being noticed and picked on. Stammerers act invisible to reduce the chances of being made to say something we can't. Kids whose parents argue act invisible in case we trigger another skirmish. The Triple Invisible Boy, that's Jason Taylor. Even I don't see the real Jason Taylor much these days 'cept for when we're writing a poem, or occasionally in a mirror. Or just before sleep." p.296

It's 1982 and Jason Taylor is 13 years old. Jason narrates the story of a year in his life. Every day is a battle for Jason growing up in the fictitious English village of 'Black Swan Green'. He tries (and fails) to evade school bullies, he fights his stammer (otherwise known as 'The Hangman'), writes poetry under the pseudonym of Eliot Bolivar and at home his parents are going through one of those 'silent in front of the kids lets split up' periods. Growing up is tough for Jason. Despite all this, and maybe because of all this, Jason is one of the most rounded, level-headed and empathic characters I have read in a book for a long, long time.

It's beautifully written, witty, painful and wonderfully nostalgic. As someone who was a similar age to Jason at the time I found myself relating to some of Jason's woes, experiences and struggles. The sense of belonging Jason tries to attain with others at school, the bullying he endures and yet manages to come back from, the awkward crush on the local goth girl, his rather dysfunctional family, show more the embarrassment he feels as he tries to get his words out, the heartlessness displayed by some of the teachers and, in the midst of all this, some brighter moments portrayed in the warm relationship he develops with his friend Dean Moran, another school outcast, and his older sister Julia. Jason could easily become a pitiful character, a 'victim', but he doesn't and he isn't. Mitchell has created such a well-rounded and real character and one you can't help but feel affinity towards and root for.

Loved it! show less

If Perks of Being a Wallflower had been set in Great Britain, it might have turned out to be Black Swan Green. While not as original as Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell demonstrates his skill as a consummate story teller with the story of one year in the life of Jason Taylor a stammering teen searching for acceptance in Worchestershire, England.

Some non-Anglophiles may have trouble with the slang used by many of the characters, but there are plenty of context clues to get you over that problem. Set in the early 1980s, around the time of the Falkland Islands Crisis, the story could just as easily been told in a contemporary setting. Bullying has always been with us and, sadly, probably always will be, and bullying is central to the plot.

Like Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green also seems to have a heavy theme of Doing the Right Thing, living with lies and unforeseen consequences of good actions. There is also a literary link between the two works through one of the characters. Jason Taylor has an encounter with Eva Crommelynck, albeit much aged since her appearance in Cloud Atlas. In Black Swan Green, she plays a mentor figure to young Jason, much like her father did to young Frobisher in the earlier work. I have no objection to her reappearance as she has aged chronologically relative to the two books settings. Given the author’s dealing with similar themes, I am wondering if there are more books in store from David Mitchell that will utilize other connections to Cloud Atlas.

Not show more the tour de force of my first exposure to this author, I still found the narrative very compelling. The story reads on several levels and succeeds at all of them. Dialog and character development easily carried me along and I totally enjoyed the ride. This is not an idyllic look at the English countryside as it takes a hard look at British social prejudices. If you like social drama and critiques of prejudice, you should enjoy this work. I felt this was just short of outstanding, so I am awarding four and a half stars to Black Swan Green. show less

"Black Swan Green" is a break from Mitchell's usual style. Previously, he rivalled Michael Chabon as an author commendably unafraid to plunge into the waters of speculative fiction, despite what the long-beards on the Pulitzer and Booker boards might have to say about it. His previous novel, "Cloud Atlas," was a dazzling trip through space and time, from the South Pacific in the 19th century to the dystopic, Gibsonesque streets of a 22nd century Korea, to the savage and brutal islands of Hawaii long after life has been snuffed out in the rest of the world. It's partly because of this that "Cloud Atlas" is my favourite book. There are very few writers in the world who are able (and willing) to approach genre fiction with genuine literary skill, and I love them all.

Yet "Black Swan Green" is what some might call a "maturation." Split into thirteen chapters and set from January 1982 to 1983, it chronicles a year in the life of Jason Taylor, growing up in the titular village in Worcestershire. It is clearly, to some extent, a fictionalised autobiography. Jason is a shy and quiet boy, intelligent but not a genius, an aspiring poet. The novel follows his typical teenage trials - popularity at school, his parents' rocky marriage, the inevitable encounters with girls - with barely a whisper of the more exotic and imaginative flair that rapidly made David Mitchell my favourite author. "Black Swan Green" holds no fabricants, no non-corpus, no nuclear wars, no expeditions to the show more ruined observatories atop Mauna Kea. Instead we have Margaret Thatcher, the Falklands War, Woodbines, Beta and the jingoism of the Daily Mail.

This is not entirely a bad thing; "Black Swan Green" is still an excellent novel. David Mitchell is endlessly readable; he could write a novel about bricklaying and I'd buy it. His effortless use of prose to create beautiful, elegant sentences is something I've mentioned before, and of equal merit is the wide range of themes he weaves into his stories.

Not since "Ender's Game" have I read something that so hideously reminded me of what those early years of high school are like: the savagery and the cruelty, the constant fear and anxiety, a few asshole kids capable of making me miserable on a whim ("Picked on kids act invisible to reduce the chances of being noticed and picked on," Jason notes). Once you become an adult, when people automatically treat each other with civility and respect, it's easy to forget what wretched pieces of shit most young teenagers are. "It's all ranks, being a boy, like the army," Jason says, and while his own popularity rises considerably over the course of the year, it all comes crashing down with a single act - one which any adult would characterise as selfless and brave.

Jason eventually learns to fight back, and stand up for himself, and repels his tormentors in a story arc I found to be entirely too convenient. You change fast when you're thirteen - but not quite that fast.

Jason's thoughts and feelings are livened up somewhat by the presence of three voices in his head, facets of his personality. Hangman is the personification of his stutter, a cruel monster that strangles his words, forcing him to live in constant fear that his secret will be discovered and he will be forever pegged "Stutterboy" by the other kids. Maggot represents everything he hates about himself, all his worst desires, particularly his desperate need to be accepted by his peers, no matter what the cost to his personal values and integrity. Unborn Twin is the most mysterious, sometimes a guiding angel and sometimes a luring demon, never fully explained.

There are a few shout-outs to Mitchell's other novels - Neal Brose, one of Jason's bullies, is the narrator of the Hong Kong segment in "Ghostwritten," a shady financial lawyer who will one day experience his own epiphany and drop dead of a heart attack. The Neal Brose of "Ghostwritten" is not a good person, but not a bad one either - he is a human being, flawed and complex, containing multitudes. Mitchell's choice of this character is not an accident; he is reminding us that everybody grows, that while Jason's peers may be dickheads, they won't always be. As Jason points out, though, "How does that help me?"

The more interesting second encounter is with Eva van Crommelynck, who was a teenager in "Cloud Atlas," and the object of Robert Frobisher's desire. She is an old woman now, tutoring Jason in poetry, and at one point they leaf through her old photo album together. Robert Frobisher, "Cloud Atlas"' greatest character, is enshrined in black and white, and Eva spends a page or two recounting his fate and revealing the terrible guilt she felt over his suicide. Zedelghem, we learn, was destroyed during World War II. Now it's just "little boxes for houses, a gasoline station, a supermarket."

And, of course, we revisit Mitchell's favourite themes. Aside from the obvious presence of predation in schoolyard bullying, we see bigotry and hatred and ignorance cropping up everywhere. Walking down a country lane, Jason is told to clear off by a farmer who then sets his dogs loose. Jason escapes, and is "Okay, but poisoned. The dog man despised me for not being born here. He despised me for living down Kingfisher Meadows. That's a hate you can't argue with. No more than you can argue with mad Dobermanns." The casual racism flung about by Jason's older relatives, pompously waffling on in the assumption that their younger audience agrees with them, felt very familiar: "The fact of the matter is" (Uncle Brian doesn't hear what he doesn't want to) "the Japs are still fighting the war. They own Wall Street. London's next. Walking from the Barbican to my office, you'd need... twenty pairs of hands to count all the Fu Manchu look-alikes you pass by." And when the council proposes a permanent gypsy settlement next to Black Swan Green, the villagers assemble an "emergency" meeting to protest it. Jason is repulsed by their violent prejudice, but when he encounters some gypsies himself, he finds that they too hold similar prejudices against the townfolk, and uses the same metaphor twice to describe their narrow minds and blinkered eyes.

It is a cruel world we live in. And there's nothing we can do about that. For the October edition of The Atlantic magazine, Andrew Sullivan wrote an open letter to George Bush, urging him to personally take responsibility for the countless acts of torture that occurred during his administration. Sullivan was formerly an advocate of prosecution, arguing that Cheney and Bush and their ilk needed to be held fully accountable for their actions if the United States was to truly live up to its ideals. Now he argues that this would "tear the country apart" (a cop-out excuse used during every season finale of 24). Instead he urges Bush to take personal responsibility, to apologise, to demand an independent inquiry and to admit that he was wrong.

We all know that Bush will never do this - even this, this small and tiny thing, far easier than what he truly deserves, which is to be tried in the Hague as a war criminal. He will remain encapsulated in Texas, living amongst the 20% of the American population who still think he was a great President. He will deny even to himself that he ever did the wrong thing.

A reader wrote in to the Sullivan shortly afterwards: "What I saw was the final summation of a very fine attorney - an attorney for the defence of this nation and our deepest values. It was a summation made not to a jury and a courtroom, but to everyone in the nation, and to history; a summation made in the clear knowledge that no actual indictments will ever be brought against these men in the real world, no verdicts entered, no sentences handed down. It was left to the power of the pen and the pixel to render judgement - which you did, brilliantly... You indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced them all in one grand piece."

This is how I feel about David Mitchell, not as an author or an entertainer, but as an observer of the world around us. It is a world of unspeakable cruelty, of barbarity and violence, from the sickening taunts of bullies in "Black Swan Green" to the savage rape and murder perpetrated by Kona tribesman in "Cloud Atlas," to the very real torture inflicted on detainees of questionable guilt in CIA black sites all over the world. It is a world full of hatred and prejudice, which Jason aptly describes as "poison." As infuriating as the poison itself is, the most frustrating and heartbreaking part is its inexplicable nature - the lack of a why. This will never change. But as long as we have writers like David Mitchell (and Andrew Sullivan), gifted wordsmiths and good people, to at least acknowledge and decry the poison, we'll be okay.

I just hope that in the future, Mitchell will return to combining this with the imaginative, exotic adventures I came to love in his previous novels. show less

It's been 30 years since I hit my teens, but reading this bought it all back in all its glorious, hideous detail. I wasn't 13 in 1982 (I was 10), I wasn't a boy and I didn't stutter, but David Mitchell has managed to capture the experience so completely and in such detail that this feels almost real. The sensations that Jason experiences are so well formed that you can feel yourself riding the self same rollercoaster of teenage emotions. The detail is part of what makes this. The music references (especially the mishearing of Oliver's Army struck a chord), the food (no, I'd never eat a Findus crispy pancake now, but even I remember them being the bees knees), the falkland's war, all of it vivid and evocative of a decade that it's probably best to bury in the past where it belongs. The reference to Ra-ra skirts at the end made my blood run cold.
Jason is entirely convincing as a teenager, his trial and tribulations and what he sees of the world around him is plausible. No way would I want to be a teenager again, this fleeting visit back in time reminds you just how difficult an age it is.

Mitchell’s coming of age story is brilliant. There is adventure, touching emotion, and humor here, and it was a very enjoyable read. The story takes place in roughly monthly snippets over a year in the life of 13-year-old Jason Taylor. Mitchell is brutally honest to the experience of growing up: Jason suffers the awkwardness of stammering, bullies at school, and bickering parents and an older sister at home. It’s his most accessible novel, but has some of the themes of his other works, such as the need to stand up to the bad guys in life, and to persevere through difficulties. It’s not the 19th century or the distant future, but he is true to the time period (1982) as well.

There is a small connection to Cloud Atlas, in the form of Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, who Cloud fans may remember as the daughter of the famous composer who Robert Frobisher has a fling with. Here she’s an elderly lady who councils Jason on his poetry (which he writes under a pseudonym to avoid ridicule) in one of the chapters. There is also a brief reference to “Number Nine Dream”, by John Lennon, which Jason enjoys his first makeout session to.

Thumbs up! Mitchell remains must-read for me.

Quotes:
On art, and beauty:
“Idiots labor in this misconception. Beauty is not excellence. Beauty is distraction, beauty is cosmetics, beauty is ultimately fatigue. Here” – she read from the fifth verse – ‘Venus swung bright over the ear of the moon.’ The poem has a terminal deflation. show more Ffffffffft! Dead tire. Automobile accident. It says, ‘Am I not a pretty pretty?’ I answer, ‘Go to hell!’ If you have a magnolia in the moonlight courtyard, do you paint its flowers? Affix the flashy-flashy Christmas lights? Attach plastic parrots? No. You do not.”

And later:
“T.S. Eliot expresses it so – the poem is a raid on the inarticulate. I, Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, agree with him. Poems who are not written yet, or not written ever, exists here. The realm of the inarticulate. Art.’ – she put another cigarette in her mouth, and this time I was ready with her dragon lighter – ‘fabricated of the inarticulate is beauty. Even if its themes is ugly. Silver moons, thundering seas, clichés of geese, poison beauty. The amateur thinks his words, his paints, his notes, makes the beauty. But the master knows his words is just the vehicle in who beauty sits. The master knows he does not know what beauty is.”

On death:
“No Excalibur stuck in a stone, but I did find a tombstone from 1665; 1665 was the Plague Year. That was my record. Gravestones mostly flake away after a couple of centuries. Even death sort of dies. The saddest sentence I ever found was in a graveyard on Bredon Hill. HER ABUNDANT VIRTUES WOULD HAVE ADORED A LONGER LIFE.”

On writing, and critics:
“I felt giddy with importance that my words’d captured the attention of this exotic woman. Fear, too. If you show someone something you’ve written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready.’” show less

Jason Taylor is not like any 13-year-old kid you’ve ever met. He spends more time trying to avoid the words he needs to say than he does speaking. Using Jason’s problem with stammering is the perfect metaphor for the way many teens refuse to address problems, even when the exact words to be spoken are clearly in mind. While Jason is obviously not the prototypical 13-year-old, Mitchell still describes a young boy whose observations lack the confidence that comes with maturity and experience. This ironic distance is skillfully maintained throughout the book, even as Jason grows. We follow Jason for one year. By the end of the book, readers swear that he is as real as any student we’ve ever met. Although an adult book, Mitchell describes very real teen problems familiar to many. Black Swan Green is for that older, sophisticated reader who loves challenging, thought-provoking words.

Filled with 1980’s nostalgia, Black Swan Green transports the reader to a small town in Worcestershire, England, where thirteen-year-old narrator and protagonist Jason Taylor is dealing with the familiar challenges of adolescence. We follow his life in this small town as he seeks acceptance, observes the growing disharmony in his parents’ marriage, clashes with schoolyard bullies, battles a stammer that makes him agonizingly self-conscious, secretly writes poetry, and begins to mature into a more self-aware individual.

This book paints a portrait of an innocent youth starting to deal with the often-painful realities of life and learning that appearances can be deceptive. It is a character-driven story told linearly in thirteen chapters. I thought Mitchell did an excellent job of capturing the voice of a teenage boy, and the writing is reflective of how an adolescent would talk. A large portion of the book is spent inside Jason’s head listening to his inner dialogue around such topics as his discomfort around his parents’ marital troubles, dealing with the ridicule of his schoolmates, his push/pull relationship with his sister, his attempts to overcome speech difficulties, reactions to the Falklands War, and guilt over specific actions. I felt his pain and became invested finding out what was going to happen with him.

It takes a while to ramp up and builds momentum towards the end. I thought certain chapters were brilliant. I especially enjoyed the chapter entitled show more “Solarium” that features a flamboyantly eccentric character, Madame Crommelynck, an elderly Belgian woman who engages him in conversations about art, music, poetry, literature, and language. It contains elegant observations about youth and age, life and death, beauty and truth.

This book is filled with meaningful examinations on the vulnerabilities in human relationships and the difficulties in being true to oneself while feeling pressured to fit in. Although the story is narrated by a teen, I felt I got more out of it reading it as an adult than I would have when I was much younger. Recommended to those that enjoy subtle, contemplative, character-driven stories, especially those related to coming-of-age. show less

BLACK SWAN GREEN is, as its narrator Jason Taylor would say, brill. Or epic. But not in the Homeric sense; simply in that it is closely, brilliantly observed from the point of view of thirteen-year-old Jason, who is the least powerful person in his own family, and hovers on the fringes of popularity at school.

In a single year, he has an ice-skating accident and an odd encounter with an old woman in a house in the woods; works with a kind speech therapist to reduce his stammer; endures a visit from his cousins; explores the woods and fields around his home, and sees a few things he shouldn't; is inducted into a secret society, then kicked out of it; visits with an old Belgian woman* who admires his poems (written under a pseudonym); has a weekend alone with each parent (in Lyme Regis and Cheltenham, respectively); is viciously bullied at school; encounters some gypsies and some NIMBY prejudice; goes to a school dance and has his first kiss; attends a fair and finds a stolen wallet; and moves away from Black Swan Green after his parents divorce.

(January Man, Hangman, Relatives, Bridle Path, Rocks, Spooks, Solarium, Souvenirs, Maggot, Knife Grinder, Disco, Goose Fair, January Man)

*This is Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, from the Robert Frobisher section of CLOUD ATLAS. The moon-gray cat also makes several appearances.

Jason has an intricate understanding of the power structure at his school, and has internalized the bullies' teasing ("Maggot"), but he also has another voice show more inside him ("Unborn Twin"), and a name for his stammer ("Hangman"). He has a poet's eye for observation and expression ("Listening to houses breathe makes you weightless"), but a thirteen-year-old's understanding about the world, especially where his parents are concerned; he doesn't pick up on allusions to a past infidelity (partly because he isn't ready to know), and inherits his parents' politics (Maggie Thatcher's war in the Falkland Islands), though his opinions differ from theirs when it comes to the gypsies.

David Mitchell's novels are rooms in a house, and the characters wander from one room to another. (The hallways may involve time travel, so a fifteen-year-old walks out of one room and is eighty when she enters the next.) I was so pleased to see Eva again; it made me want to go back and re-read the Frobisher sections of Cloud Atlas.

Quotes

Trees're always a relief, after people. (10)

It's easier to change your eyeballs than to change your nickname. (16)

If a mystic'd told me that one exact moment in one exact place can act as an antenna that picks up faint traces of lost people, I wouldn't've argued. (18)

"[February's] not so much a month as a twenty-eight-day-long Monday morning." (Mrs. de Roo, 28)

...and I wondered if being happy's about other people's misery. (28)

Eavesdropping's sort of thrilling 'cause you learn what people really think, but eavesdropping makes you miserable for exactly the same reason. (29)

I can never tell Dad what I really think like [Julia can]. I can feel the stuff I don't say rotting inside me like mildewy spuds in a sack. (33)

Who decides which defects are funny and which ones are tragic? (36)

The staff room's like God. You can't see it and live. (39)

Listening to houses breathe makes you weightless. (67)

Just as well for sheep they can't work out why the farmer's being so nice to them (Human beings need to watch out for reasonless niceness too. It's never reasonless and its reason's not usually nice.) (72)

War's an auction where whoever can pay the most in damage and still be standing wins. (105)

War may be an auction for countries. For soldiers it's a lottery. (109)

Something silent smashed without being dropped. (114)

Me, I want to kick this moronic bloody world in the bloody teeth over and over till it bloody understands that not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more bloody important than being right. (118)

That was the first time I'd heard "heart attack" and I thought it meant your heart suddenly went crazy and attacked the rest of your body, like a ferret down a rabbit warren. (135)

There's a type of nightmare where the ground's your enemy. (138)

If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, "When you're ready." (145)

Once a poem's left home it doesn't care about you. (146)

"The poem exists before it is written....T.S. Eliot expresses it so - the poem is a raid on the inarticulate. I, Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, agree with him. Poems who are not written yet, or not written ever, exists here. The realm of the inarticulate." (sic, 147)

"We say, we say. Be careful of say. Words say, 'You have labeled this abstract, this concept, therefore you have captured it.' No. They lie. Or not lie, but are maladroit. Clumsy." (148)

"...how you say the man in a field who frights birds?"
"Scarecrow?" (149)

...the room I'll die in. (Has it been built yet?) (152)

"I'm a kid. I'm thirteen. You said it's a miserable age, being thirteen, and you're right. If you don't fit in, they make your life a misery." (154)

"True poetry is truth. Truth is not popular, so poetry also is not." (155)

Only in my poems...do I get to say exactly what I want. (156)

I've never listened to music lying down. Listening's reading if you close your eyes.
Music's a wood you walk through. (161)

"Wish I could be thirteen again."
Then, I thought, you've obviously forgotten what it's like. (167)

Mum and Dad can be as ratty or sarcastic or angry as they want to me, but if I ever show a flicker of being pissed off then they act like I've murdered babies....Kids can never complain about unfairness 'cause everyone knows kids always complain about that. (178)

These last days of freedom rattle like a nearly empty box of Tic Tacs. (191)

People're a nestful of needs. Dull needs, sharp needs, bottomless-pit needs, flash-in-the-pan needs, needs for things you can't hold, needs for things you can. (194)

Good moods're as fragile as eggs...Bad moods're as fragile as bricks. (195)

Mum and Julia often hit bull's-eyes even I hadn't spotted. (195)

Hate doesn't need a why. Who or even what is ample. (198)

Some fury is scary, some fury is ridiculous. (203)

These jokes the world plays, they're not funny at all. (206)

Poems're mirrors, lenses, and x-ray machines.(224)

Primary school seemed so huge then. How can you be sure anything is ever its real size? (226)

Picked-on kids act invisible to reduce the chances of being noticed and picked on. Stammerers act invisible to reduce the chances of being made to say something we can't. Kids whose parents argue act invisible in case we trigger another skirmish. The Triple Invisible Boy, that's Jason Taylor. (233-234)

...places you can't find if you're not alone. Time in the woods's older than time in clocks, and truer. (234)

Honesty and confessing're so often the same. (238)

Words are what you fight with but what you fight about is whether or not you're afraid of them. (245)

Fitting words together makes time go through narrower pipes but faster. (261)

The world won't let things be. It's always injecting endings into beginnings. (285) show less

It took me a little while to get involved, although from page 1 I was appreciating the writing and characters and dynamics. It is a very close and even claustrophobic view of what it was to be a thirteen year old boy in 1982, and it's well done enough that it is uncomfortable allowing yourself to slip back into that period of life where so many things are mysteriously difficult and incomprehensible. There are Mitchellish touches here and there, suggestions of strangeness and uncanny inter-relatedness of people and things (Frobisher, the composer is lightly featured here), a watch plays an important symbolic role (perhaps a bit heavy-handed, but it didn't bother me). The boy, Jason Taylor, is obviously an exceptionally bright and decent lad, but he's gone from being well-liked to being unpopular in part due to the eruption of a stammer. It is 'the hangman' who manages the stammer, changing the troublesome consonants around, sometimes relenting then swooping in for a kill at the worst possible moment. He also has 'unborn twin' a voice that usually advises the opposite of what he is doing. . . well done . . . Things are not all that good on the home front either. The parents are, perhaps, the weaker characters here, the mother especially, which makes sense really, given that the narrator is 13. As I think about it, the point is perhaps that his father has been reaching beyond what he can manage, both at work and in his marriage and is a fundamentally decent person too. Not show more being himself. Jason's sister is marvelous! Jason learns the most from contacts with people outside of his ken. An mad old woman who puts a miraculous poultice on a sprained ankle, another rather grand old woman who likes his poetry and opens up his mind to art and beauty, and a band of gypsies who camp nearby on a regular basis and confirm what he suspects, that there are many ways of being in the world and no need to disparage others for not doing things your way. The most beautiful line of the book comes from that scene: "Know what a fire is?" Knife Grinder's cough's a dying man's cough. "Fire's the sun, unwindin' itself out o' the wood."
****1/2 show less

In Black Swan Green, thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor narrates a year in his life in early eighties England. The novel has elements of the coming-of-age story (dealing with bullies, feeling outsiderish, suddenly seeing parents differently, learning how to see girls as human beings), but the presentation makes it so much more than just another teenager-starts-to-grow-up book. Mitchell uses language brilliantly--both in the mouths of all his young characters though their slang and in Jason's observations of the world. Jason is honest with himself and with his feelings, and he comes to sometimes startlingly beautiful conclusions about what he sees around him. And his conclusions are always believably thirteen-y while still holding a ring of universal truth. The book's organization is also refreshing--each chapter could almost stand alone as a short story (though there is still a very strong sense of forward momentum across the whole novel) and tells of one set of connected events happening in one month of the year. An enjoyable read with moments of brilliance and characters who will stay with me a long time. Recommended.

Voor zover ik al fan was van het werk van David Mitchell, is hij na het lezen van Dertien nog een trapje hoger komen te staan.
Indrukwekkend is niet alleen zijn stijl, die zo feilloos en trefzeker is, dat je haast vergeet dat hij er is, maar ook de manier waarop hij de genadeloze wereld van een dertienjarige vorm geeft.
Tegen de achtergrond van de Falklandoorlog, de relatie van zijn ouders die spaak loopt en een bikkelharde strijd met zijn zus, probeert de dertienjarige Jason Taylor zich staande te houden op zijn school en in zijn sociale omgeving. Mitchell geeft dit prachtig en helder weer, zonder te vervallen in al te gemakkelijke cliché’s of voorspelbare wendingen.
Leest als een trein en na afloop drukken we Taylor en zijn auteur dicht aan onze borst.
Prachtboek.

Having been one of those shy, awkward kids that never really fit in while growing up, I can really appreciate Jason's view of the world. A world where kids can be unbelievably cruel and adults just don't understand the social rules of being a kid and surviving the crowds. This is a bittersweet coming of age story. There is both good and bad to be found in Mitchell's created village of Black Swan Green. Being a huge fan of Dicken's Great Expectations - the only Dickens story that I never tire of - I could not help but see some interesting parallels between the experiences of Dicken's young Pip and Mitchell's Jason. Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, the elderly bohemian émigré of the story, has a slightly Miss Havisham feel about her that I really found quite charming, if you can make the leap I can and consider Miss Havisham to have any charming qualities, so you will probably not be surprised that I also saw the 'luscious' Dawn Madden as Mitchell's version of the cold Estella (poor Jason!). One of the better coming-of-age stories I have read so far and the perfect read for me as my entry into Mitchell's storytelling world.

There are books that make you squirm. That bring an old, sick feeling back to your stomach. That make you want to climb back under the covers and and not come out until the book has gone away. Pretty much anything that covers going to school in the eighties and bullying and awkwardness and general cluelesness will do it for me.

Back Swan Green covers a year in the life of a boy in 1982. There is family discord. There's a big sister. There's bullies and mad mates and music and books and holidays and fairs and burgeoning literary ambition. It's a year of terror and transformation. magic and disillusionment, loss and enrichment, growth and change, loneliness and embarrassment, poetry and first kisses. It's brilliant, and if it had bee an iota less brilliant I wouldn't have been able to read it. Thanks for all the trauma, David Mitchell. It was epic.

Really enjoyable "pre-coming-of-age" novel following the trials and tribulations of teenage Jason Taylor in rural 1980s England. Each chapter could stand on its own as a good short story. I really felt sympathetic and proud of Jason for his perseverence through one of life's more difficult periods. David Mitchell also made me realize that there can be a kind of beauty in even this, the mundane and typical kind of adolescent suffering that young people will inevitably experience even in a wealthy, developed Western country. I still get a kick out of the fact that the local joke suggests that there are no swans in Black Swan Green...until one appears at the very end.

The town of Black Swan Green in 1982 provides the setting for David Mitchell’s adolescent coming of age story that might just be autobiographical. Jason Taylor is thirteen years old and serves as narrator of the story that describes one year in his life, a year full of possibilities and loaded with teenage angst as well.

Jason is an aspiring poet who uses the pen name Eliot Bolivar to conceal his identity as his poetry is published in the local parish magazine. He becomes a regular contributor. This is something that no one at school can discover or his life would be even more hellish than it already is. He is a boy trying desperately to fit in and making a miserable job of it. He longs to be a boy called by his first name, like the other “cool” kids. In actuality, he’s called by his last name and lumped in with other boys also determined to be unworthy. Below him are those boys called by made up names, like Squelch. This three tier system exists solely for the amusement of those in the top tier, who regularly bully those below them. Jason’s position within the system deteriorates in time until he’s called Maggot and pushed to the breaking point.

Contributing to Jason’s despair and making him a prime target of the others is the fact that he stutters. He has named the thing that won’t allow the words to come out properly “Hangman.” Even his teachers contribute to this by forcing him to recite long passages aloud. His sessions with his speech therapist show more provide relief for him, a place where he can relax so much that his stuttering disappears, making it that much harder to treat.
As if all this isn’t enough for one teenager to endure, Jason’s parents fight continually and are heading towards a divorce and Jason has a crush on one of the cool girls, who is completely unaware of him.

The climax of the story occurs when Jason determines that he has to show these bullies that he’s not afraid of them. Stick it out for a little while and they’ll back off. There’s no fun in bullying someone and getting no response.

Throughout the book, Mitchell’s prose shines. He throws out one zinger after another, page after page:

“A cow of an awkward pause mooed.” (Page 52)
“A brick of loneliness is reaching terminal velocity inside me.” (Page 166)
“Sunlight on waves is drowsy tinsel.” (Page 173)
“Questions aren’t questions. Questions are bullets” and “Their arguments are speed chess these days.” (Page 223 and 224 referring to his parents’ fights)
“Poems are lenses, mirrors and x-ray machines.” (Page 224)

The writing is divine, the story is top notch, the young narrator is so vulnerable and likable that you want to take him home and protect him from all the nastiness in the world. Mitchell is a marvelous storyteller and I look forward to reading more of his books. Highly recommended. show less

BSG follows the rite of passage of a thirteen year old schoolboy in an English village. It's set in the early 80s and charts the rise and fall of his popularity, his struggle not to reveal a debilitating stammer, and the eventual victory over his bullying schoolmates. It has a wonderful energy and pace and draws you back to your own childhood fears and struggles to find your identity. If you were a teenager in the mid 1980s you will feel right at home. It's like a book version of the film Son of Rambow but with more depth.

A very enjoyable book, only let down in a few places by some slightly jarring and unnecessary internal monologue by the main character.

Our narrator, Jason Taylor is thirteen years old at the beginning of 1982 and tells us about his daily life, his family, his experiences with boys in his neighbourhood of Black Swan Green, a fictional village in Worcestershire, England. Jason is an especially sensitive boy who publishes his poetry in the local parish bulletin, but as he tells us early on, writing poetry is "gay" so he does so under a pseudonym and is careful not to let his secret out. And with good reason; having developed a speech impediment, Jason sees his popularity sink over the course of the following year, becoming the victim of relentless bullying, while weathering through a tense environment at home, where his mother and father are continually at war with one another, with intimations that Mr Taylor has taken out a second mortgage on the family home secretly and that there might be another woman in the wings. What made this coming of age story especially appealing is that it true and seemed all too familiar to me. Like David Mitchell, I too was born in 1969 and saw life through a similar perspective as that shown by the author in this semi-autobiographical novel. For Jason, the Falklands War is an exciting event and an opportunity for hero worship; his reverence and trust in Margaret Thatcher is both preposterous and endearing, and is a strong signal that we can't entirely rely on this clearly inexperienced narrator. Many references to pop culture, including the music and pastimes favoured by show more adolescents were similar to what I experienced, which reinforced a sense of familiarity for me, even though English culture and Canadian culture are were obviously very different in many ways. Mitchell writes very well and there's a strong sense of realism; toward the end of the story, our hero makes large strides towards asserting himself and figuring out what his priorities are, while the rest of his world remains as imperfect and fragile as it is in real life. Definitely recommended. show less

This is a beautifully crafted coming of age novel. Mitchell uses language in a way that takes you to the person, place, time, event that he is describing. You can feel how much he loves words through the way he plays with them and allows them to tumble into each other. The story is set at the time of the Falklands War, and is full of references to things from my own childhood - TV shows, sweets, games, school rituals. It felt very familiar, and at times uncomfortably true. As with all the Mitchell novels I've now read, there are links forwards and backwards to his other books, but this novel is less embedded in his ongoing saga of time travel and eternal souls. Black Swan Green is a smaller room in Mitchell's literary mansion where a few supporting characters can hang out and do their own thing. Worth reading in its own right, though.

There is something about a well written coming-of-age novel that grabs hold of your ‘young soul’ and gives it a good healthy massage- breathing it to life again.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell did this for me.
It takes us to the Worcestershire backwater of Black Swan Green, (there are no swans on the green - local joke) and a young Jason Taylor struggling through his thirteenth year. On the surface there is nothing extraordinary about Jason, his middle class family consists of mum, dad and big sister Julia, who refers to him as ‘Thing’. He has a group of, if not popular, at least acceptable friends that try their best not to slide down the popularity ladder. And life is about not falling into the abyss that stretches between childhood and adolescence. Not an easy task with a stammer that insists on strangling your throat just when you need your voice, a family that seems to be crumbling under its own weight, and a group of school bullies cruel enough to put your teeth on edge.
Set in the early 80’s of Thatcher’s England and seen through Jason’s young eyes, an immensely clear picture of village life unfolds and lures you in. I found it utterly engrossing and surprisingly stimulating. Many times I shared Jason’s frustration and fear, something that is imperative for me while reading a book. I need to care about the characters and the outcomes of their actions.

Jason stores a few secrets throughout this book, but how he manages his stammer is just show more brilliant. He gives it the name, ‘Hangman’, and a personality, which helps in his battle to outwit it. He is not always successful, but that is the nature of the struggle, sometimes he wins, sometimes Hangman does. This is fantastic writing, and I was completely captivated by this exchange. I suppose I could relate to this on a personal level as my father had a debilitating stutter. As a child I just accepted it has part of him, but as an adult I am aware how difficult it must have been for him growing up with such a malady.

This book is loaded with great school boy analogies like … ‘The staffroom’s like God. You can’t see it and live.’ Or ‘ …cigarette smoke billowed out like fog in Jack the Ripper’s London.’ And once you adjust to the apostrophe ridden dialogue, you find yourself constantly pulled back into those early high school years where every new day has the potential to send you to the moon or strike you down where you stand. It’s that basic and that complicated.
Sadly, Mitchell has lessened the impact produced by some of his more descriptive phrases by using them more than once. This is a pity as it took the shine off a little for me. It appears as though some of his chapters were off-springs of earlier short stories, which could explain this over sight. Something that surely could have been picked up during the editing process.

However, this was not enough to spoil the book for me and I was disappointed when Black Swan Green never made the cut for the ManBooker Prize. I was sure it would at the very least get shortlisted, but alas, my favourites seldom do, and it’s sad to think that this may result in some people passing it by. Don’t.
If you’re inclined to take the advice of a prolific (if not chronic) reader, put this book on your reading list. You’ll be pleased you did. show less

I was only slightly bummed to find that this novel did not contain the Mitchellian weirdness I've come to love in his other novels. When I realized it was a Bildungsroman, about a teenage boy no less, I wondered how much I could really get into it. It turns out David Mitchell is still the same captivating storyteller even when he radically departs from the style of his other novels. I marveled the entire way through at how I kept being drawn into reading just another chapter or two before bed. The experimentation I adore was still there, and it kept me on my toes. I was sorry when it ended, and now I'm sorry I'm not returning to it tonight. I think this is pretty high praise; I would probably pass on any other novel on this topic.

Black Swan Green is a fictional village in Worcestershire where in 1982, 13 year old Jason Taylor lives with his parents and sister. This book, narrated by Jason, tells the story of a year in his life. It’s a tumultuous year – Jason is clearly intelligent and sensitive, but he’s also a young boy with a stammer, picked on at school and unable to pick up the subtle hints of disharmony in his parents’ marriage.

But Black Swan Green is also a very funny book, in parts anyway. Jason is an engaging narrator and entirely believable. The events he describes are things that we will all be familiar with and take on huge significance in a young mind. It’s less of a flowing story, more joined up snapshots of a year in the life. Each chapter concentrates on a different main event, but they all string together nicely.

I felt for Jason, partly because he was so believable. I wanted him to be able to go to school without fear of what the bullies would do next (and boy did I want those bullies to get their comeuppance). I wanted him to get the girl, to overcome his stutter (or more importantly overcome the misery it caused him). The other characters are beautifully drawn as well – I enjoyed the chapter about his visiting cousin Hugo – handsome, charming and loved by all, but who’s true colours are revealed, to Jason at least.

As someone who was also a teenager in the 1980s, this book resonated with me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend it for it’s humour, truth show more and beautiful writing. show less

A truly incredible book - the kind where as soon as I close it I itch to write to the author to tell him how impressed I am. A coming-of-age novel set in a small English town/village during the era of the Faulklands War. So many coming-of-age novels are saccharine, cliched or depressing - this is none of those. It's incredibly real, with emotions, dialogue, events, and a whole atmosphere of how awful and amazing it is to be 13 years old.

It's not a YA book, not to my mind anyway. It's written for adults, insightful and intelligent (not that YA isn't that! It is!), aimed at an audience that has been there, rather than one that is there now. The main character is delightful, and his voice rings with truth.

What made this book for me above all else was a certain character who appears for just one chapter in the middle of the book, the Belgian old lady with her music, her truth and her 'butler'. I haven't met a character as captivating as her for years.

Awww, ya just feel for this kid. Young people have rich inner lives. They may not be able to communicate them eloquently but nonetheless, the depth of observation is there, just waiting for the right age and/or the right words to put it in perspective.

Then there's the whole David Mitchell universe aspect to the book. A young Hugo Lamb, an old Eva Ayrs and probably a hundred other connections to his other novels. I adore David Mitchell and the Jason Taylor in him still.

One of the most enjoyable reads of my year.

Jason Taylor is 13, in high-school, unpopular and often picked on. He's a poet and a shy stammerer. There's bullies, teachers, a headmaster, and a dozen events blown enormously out of proportion by a young mind. Yet as a child a small thing can appear the end of the world, and this is what makes Black Swan Green so fantastic. Mitchell manages from page 1 to inhabit his main character, to let him flow not only through the story but also through clipped, poetic prose. And what Jason faces we all have faced in some way, perhaps differently, yet the same in a way. I challenge anyone to read Black Swan Green and not be absorbed by its sheer enjoyable loveliness, or swallowed up by a nostalgia that brings back so much from one's own past.

Jason Taylor is just thirteen in the Worcestershire village of Black Swan Green, the back end of beyond where there aren't even any white swans, never mind black. And as a thirteen year old boy, nothing is more important to Jason that ensuring that his place in the pecking order of the local boys who attend his comprehensive school doesn't deteriorate from its already precarious position. As the son of 'townies', and well-off townies at that, his position is already vulnerable, and as he fails to control his stammer it becomes doubly so. And as Jason focuses on his own problems, he fails to notice that his parents' own marriage is going through struggles of its own.

Black Swan Green is the story of Jason's life through 1982 and into 1983, told in a series of episodes which at first can seen disjointed and unfinished, but which eventually build into a satisfying whole. Some of these episodes are particularly successful: the patriotic fervour in Britain during the Falklands war is captured wonderfully as Jason's initial excitement turns to a realisation of the realities of war when a popular local boy is killed on HMS Coventry. And the interactions of the boys as they try to find their feet in the more complicated world of a teenager are conveyed perfectly. Other episodes work less well, in particular those which seem rather less realist in nature. Jason's relationship with the eccentric Belgian Madame Crommelynk, who encourages him in his writing of poetry, does not ring show more true, neither does an episode where Jason finds himself locked into a mysterious house in the woods.

I found the evocation of the 1980's very convincing, although I'm not sure how much of this was due to a certain sense of nostalgia on my part to a time when, although I wasn't thirteen, I wasn't much older than a teenager. And the sense of place seems right too: my sister lived in that area for more than twenty years, and the depiction of villages where you were still considered an outsider even though you'd lived there for half a lifetime rang true.

In the end I've rated this as a 3 and a half star read, although it could easily have been a four star read if it had just been a little more consistent. Overall, a book which works well when it focuses on the realities of bring a thirteen year old boy growing up in the 1980's, but less well when less realistic elements intrude. show less

A bildungsroman from David Mitchell, well-written though ultimately a little precious and formulaic for me. I enjoyed the narrator's voice, and don't care that it's somewhat precocious.

In some ways I wish it had been a novel with a smaller focus--do we really need lessons about racism learned from gypsies? Surely a divorce and a broken watch are sufficient? I couldn't figure out why there was so much emphasis on a couple of characters, and found by Googling after reading that they appear in his other books. That's fine with me, but just as Ezra Pound said that the reader without a classical education should be able to read a poem at face value, without understanding its allusions, so should a reader be able to read a novel without extra-textual references throwing a wrench in the works. (Neal Stephenson, are you listening?)

Listen to Pink Floyd's album The Wall before you start reading this, or read a chapter or two of [b:Lord of the Flies|7624|Lord of the Flies|William Golding|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327869409s/7624.jpg|2766512] to get you in the mood for British schoolboy hierarchies and bullying. Don't pick up [b:Skippy Dies|7146335|Skippy Dies|Paul Murray|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1301970939s/7146335.jpg|7410973] immediately upon finishing, or you will have to set it down as soon as you get to Chapter 1 in the somnolent, annoying classroom.

This book is reportedly "semi autobiographical" so it is hard to know which bits are real life, and which fictional, but the searing nature of the trials of life as a 13 year-old seemed extremely real to me.
Beautiful writing, as I have come to expect from David Mitchell, but I found the contents of this book harrowing.
I wonder how much has changed in terms of the bullying and aggressive social ranking among adolescents since the 1980s. I can only guess that the advent of social media has supercharged the process.

This was a year in the life of 13 year-old Jason, the year in question being 1982. Particularly fascinating for me as I was also 13 in 1982. It was one long nostalgia-fest, and I could almost hear the author ticking off his 1982 memorabilia list as he went (Falklands ... VHS vs Betamax ... E.T. ...Casio .... Adam and the Ants ..... CHECK). It was a look at what the other half of the teenage population was up to in those days, and though I had always thought girls were cruel to eachother, boys clearly are too. The insights into the ins and outs of being a teenage boy – the almost military rules that apply to their associations with eachother – were fascinating. As Jason puts it “Boys’re bastards, but at least they’re predictable bastards”

Jason is a stammerer (not a stutterer – there is a difference, as the book makes clear) and much of the plot revolves around his attempts to hide this fact. He also writes poetry. I was never sure whether this was a plot device to permit the use, by a teenage narrator, of phrases like “Birdsong strafed and morsed from the oak on the village green”. Whatever... the language was poetic,expressive, and just a little bit wacky throughout. The observation that ‘Neil Young sings like a barn collapsing’ was a case in point. No matter how often I played ‘Heart of Gold’ on my iPod I couldn’t see what he was on about, but what the heck – I was impressed.

I enjoyed this book so-o-o-o much. It was profound but never show more preachy and it had me splitting my sides with laughter. So what if the bit of adolescent fumbling that passed for romance at the end reminded me of the godawful Preston Pig book ‘Ooomph’, this was a brilliant, brilliant read. I realised by the end that I knew everyone that lived in the eponymous village, and pretty much everyone in Jason’s year at school, and all the teachers. A tremendous feat of writing, and I really need to get to work pretty soon reading this author’s other books. show less

This is a wonderful and well written book following the life of a 13 year old boy in 1983 living in a Worcestershire village called Black Swan Green, writing poetry under a pseudonym, fighting a stammer that threatens to make his life a misery, dealing with family tensions and learning a whole lot about himself and others on the way.

I loved the way that the book is written as though the 13 year old boy is writing it. Albeit a talented 13 year old boy, with some very creative use of metaphor - but even here, the writing is deliberately a little overdone to maintain that feeling of youth in the writing.

The author goes to great lengths to fasten the narrative to the year of 1983 - in fact here he does overdo it. Things a 13 year old at the time would take for granted are repeatedly spelled out, so that you feel the author is trying to remind us all the time of the year. But that is a minor criticism for a book that skillfully delves into the life of a 13 year old boy, and makes you remember what it was like - the good an the bad.

This book has hidden depths too. It explores some difficult themes, expertly dancing through them, masterfully pulling the threads together into a whole that is so much more than the sum of its parts.

Highly recommended.

a coming of age book that doesn't depend on epiphany--something rare. And it's got great warmth without smarm!

This is a children's book written for the adult mind. All of the horrors and torments of the regular youth, the fighting parents, the schoolyard bullies, the secrets, the shame, are written in such a way that memories of your own childhood will be conjured up, emotions fresh as if it were yesterday. Throughout the story, the main character has insights that are a mix of childhood imagination and innate wisdom, as he goes through the motions of the daily life and all of its consequences. It is a long, hard slog, with an end that while not triumphant is indeed a triumph; a child conquering what life throws at him and coming out of it bruised, but not broken. I extremely resent the fact that this is sometimes called the British Catcher in the Rye. That is one of the severest insults that exist in the literary world.

http://andalittlewine.blogspot.com/2012/12/book-review-black-swan-green-by-david...

I picked up Black Swan Green from our local library's annual book sale. I didn't remember much about it, beyond recalling the title on some "best books of Two Thousand whatever" from a few years ago. I didn't immediately make the connection to Cloud Atlas, also by David Mitchell.

So, it sat on a shelf, waiting to be read. When I needed a book for the flight down to Florida for my grandfather's memorial, I brought it along. And devoured it.

I rave about a lot of the great books I read. Of the books I read this year, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, Let the Great World Spin, and The Monsters of Templeton all occupy space in a top tier above raving. It's a spot where the material and skill of the author is so strong that it makes spend several days afterwards telling everyone I know about it. They're great books, steeped in their own worlds and messy at the edges in the way real life is. Their stories are tightly woven, but told in a way that is so authentic that we can't see the seams where the author guides us along.

Add Black Swan Green to the list.

A bildungsroman, each chapter highlights a different event of the stammering thirteen year old British boy who serves as our narrator. Caught on the cusp of adulthood, Jason's world is the perfectly captured world of childhood. Jason's fears- being outed as a stammerer, not understanding the slang of the boys on the schoolyard, keeping his parents show more happy- are pitch perfect. His struggle to come to grips with the larger world takes many forms- a broken pocket watch, the Falklands War, the poems he writes but is ashamed to share, a first kiss.

The best part of Black Swan Green is how it refuses to tie anything up neatly. Things end, lives end, stories end. But we never fully resolve all the forces that brought us to those ends. If I have a complaint, it's that the book ends with a platitude that I've used for years:
big sister says to Jason, "It'll be all right, in the end."
"It doesn't feel very all right."
"That's because it's not the end." show less

Living in New Zealand, I've found it hard to explain to friends, who are lovers of David Mitchell, why this is such a good book. For me it represents my childhood in the '80s and all the delicious details of those times are brought back for me with relish. Of course I also love Mitchell's obligatory self-referential excerpts and Black Swan Green's connection to one of one of the most haunting tales from Cloud Atlas.

I loved this book. It demonstrated for me that Mitchell can do more than multi-narrative inter-woven post-post-modernism and most importantly can delve deep within characters and show their inner workings, whilst still retaining their humanity.
Although it may not be as self-consciously intellectual as some of his other works, I really enjoyed the accessibilty of this story and was ultimately saddened by its finale.

Looking at life through the eyes of a thirteen year old boy, Black Swan Green tells the story of a year in the life of Jason Taylor who lives in a small village in Worcestershire during the early 1980’s. Thirteen is a difficult year for most young people and Jason is no exception. His main activities are ‘trying to fit in” and hiding his stammer by planning his sentences in advance.

Each chapter of this book tells us a separate story in the life of Jason. From his first cigarette to his first kiss, his adolescent pain at seeing his parents marriage crumble over the course of the year, his interest in the Falklands War, to dealing with bullying. It’s a very realistic look at being thirteen.

The authors’ deft handling of the story elevated this book far above a simple coming of age story. Each chapter has a flavor of its own which gives the reader much to relish. His characters are well drawn, complete people and he avoids getting overly sentimental. For me Black Swan Green captures the highs and lows of that time in life just before you understand what it’s all about. I found it absorbing and charming.

Jason Taylor is a thirteen-year-old boy who lives in the village of Black Swan Green , in Worcestershire. It's the eighties, and apart from the usual horrors of teenage boyhood, he must also contend with his stuttering, something that continually threatens his precious standing in his class's ranks.

Black Swan Green is David Mitchell's fourth, and perhaps most generally accessible, novel. While the structure is more traditional and is lacking in Mitchell's usual complexities, the linguistic pyrotechnics one has come to expect from him are there in abundance.

The novel covers thirteen months in the thirteen-year-old's life, beginning with a dark January. Jason invades his father's forbidden sanctuary, his home office, when the phone rings over fifty times. Jason answers it, however no one responds. In the background, Jason hears the familiar music of Sesame Street , and knows that someone is listening on the other end. This hints at the background of the novel – the marital problems his parents are undergoing, spurred on by his father's infidelity.

Throughout the novel, Jason undergoes many trials – his stuttering, the usual problematic adolescent relationship with his sister Julia, who disparagingly calls him ‘Thing,' the fickle and ever-shifting loyalties of his friends and classmates, who freeze him out and leave him friendless for much of the book. Watching Jason endure these trials and grow as a young man is somehow familiar.

Mitchell remembers vividly what it show more is like to be thirteen and have the world (seemingly) against you. His writing is authentic, poignant, and often very funny. This book is a gem, and will hopefully widen David Mitchell's readership! It's a must for Booker 2006! show less

Very enjoyable story, lyrically told. A coming of age story set in early 80s England, this book has a magical quality without getting annoyingly magical realist. The 'soundtrack" of all the songs the narrator mentions was the soundtrack of my own youth, as the author is just a couple of years younger than I. it does add to the "holy crap it sucks to be a boy in a British school!" body of literature. A young teen with a stammer tries to find his way through the social minefield while his parents' marriage falls apart and his sister grows up and leaves home. It's a funny book and a good read.

This is a wonderfully funny, wonderfully poignant, wonderfully vivid novel. The story of Jason Taylor's 13th year, with all of its attendant miseries and triumphs, is told by Jason with honesty, imagination, and just the right amount of insight. Mitchell's protagonist is a completely believable 13 year old boy, worried about war and cigarettes and kisses, curious about everything, and struggling desperately to maintain (or improve!) his social standing at his comprehensive school. Jason's stammering problem is particularly well described - the image of the Hangman, preventing Jason from using certain words and circumscribing his conversation, hovers over his every utterance. Only in his poetry can Jason speak freely, yet he writes anonymously, sure that his classmates will label his efforts "gay". Jason's growth over the course of the year chronicled in the novel is substantial, but Mitchell never forces his character, letting his maturation unfold naturally as he faces the trials and tribulations of youth.

Black Swan Green is a rather more standard departure for David Mitchell from his earlier ultra-creative, multiple voiced novels. On the surface, it is an early 1980's period novel about a 13 year old boy struggling to fit into the complex, often cruel world of his peers, while his home world slowly self-destructs. The novel is told via very discrete episodes, which each feel like a short story in themselves.

However, as always with David Mitchell, such descriptions will never do his books justice. There is more humour and meaning than first appears - even the clashing of colours in the title is a subtle joke, which makes us think of the protagonist more as a unique person, and perhaps one comfortable with inconsistencies. The inventive style, although incongruous with a young adolescent's voice, sparkles very brightly in places. Some set-pieces are electric, as they were in other Mitchell novels. The voicing of the adults is painfully acute at times. The capture of a world 30 years now past, replete with very frequent references to the little details of that time, is wonderfully real and evocative. Most interestingly, the young protagonist, Jason, does feel like a very real 13 year old kid, with huge gaps in his understanding (while we see the marriage falling apart almost from the first moment, Jason doesn't realise - or doesn't choose to realise - that this is happening until near the end), and a burning desire to be popular, even though more often than not he is at the show more sharp end of teenage brutality. Although his constant hopeful strivings can be seen by some as a heartening point of view, Mitchell is just reflecting again the unsophisticated mental world that Jason has - where depression is perhaps emotionally a little beyond him.

But while Jason himself might be unaware of many of his own thoughts and feelings, being reasonably young, his character itself is actually rather complex, and this is the main triumph of the novel for me - the way that Mitchell subtly makes Jason develop in response to world events, seemingly without any conscious direction, but always trying desperately to gain control in an uncontrollable world. Most tellingly - and easily missed - is the way that every quite discrete chapter we read is not actually an online capturing of events, but Jason's later rewriting of them, as a prose exercise, so he can fix mistakes, embellish moments and indulge at times in elaborate fantasy. In the end we are left confused, not knowing where the foundations of the novel really are. But this is a strength, not a weakness - we are left questioning how we all recreate the truth to fit our own conscience and sense of interest, and we also can't help question the nature of fiction itself.

The one unnecessary, and for me slightly false, note in this novel, though, is Jason's interaction with the old Belgian poetry guide. Atlhough interesting and vivid, it also felt pretentious and contrived, and sticks out like a sore thumb against the rest of the novel. But it did allow Mitchell to weave together this novel with previous ones, as this old lady and those she interacted with in her youth figure prominently in Cloud Atlas.

Although not as good as his earlier three novels, there is still much to love about Black Swan Green. The style is just so utterly skilled that I was gripped on every page, even when little seems to be happening (which was rare). Add to this the deliberate inconsistencies, the hidden meanings, and a second reading would definitely be warranted - and probably even more enjoyable. show less

David Mitchell is at heart a superb storyteller and this semi-autobiographical 'coming of age' tale is no exception. It doesn't matter it's set in boring old England or that it ticks all the standard tropes (you know the kind of thing boyhood adventures, bullying, family problems and first love) it is a captivating, emotional and fun tale.

We follow thirteen months of the life of 13 yr old Jason Taylor, a chapter for every month. At first this technique is jarring, especially as the 1st story stops so abruptly (familiar eh?) however as story progress the plots and themes mesh wonderfully into one strong linear tale and all you are left with are the hooks of our unanswered questions, with which we are occasionally rewarded a answer.

The setting is pitch perfect, as a child of 80s Britain myself I found the decade brought vividly and scarily to life. From food and music through to the Falklands war and bitter antagonism with gypsies, it's all there. Sadly this means it's hard for me to say whether the colloquiums are too much, I don't think though do.

One warning, I would read his other books first, because he does reference them. Characters such as Frobisher's love from Cloud Atlas make an appearance and this does impact your view of the story. On one level a dizzy sense of time flowing is gained, Black Swan Green is their past or their future and events outside Jason's world. On another level a question of unreality seeps into the novel, were these events inspiration or do show more these parts indicate the falsehoods in the tale.

These feelings are also enhanced by the rare sentence commenting on events, assuring us this event did or did not happen. Mix this with a sometimes profound and mature musing, sudden awareness of an authors presence and his manipulations. It maybe be obvious that memoir isn't always true but this deft touch adds insecurity and depth to a simple memoir.

Or course after my blatherings I must add it's not a tricksy post modernist book, it's just a damn fine tale and can be enjoyed as such. show less

I like the way the author writes, he is very funny. A great story about a 13 year old boy. Very realistic. My only wish is that it would have had more of an overall story. Each chapter kinda felt like its own separate story. Not that it didn't flow or anything, it did and it moved along, but it seemed like for a while that there was less of a plot and more of chapters/stories of this kids life. Good, just not my favorite style. I'll probably pick up the author's other books.

Black Swan Green is instantly relatable to all those who grew up on the wrong side of the “cool” railroad tracks of early adolescent life. There are numerous cliches on growing up, in fact the plot of the novel is perhaps best described as episodes of cliches strung together. This observation is not a knock at Black Swan Green though but rather a compliment. The novel takes painful paths (those we plodded down years ago) and finds truth, humor and perhaps a bit of vindication (You don’t need to be a jerk to get the girl or compromise who you are to fit in. Or at least that’s what I and the novel like to believe anyway.) Black Swan Green emphasizes not just the pains of growing up but the moments of flight as well, sending messages up to a kite with one’s dad or a friend who sticks up for you against bullies.

Framing the hurts and the triumphs is the novel’s melancholy language, sad and wistful , “An aeroplane glinted, mercury bright in the dark high blue.” A quiet book about a not so quiet time in one’s life, Black Swan Green is a pleasure to read.

Jason Taylor is a thirteen year old bastion of early 80s suburban torment, child to sniping parents, terrified into sullenness by his own stammer, desperate to maintain his middle-ranking status at his comprehensive school (not cool enough to hang out with the bullies, not geeky - or noticeable - enough to be consistently targeted by them), and excruciatingly baffled by his own sexuality.

Eliot Bolivar, by contrast, is a dashing poet, published in the Black Swan Green parish newsletter, capable of transforming the torture of Jason's daily social encounters into the meat of poetic observation.

And no one knows that these two people are in fact the same - or so Jason believes.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell - whose Cloud Atlas was so acclaimed and has sat neglected on my shelf for too long - is a detailed study of the mundane events of Jason's youth: the slow disintegration of his parents' marriage, his fear of their judgement, his daily struggle with thuggish brutes who either want to coopt him or pummel him, and his encounters with a series of flamboyant teachers. Most notable of these teachers is the forceful Madame Crommelynck, an aggressive bohemian who promises to nurture him as a poet. He is entranced by her artistic background, complete with a romantic genius of a father, a suicidal lover, and a flight from the Nazis, and pores over the artefacts and photographic remnants of that past.

For a time it seems that we know what kind of a coming-of-age story this will be show more - a tale of mentoring, in which the quirky guidance of the epigrammatic Mme. Crommelynck will guide Jason into a more honest sense of self. But then Madame is whisked away, a victim to her own secrets, and it becomes clear that in Black Swan Green as in Harry Potter, teachers can't do the working of growing up for you.

At first the youthful concerns of the novel (bullying, nascent sexuality, parental approval, being perceived as cool), its diction that perches precariously between surly catchphrases ("That's epic!") and self-conscious poetry, and its gleeful insistence on reminding us just what 1982 looked like culturally, may fool you (as it did me) into thinking that it is a surprisingly slight book. But oddities recur with literary frequency. Ringing phones haunt the households Jason occupies and visits, the unheard and ignored voices on the other end implying the mundane catastrophes that lie in wait for the houses' secrets to be made known. Secrets are the core of this novel, and, it reveals, at the core of virtually every YA novel, after-school special, and coming-of-age story. Puberty is the time when, new to the capacity for certain types of abstract thought and awoken by sexuality to new dimensions of social belonging and exclusion, we are forced to make decisions (seemingly final, but not truly so) about our identity, both about how we see ourselves and how we wish others to see us.

[A longer, more complete review can be found at http://sycoraxpine.blogspot.com/2007/08/black-swan-green-2006_10.html ] show less

Black Swan Green is a lyrical coming of age novel less noteworthy for its character and plot points than for its exemplary use of language to strike at the reader's heart. David Mitchell makes precise word choices and smoothly melds them into phrases and sentences that are greater than the sum of their parts. He's like a Wall Street hedge fund manager boldly using leverage to increase the reader's return on investment. He should be studied by every writer who wants to learn from one of the best.

In this book, Mitchell writes in the voice of a middle-class British school boy, using idioms and slang that may be a little off-putting at first. The slight effort to comprehend them is worth it, though, because it makes the casual reader show down a bit and enjoy the writing itself. From lyrical descriptions to crackling dialogue and heart-thumping exposition, Mitchell does it all well:

"I peered through Dad's razor-sharp blind, over the glebe, past the cockrel tree, over more fields, up to the Malvern Hills. Pale morning, icy sky, frosted crusts on the hills, but no sign of sticking snow, worse luck."

None of this is to say the story itself isn't compelling, although it's driven by mostly standard preteen angst. The protagonist, Jason Taylor, faces not only the usual afflications of puberty--unrelenting bullies, twittering girls, and a mountain of self-doubt--but a gut-twisting stammer that rules his inner life. His parents are engaged in a drama of their own, more sensed than show more seen, and outside events like the Falklands War and a local hate campaign directed at Gypsies add to the tensions in the story and flesh out the world he inhabits.

In addition to Catcher in the Rye, Black Swan Down will rank among the classic coming of age novels like A Separate Peace, A Boy's Life, and The Yearling. I suspect it is a book I'll come back to time and time again. show less

During his lunch break, a co-worker went into the bookstore by our office. There, in the bargain section, was a stack of Black Swan Green, one of his favorite books. For whatever reason, no book lover likes to see one of their favorites in the bargain section. Sure, it's probably just the product of an overzealous print-run, but if I found something meaningful in that book, then I would tend to think it's being undervalued, and perhaps even tainted by the scarlet sticker emblazoned on its cover. Rather than leave them there to be passed over by those who didn't realize they were walking past a true gem, my co-worker bought them. All. The whole pile of approximately twenty copies. He brought them back to work and started passing them out to anyone who he knew enjoyed reading. His sole caveat was that if you didn't think it would be your cup of tea, pass it along to someone else. The warm and fuzzy feeling elicited by this display of loyalty to a book meant that I simply dove into Black Swan Green, confident that here, I would find an excellent novel.

Black Swan Green is composed of thirteen chapters that chart thirteen months in the life of a thirteen year old boy. Jason Taylor is growing up in the English town of Black Swan Green (located in Worchestershire, which is "somewhere in the middle") in 1982. For England at large, that means Maggie Thatcher, the end of the Cold War, recession, and the Falklands War. For Jason Taylor, it means those things, but they tend to serve show more as background to his life spent navigating the complicated adolescent world of school, bullies, girls, secret clubs, bickering parents, and speech therapy.

It should come as no surprise that Black Swan Green is semi-autobiographical. Some critics have grumbled about this fact, saying that it restricted Mitchell's movements when he normally plays much more with form in his other work. The novel frames a little over a year in Jason's life, resulting in the fact that there isn't a single narrative arch to the novel. Instead, it could be taken as thirteen short stories, each highlighting an encounter or an experience that the reader can see will help shape his life and his character. Mitchell is then free to linger over details and characters, evoking a sense of what one really remembers about growing up. After reading this, I feel as though I've been given a very intimate glance into Mitchell's life. It went beyond the facts and illuminated the core of what it means to be on the cusp of adulthood, no longer a child but not quite a man. Black Swan Green might not have had a fancy literary format, meant to impress and surprise, but I was certainly dazzled with its quiet beauty and truth. It was quite a bargain indeed. show less

Damn, Mitchell really is a genius. This book is a bittersweet mix of cruelty and kindness, of idiocy and maturity, and of the pain and delight of growing up, from the point of view of a perceptive and complex teenager -- a genuine masterpiece version of Adrian Mole.

http://tinyurl.com/y8fmnygq

I was convinced this was Mitchell's first book while reading it, until I went and actually looked that fact up. A self-reflective novel about growing up as a smart stuttering boy in rural England and having more imagination than most others? It seems like an intelligent first book choice to me.

But no, it's actually Mitchell's 3rd book, and I would claim that of the books I have read of his (apparently not the first two), this one dials the fantasy factor way down. It seems to be exactly as I described above - which would make it nothing special if it were in anyone else's hands. But in Mitchell's, you can feel the ice on the pond under your feet, or understand the strange pull of a far distant set of hills, or be utterly confused about what to do when presented with a lost wallet stuffed with pound notes. It's the most evocative storytelling out there. (Heck, I still remember specific, detailed scenes from Cloud Atlas, which is saying a bunch for a book that is over 500 pages long.)

You'll understand far, far more about stuttering (and how it differs from stammering) but don't worry, there's nary a lesson to be found. It is a book told from the viewpoint of a 13-year-old boy - not many lessons are going to be gleaned from it. Unless it's that growing up as a boy utterly stinks. (Yes, I've clearly forgotten what it was like to grow up as a girl.)

A complete departure from Mitchell's usual multifaceted attack. This book is glaring proof that his fiction's solidity isn't the result of a puzzle-piece pile of style and wit that dizzies rather than tells (as some have claimed), but the fact that each individual piece of his puzzle is cut, measured, and perfectly colored while somehow remaining absolutely human.

Sensitive, evocative, sad and hopeful at the same moment. A brilliant novel about coming of age in early-80s England. Poor Jason Taylor, he's 13, saddled with a boring name, and growing up in the west Midlands in Thatcherite 1982. Introspection is not a strong value in his family or acquaintances.

Still, Jason has sensual and sometimes magical adventures. He manages to write passable poetry (albeit under a pseudonym) and stay alive despite beatings and humiliation by his dreadful classmates. He weaves between a mature subtlety of thought and its opposite: slang-ridden, simplified boy-speak that belies his actual depth. It's great.

Relationships around him crumple and fold and hurt. Families drink and fight. In his village, bigotry marauds as political concern and blind nationalism is the current trend. But it's surrounded by mystical, beautiful green and hills.

The chapter entitled "Bridle Path" is especially brilliant, detailing a day's trek on said path by Jason. It's an Odyssey-like set of occurrences that makes you feel like you might well end up in Middle Earth.

One of the better reads of this year.

What a year for Jason Taylor, a precocious sensitive thirteen-year old - whose clueless cloying voice should have grated but somehow didn't -, deftly dealing with bullying, self-identity and family. As is usual with such novels, the protagonist's wide vocabulary and florid prose - excused by his poetic status - still left him out of the void of adult subtleties which the reader is granted, such as his father's badly-hidden affair. It is mostly a light summery read, following the well-worn paths of a bildungsroman to its end of a happy ending.

The main highlights, due to the order I've read this author, are the recurring characters of Hugh - so great to see more of his brilliant compulsory lying and bullying, there really needs to be an entire novel on him -, and Eva whose presence feels more like a fantasy on Jason's account, as a nurturing figure for his poetic upbringing. The clarification of the difference between stuttering and stammering appealed to me as I like learning tidbits in books. This is one of the better kid-voice novels, which be a standalone read but can be appreciated more by Mitchell fans for the completeness of his oeuvre.

Black Swan Green is a year in the life of thirteen year old stammering Jason Taylor in the small town of Black Swan Green. David Mitchell assumes his voice with amazing deftness and skill.
What he does really well is immerse the reader in Jason's world. The narration, the voice is spot on. The characters are brought to life. The setting of Black Swan Green is brilliant. Two characters from Cloud Atlas make an appearance and all of it leads to a surprisingly cohesive whole that is much greater than the sum of his parts. A lot of novels with kids as protagonists are written but this is by far the best I have read. Its loads better than what they call Young Adult fiction and indeed I would rate it above A Catcher in the Rye.
Its not a novel light on subject matter, gypsies come into the picture at one stage and the unrest they cause in Black Swan Green is vividly rendered. Weighty matters are dealt with, without even once losing the narrator's voice.
Looking back at his other novels this is probably his simplest one in terms of structure and plot with no interleaving strands or overarching themes but that does not diminish Black Swan Green. This is easily his most heartfelt novel and he manages to lend a touch of magic even to the most mundane of activities.
This is a great addition to David Mitchell's ouvre and he really is a fine writer with a gift for storytelling and turning out sentences that stick with you long after the book is closed.

Read more reviews on show more target="_top">http://blog.kaipakartik.com show less

I listened to the audiobook through OneDigital, an iPhone app with a partnership with the library. The app itself was a little buggy -- it would forget where I had left off frequently, so frequently that I began saving bookmarks every single time I knew I was about to stop listening so that I could find my place again; it also needed me to sign in every few launches, so it wasn't the smoothest of listening experiences.
But the book was fantastic. I enjoyed the personification of Jason's stammer as Hangman and the travails of being a teenage boy with an older sister in the 80s. I thought he captured that awkward straddling of full teenage-hood and the childhood being left behind, in Jason's case a little more quickly as his parent's relationship deteriorates and he deals with the Black Swan Green bullies. As usual, with a David Mitchell book, there are threads in the story that rear their heads and then disappear beneath the surface of the story that hint at a larger, more complex version of reality than meets the eye, but unlike Bone Clocks or Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet they are left buried like the apocryphal children who have fallen through the ice into the pond.
Having heard David Mitchell speak about his own troubles overcoming a stammer on his Bone Clocks tour, I can imagine this is an intensely personal novel for him and while it never reaches the incandescent heights of some of his other books, I really enjoyed spending a year with Jason Taylor.

Well, I suppose I should preface this by saying that I LOVED Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, but I can definitely see where it's not for everyone. Part of what I loved about it is the way that Mitchell uses structure to add to the story, and he pays attention to structure in Black Swan Green as well. It's more reader friendly in Black Swan Green though. Cloud Atlas cuts each of the stories except for the last one in half and wraps them around each other, like Russian dolls. In Black Swan Green, both the passage of time and the number 13 are important, and so there are 13 chapters, one for each month that the book spans. You get an episode that happens each month rather than a completely continuous narrative. It works for me.

Black Swan Green is significantly more accessible than Cloud Atlas, although 80s British slang is sometimes like a different language. It's kind of like A Clockwork Orange though... you get used to it. And then you start wanting to whip out words from it and no one knows what the hell you're trying to say... unless they've read the book.

The narrator, Jason Taylor, is sometimes incredibly acute, but then also sometimes things go way over his head. It's also quite interesting to try to work out Jason's contradictions throughout the novel. For example, my favorite quote from the novel: "Me, I want to bloody kick this moronic bloody world in the bloody teeth over and over till it bloody understands that not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more show more bloody important than being right" (118). The following chapter makes this a very interesting statement indeed. By the end of the novel, though, Jason has moved forward. show less

'The world's a headmaster who works on your faults. I don't mean in a mystical or a Jesus way. More how you'll keep tripping over a hidden step, over and over, till you finally understand: Watch out for that step! Everything that's wrong with us, if we're too selfish or too Yessir, nosir, Three bags full sir or too anything, that's a hidden step.' -From Black Swan Green, page 291-

Thirteen year old Jason Taylor narrates a year of his life in this original coming-of-age story set in a sleepy English Village in 1982. A sensitive, imaginative youth who struggles with a persistant stammer (referred to as 'Hangman'), Jason captures the essence of adolescence with all of its pain, humor and budding sexuality. Mitchell's brilliant writing plunges the reader back in time to the adventures of youth...such as the joy of spending a Saturday exploring forgotten paths through the woods and playing in abandoned barns.

In 1982, Britain found itself embroiled in the Falklands War, and Mitchell weaves this through the novel, using it as a backdrop to the undercurrents of domestic unrest within Jason's home.

'A Pyrrhic victory is one where you win, but the cost of winning is so high that it would've been better if you'd never bothered with the war in the first place. Useful word, isn't it?'
-From Black Swan Green, page 115-

Mitchell's novel pulls the reader into its pages with remarkable characterizations and spot on dialogue (although to be honest, as a non-Brit reader, the dialect took a bit show more of getting used to). Even the character's names are unique, such as Squelch Hill, Gilbert Swinyard, Pete Redmarley, Miss de Roo and Mr. Inkberrow. Dawn Madden, tough-as-nails and sexy, and her power hungry boyfriend who embody the cruelty that lurks in all childhoods; and the magnificent Eva Van Outryve de Crommelynck are just a few of the many characters who materialize in living, breathing form. When Madam Crommelynck meets Jason for the first time and discovers his age, she says:

'"Ackkk, a wonderful, miserable age. not a boy, not a teenager. Impatience but timidity too. Emotional incontinence."' -From Black Swan Green, page 144-

I fell in love with Jason Taylor - perhaps because he writes poetry while still trying to keep up with the town bullies, or maybe because of his wry humor, or possibly due to his fine vision of what is important in life. At any rate, this is a kid that snatches the reader's heart and hangs onto it until the end.

At once both searingly honest and outrageously funny, Black Swan Green is a must read.

Highly Recommended. show less

I have a hard time saying why this book is so charming. Perhaps it's Jason's naked honesty as a narrator, the way he lays bare his own insecurity. Perhaps it's the way he anthropomorphizes his own impulses and problems, or how the initially de rigeur contempt/resentment relationship with his older sister rapidly becomes something more respectful and interesting. Perhaps it's that he writes poetry under the name of Eliot Bolivar.

At any rate, Black Swan Green manages to make a memorable voice and an individual story out of what seems like very ordinary material: young boy struggles with identity and social acceptance in small English town in the 80s. The plot does have its predictable moments, but also its surprises. I enjoyed the book, read it quickly, and liked Jason much more than the average teen protagonist.

David Mitchell has rapidly become one of my favourite authors, and Black Swan Green, his new book, does nothing to dissuade me from that.

Superficially at least, it's much more straightforward than his previous three novels; it tells of thirteen months in the life of 13 year old Jason Taylor in rural England in 1982, structured formally as thirteen inter-linked stories. Jason's a pretty normal kid, and faces some fairly normal events - school, bullies, his parents' disintegrating marriage, first love, first kiss, that sort of thing. The only thing that marks him out is a stutter, which he manages to keep more or less hidden, through a controlled use of language that finds a secret alternate expression in poetry that Jason writes under an alias.

Mitchell's strength in his previous books has been a blending of the fantastic and the real; of drawing connections between events and characters in such a way that expands the whole. Those elements, though still present, are more muted in Black Swan Green but what really marks this book out is a celebration of the ordinary; complex observations of relatively simple events and people. Jason, in Mitchell's hands, finds the magic and adventure of the best childrens' books from times past, and his life is by turn funny and sad. Mitchell's account of both Jason's stutter and what it is like to be a "middle-rank" 13 year old boy ring true; the only criticism is that on a few (though very few) occasions, Jason speaks too obviously with the show more older voice of his author rather than of his own, but in general the teenage narrator carries authenticity.

For anyone who grew up in Britain in the 80s, it's also at times a nostalgic look back at a world that seems both very close and very distant at the same time. I was a bit younger than Jason was in 1982, but the things he describes still resonate.

There is also a clear impression of semi-autobiography here, which gives the book some of the feel of a first novel. It is a first novel however written by a writer with considerable power with language, and conveys how that power can be used as a tool for change. In the seeds of Jason's adolescent poetry, shaped and defined by his utter reliance on manipulating language to avoid danger-words for his stutter, we can see the beginnings of Mitchell's own ability with language.

I have been a fan of Mitchell since Ghostwritten, and this book confirms it again. Having visited his past with this novel, I look forward to seeing where he goes next. show less

This 13 year old's life isn't really anything I can relate to but David Mitchell writes well and conveys 1980s Britain and growing up. With a stammer, family discontent and bullies this is often painful, sometimes funny and occasionally mystical. The novel takes the reader deep inside Jason's mind and feels his puzzlement about so many things, including what a Brummie is and his efforts to explain the adult world. Nicely constructed if maybe somewhat a fantasy.

Like all David Mitchell's books, I loved Black Swan Green. It's told from the perspective of 13 yr old Jason Taylor, growing up in 1981 England. A bit reminiscent of the Adrian Mole Diaries, the first person narrative let's us ride along in Adrian's mind as he experiences early adolescence.

There's only a slight hint of the surreal that permeates some of Mitchell's other books, but that's ok - it's a different type of story. The writing itself is beautiful - sometimes lyrical - and the imminent monologue and dialogues are spot-on for tone. Highly recommend!

David Mitchell has been universally confirmed now as one of the world’s best young experimental novelists. He has been named by Granta of one of the UK’s best young writers, and two of his first three books were shortlisted for the prestigious Booker prize, one of which, Cloud Atlas, was cruelly robbed in one of the worst upsets in Booker history (according to me). So what do you do when you have written three critically acclaimed masterpieces of experimental literature? Why you write a semi-autobiographical coming of age novel of course. I suppose for such an experimental author writing your first novel fourth is about as experimental as you can get.
So I had some mild trepidation going into this book even though Cloud Atlas is one of my favourite books. But Mitchell is so damn good that he manages with exquisite grace, even in this overused genre, to craft an excellent novel. It tells the story of a young boy growing up in the UK during the Falklands War and Margaret Thatcher, watching his parents struggle at home, fighting for some recognition and popularity at school, and battling his stutter in every sentence. The book is told in a series of chapters which exist almost like short stories, much like his other novels, but also maintains a coherent chronological flow. It is a simple story of a young boy but it is extremely well written and engaging. This book only goes further to show that David Mitchell is not only one of the best young writers out there, but one show more the best writers period. Though not as inventive and amazing as his earlier work this book succeeds masterfully in its genre. It is eminently readable and interesting. He manages to create a real and specific image of his world that easily draws us in. This only confirmed my thoughts on Mitchell, and I will most certainly be there on the first day that his future books are published. show less

Unconvincing child narrators are one of my recurring sources of ire in literature. David Mitchell only seemed to be self-consciously channeling Holden Caulfield about half of the time. The other half of the time, his Jason was utterly heartbreaking and convincing. The "Hangman" chapter was one of the best I'd read in a long time and instantly had me excited about Mitchell again after the disappointing Number9Dream almost convinced me that Cloud Atlas was an anomaly.

Verdict: I would highly recommend this book to people who like well-written stories about painful adolescence. Not so much to those who hate Catcher in the Rye and its like.

Jason Taylor is thirteen years old, living in a village in Worchestershire, in the west midlands of England. It is 1982, the cold war is dying and Margaret Thatcher is playing host to a continuing recession and the Falklands War.
This coming of age novel, tracks a year in Jason's life. In episodic bursts, we see days of wonder and joy, followed by flashes of adolescent brutality, as Jason is mercilessly bullied, for having a stammer. He is also a bystander, to the unraveling of his parents marriage, which is particularly painful to the teenager. Jason is a faithful narrator, very bright, with poet instincts and aspirations, without the smart-alecky Holden Caulfield approach.

Mitchell based this story, on his own rough and tumble childhood. This was also his follow-up, to his masterpiece, Cloud Atlas, and clearly proved and solidified his reputation for being one of the best English novelists working today.

I loved this book. Absolutely loved it. Black Swan Green's a sleepy little village in Worcestershire, England, and Jason Taylor's a not-quite-typical 13 year old from a middle class family. It's 1982, Jason's in the smart kids' class at school, writes pretty good poetry on the sly, has a stammer that he tries desperately to hide, and like all 13 year olds, really wishes he were one of the popular kids. Mitchell captures Jason's voice perfectly and through it reminds you exactly what it was like to be a teenager, warts and all. I was reminded just how happy I am that you only have to be a teenager once.

It's not really a happy story, though it is both witty and hopeful. The last line was perfect. I love it when that happens.

I've got a copy of Cloud Atlas here; I feel sure I'll pick it up as my very next read.

Here are a few quotes from the book that I particularly liked (keep in mind, this was an ARC, but if they change these lines, I may have to smack the editor):

"Who decides which defects are funny and which ones are tragic? Nobody laughs at blind people or makes iron-lung jokes."

"A cow of an awkward pause mooed."

"War may be an auction for countries. For soldiers it's a lottery."

"I lay back on the armless sofa. I've never listened to music lying down. Listening's reading if you close your eyes.

Music's a wood you walk through."

"People are a nestful of needs. Dull needs, sharp needs, bottomless-pit needs, flash-in-the-pan needs, needs for things you can't hold, needs show more for things you can. Adverts know this. Shops know this. Specially in arcades, shops're deafening. I've got what you want! I've got what you want! I've got what you want! But walking down Regents Arcade this afternoon, I noticed a new need that's normally so close-up you never know it's there. You and your mum need to like each other. Not love, but like."

I highly recommend this book, especially to those who liked Jonathan Coe's The Rotter's Club and Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum. It'll definitely be one of my favorites for the year. show less

A cultural-reference-soaked journey back to the 1980s, perfectly aimed at the 35+ generation, who came of age during this decade just as Mitchell's protagonist is doing.

On one level, this book was extremely well-crafted and catapulted me backwards to a time I remembered oh so well. It made it very easy to identify with the main character from the outset - a boy on the cusp of teenage awakening, dealing with bullying, stuttering, divorce and the change in family dynamics caused by an older sister moving away. The reader follows him through first crushes and kisses in a way that is almost painful for those of us who were in his position at the same moment in time. The fact that I remained caught up in his really mundane life is a testament to Mitchell's easy writing style and the reality of his characters.

On another level, the book isn't subtle. The cultural references fall thick and fast in every paragraph and I would be interested to know how it reads for someone of a different age or cultural background for whom the social and commercial references have a less immediate meaning.

I thoroughly enjoyed this nostalgia ride and find Mitchell's prose style, while not deep, extremely accessible and easy on the reading ear. I would certainly recommend it: for those of us that lived that time, it will take you right back and for those that didn't, it will show you clearly what it was like for the rest of us!

I loved Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, so I picked this one up next. I really, really couldn't get into it, no matter how much I tried. It took me a year to read, in bits and pieces.

There were definitely moments of sublime beauty in what Jason Taylor describes, which is what kept me coming back to it in fits and starts. Each chapter had moments where I was completely blown away. Having read the last little bit just now, the one that sticks in my mind the most was pretty much everything that happened in the Guy Fawkes Fair chapter. The descriptions and events were completely perfect.

But otherwise... part of me resisted because it was a mundane story. A boy getting bullied, who has a stammering problem he (mostly) is able to avoid in public, and pretty much just does young teenage boy things like hang out with his friends, avoid bullies, try to get accepted by the cool kids, worry about school and himself, et cetera. His parents have a strained relationship throughout the novel. Despite the wonderful descriptions and moments of beauty, the story was just too mundane to keep me interested.

Part of the problem, too, may have been that it uses a lot of very British slang and contractions, which slowed me down significantly when reading, and it was hard for me to plow through that on top of the mundane subject matter. I appreciated the touch though, as it brought a lot of character to Jason.

I still loved the other two novels I read by David Mitchell, and show more I am very much looking forward to his newest in two weeks. This makes me hesitate to try his two earlier novels, though. show less

As coming-of-age novels go, Black Swan Green is among the best and most believable I have read. The story of Jason Taylor is in no way spectacular, as much is happening in the fictionous span of one year than in a life of a real 13-year old. Still it is diffucult to stop reading, both because it is everyone's story, and it is delightfully nostalgic whether you grew up in England or elsewhere. Mitchell manages to write a story as seen through the eyes of a 13-year old, while at the same time use a vivid and rich adult language. This is harder than you think! Recommended.

In Mitchell's words Black Swan Green is 'a novel that describes the year before coming-of-age' (I'm paraphrasing). In this it captures something indelible and moving. A voice of a 12-year-old boy, a brain developing, an expression feeling out for itself the first tastes of an adult world. It feels immediate, not nostalgic. It is perhaps a little unsatisfying - maybe though that's the point. The protagonist himself is a little unsatisfied, is readying himself for a change. This novel describes (and seems like) the calm before a storm.

Good but being written from a child's point of view is a big problem, in my view. The general outline of the plot felt really close to a lot of my experiences and some parts were really effective in that sense but this just made the bits where it wasn't realistic incredibly jarring. There are a few bits which are clearly far out of the ordinary and these don't bother me as much as the unrealistic patterns of speech and social dynamics that are clearly supposed to be the bread and butter of the book. The ending is frustrating too because it ends after a year, right at the point a dramatic change actually happens in the life of the main character (everything else has been a lot of small events). The chapter breaks can be annoying because they typically end right before revealing the consequences of something - usually you can infer it from the chapter following but in places it makes the narrative confusing and elides important events.

This isn't to say the book is *bad* - not at all. His writing is excellent as ever, it made me tear up in places and bits were frighteningly realistic. It's just somewhat frustratingly inconsistent, marring the experience somewhat. I'd recommend reading his other books first.

On a final note, a few times he does "something happened actually it didn't." It feels like something out of Goosebumps and is just straight up bizarre.

later note: i reviewed this when i was really ill and i kind of dunno if i'd agree with what i wrote much. thinking back show more on it a month later all I can remember is how much it hit home. Just thinking about it makes me kind of sad. I think I was put off by the sadness. If you've liked David Mitchell I'd read this. show less

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (Sceptre - pp 371) is a year in the life of a thirteen year old boy. Set in 1982 it takes place in England with the backdrop of the Falklands War and Maggie Thatcher’s reign as Prime Minister.

The hero is Jason Taylor and his life is affected by a stammer, bullying, and the anguish of growing up and having to talk to girls. Jason is pre-occupied with what a thirteen year old boy should be doing and what a thirteen year old boy shouldn’t be doing, and the ensuing consequences for his social status in school and amongst the other boys in the village where he lives. This leads him to hide his passion for writing poetry and to shy away from anything that might be interpreted by his peers as being gay.

This book is about discrimination; victimisation; prejudice; growing up; personal anguish; and life in general.

While reading the first half of the novel I thought things were a bit slow and was wondering should I continue. Then I got to a chapter in which some very interesting things were said about poetry and I knew then I would finish the book. Now that I have done so I am glad that I persevered.

I did not find this a brilliant book, and I would not tell everyone to rush out and get a copy, but I did find it thought provoking and rewarding. I would give it 7 out of 10 if pushed for a rating.

This is quite a different book from Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and is definitely mainstream with no Science Fiction or fantasy elements involved. It is a show more good book to read if you are looking for a bit of introspection. show less

A fun and interesting book about one year, 1982, in a teenage boy's life. What made this book interesting for me is that Mitchell's prose is solid enough to take you back to some memories that you haven't thought about in many, many years. I could relate to the cliques in school, the importance of how to behave so as to remain "cool", and the mixed emotions of the fairer sex at the age of 13.

Our narrator dealt with things which were foreign to my childhood experience but this was a good thing. He has a speech impediment and a conscience both of which make him a prime target for childhood cruelty. Not to say that I didn't/don't have a conscience but my friends didn't put me into some of the situations our character finds himself in. In the end, it gives you an insight into what other children that you knew experienced. It's a wonderful reminder for me as a parent to a 7-year old boy of what to be prepared for over the next 10 years.

In the end, I rated the book as I did because it was a good book but not spectacular. Mitchell writes well, is engaging, and builds strong characters. The book was good. However, I would occassionally get lost in the names (there were a lot of kids and teachers in this book). I also docked it a 1/2 point because the book is not unique. The number of coming of age stories are limitless in the literary world. Most just aren't limited to a one year timeframe.

For Mitchell to be all the rage in the UK, I expected more. It was my first (probably a show more mistake as I own Cloud Atlas) but it won't be my last. I look forward to another Mitchell as I suspect I've read his least unique piece of writing and have still been pleased with my time spent. show less

Is it OK to admit that I've not really got David Mitchell before. I plodded through number9dream without enjoying it, and had to miss some of the chapters to get through Cloud Atlas. This, though, I really adored, a wonderfully nostalgic (but not in a bad way) simply told story of childhood, or rather thirteen months of it for a stammering boy in Black Green Swan. You get tales of failure, humiliation, that weirdness that only exists in childhood imagination, but overall, an underlying feel good story, one of triumph (if only in small way) of the underdog. Recommended.

I liked this one a lot. A fun voice, a neat sense of nostalgia, and bits here and there that invite rumination. It's not a hard book by any stretch of the imagination, or a formally tricky one (a la Cloud Atlas), but neither is it exactly light-weight. It's one I'd read again, possibly on a single tear with the other Mitchell I've read. Now I'm off to get his two earliest novels and will wait with bated breath for the next.

"But yeah, it's another coming of age story--wasn't all that done with when Catcher in the Rye came out?"

Bollocks. Just in that word we have a reason why 'coming of age' is not finished; it evolves based on culture and, in some cases, truly exceptional psychological/dysfunctional upbringings.

And of course, there's the clown--James Frey...

BUT back to the matter at hand.

Loosely vortexed around the Falklands War, one of the most farcical/tragic wars to exist (of Heller-esque proportions), the book relates the wonderfully eccentric life of a 'secret poet' and awkward young man in Thatcher's England.

Mitchell is known for his flair of the fantastic and science-fictiony, and what makes "Black Swan Green" a triumph is how straight it's told.

It's most thrilling to the 'commonwealth' readers, but cultural references are not too obscure for 'yanks' or other readers...

AND as a bonus there's a supremely subtle reference to his epic "Cloud Atlas".

This book is by one of my favorite writers, David Mitchell. I love his magical realism in books like Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas. But this book was different, nothing magical happening here. This is a book about a boy in England, thirteen years old. He stammers, he is bullied, and at home, his parent are having a rough time, and he is discovering who he is. In thirteen chapters, different happenings in his life are told. In the end they form a whole, forming this boy into a fourteen year old.
Even though this book is different from the last two books by Mitchell I have read, and indeed different from what I had expected, I really enjoyed it. Sometimes the story was a bit disorderly, but then again, it is told by a thirteen year old, and his mind is racing a mile a minute. A very nice read, four out of five stars.

It took me a little bit to get into this book (I think mainly due to how Mitchell rendered their style of speech/slang), but once I did - whoa - so good. Though the characters were a little harder on each other/hierarchy obsessed than felt realistic to me, overall the book is pitch perfect. David Mitchell writes beautifully and drops wisdom without being overly sappy or preachy the way authories about/for the YA crowd tend to be (I'm looking at you, John Green!).

Ten years after 1982, when Black Swan Green is set, I lived in Hanley Swan which is the village the book is based in (with a name change). I lived there from when I was 11 to 14 so reading this book was pretty freaky. It's like it's set in a version of my childhood. The story sucked me in, the writing's so good. David Mitchell perfectly captures what it's like to be a 13 year old boy. All the problems and worries that I remember, including gypsies, as well as some others I never had to deal with.

Quite a bit different from Mitchell's past novels--this is a kind of coming of age fiction set in the 1980's in a small village in rural England. It as a much about how 13 year old Jason Taylor sees himself and how everyone around him sees him. Jason wants terribly to belong and for much of the book although not one of the most popular or toughest kids he falls somewhere in the middle status-wise. His father is an agressive go-getter executive for a supermarket. His mother stays at home. His sister Julia some 5 years older than he is allowed and allows herself certain liberties that he can't seem to attain. Jason writes poetry but he keeps it hidden because it will mark him out as 'gay' to his peers. He also stutters over certain phonetic sounds--that begin with s's and n's and has become quite adept at substituting other words that don't to take their place. His one major fear is to have to get out in front of a class and read from a text. His father and mother begin to have marital problems--mostly over money and how it is to be spent--and in the meantime Jason will find that all his fears will come right out in the open and he will become he fears more than anything--a pariah to be picked on by the most popular and the meanest kids in his school. Eventually though Jason comes to realize not only things about himself but also insights on others as well. As he begins to turn the tables on his tormenters though his parents marriage is falling apart.

Anyway it's a very show more good book and although quite different from the rest of Mr. Mitchell's work it is also worthy of it. Very clean and easy to read prose. Some of the characterizations are particularly wonderful in particular Madame Crommelynck, his sister Julia and his friend Moran. It's a compelling plot and I'd recommend it along with all the rest of Mr. Mitchell's work. show less

What a wonderful evocation of a time and place this book is. Told in the first person by Jason a 12/13 year old boy who writes poetry in secret, it charts a 13 month period in his life in the early 1980s. The Falklands War occurs, his parent's marriage breaks up, he is subjected to sustained bullying at school, he experiences his first kiss, and starts to discover who he really is and what he really wants. A really absorbing, funny, poignant book that makes one think back to one's own early adolescence - what one can remember of it!

Incredibly evocative of both a particular time and place, and of the universal feeling of being young and finding yourself and your place in the world as it constantly shifts around you. Masterful.

After reading this book for the second time now, I have increased my rating with a full star. The first time I read it, I didn't really like it; I suspect because the topic (teenage boy struggling with problems in the UK in the early 80's) didn't really speak to me (a Dutch 20-something woman). However, during my re-read, I was impressed with the style that the book is written in. The language is really very beautiful, and I started to feel a lot of sympathy for the main character, Jason. I still could not love the book, but is has certainly prompted me to read more David Mitchell books.

Another good story from David Mitchell; I'm surprised I had missed this one for so long, since I'm usually pretty diligent about reading his books shortly after publication. A great, amusing narrator, matched with Mitchell's usual lively writing and just a hint of the fantastic.

a year in the life of a boy in a small village in central England during the 80's, bullies, first love, family squabbles and the Falklands War. Enjoyed this quite a bit. Very "English" in the language that took me a bit to muddle thru, but not too bad.

A cow of an awkward pause mooed.
Art fabricated of the inarticulate is beauty

I don't like books, in general, with male protagonists. I just can't identify with what goes on in their lives. (Female brain/male brain differences provide a clear understanding of this) But this book had me from page one. I read it slowly, over about a month or more, and loved our main character, hated those other awful bullying boys. I know nothing about the growing up years of boys. My own two sons were reticent to talk about anything during their junior high and high school years. I can only hope my sons had help like Madame Eva and a teacher or two. The ending is wonderful.

What is beauty? What is life all about? The questions that generate and resonate from the years when coming of age are present in this fine novel. The young boy at the center of this story is fascinating in his experiences and recognitions of life and love and the joy of existence. Highly recommended.

I wasn't sure how to take this book going in; I knew that Cloud Atlas was six interconnected novelas when I started it, and since this book was all about one kid, I was expecting it to be more of a novel, more connected than it actually was. When I realized that it wasn't exactly a novel but more of a short story cycle, I started enjoying it more than when I was expecting some connection, some plot conflict that laced the chapters together (more than "the perils of being 13"). Mitchell's a great writer, though, and by the end, the fact that it is the same narrator throughout is enough to lace the separate stories into one Story, with everything tied together more neatly than you'd expect. The characters created are intensely drawn; some of the other school kids are a little interchangeable, but the main characters - especially Jason, the narrator - feel more like real people than most fiction. Overall, a very good read as long as you go in expecting some initial disconnect.

A beautiful and humorous coming-of-age story. Jason Taylor is a boy living in fear. Held hostage by his minor stammer, he is forever trying to keep his weakness hidden from his middle school classmates. If anyone learns the truth about him, his already low social status will be irretrievably sunk.

Add that to the escalating fights brewing between his parents, and Jason fears that his life might soon be spinning out of control. As the bullying at school intensifies, Jason begins to understand that if his life is ever to improve, he must work to overcome his fears. Touching in its unflinching look at childhood, this novel captures the anxieties of the teenage years.

I expected this book to be better based on critical acclaim. It was difficult for me to get into -- I think just based on subject matter -- I am not too interested in 13 yo boys. and the British jargon was tough for me. Overall though I admired his writing style and the book's format. I am contemplating trying something else of his out.

I loved this book! While I was never a teenage boy and my life never had nearly this much drama when I was a kid, I could still definitely relate to a lot of it. I'm amazed by how well the author remembers what it was like to be 13. His narrator was totally believable. And a lot of the writing was absolutely beautiful. "If swans weren't real, myths'd make them up." Plus, reading all that British 80's slang makes me want to talk nonsense words and pretend they mean something!

As a fan of coming of age novels, especially those set in contemporary eras, I was eager to read Mitchell's work. The fact that the book was showered with rave reviews, and that the plot included splashes of contemporary history raised my expectations even higher. That's why I was stunned when I couldn't even make it halfway through this tome. I can't say it any other way. I found most of it painfully boring. I kept saying to myself "the next chapter will hook me." It never happened. There's no denying that Mitchell is a skilled author. Perhaps I need to try some of his earlier novels. But this one just didn't do it for me.

I loved this book! Written from a 12 year old boy perspective it comes alive. Mitchell's descriptions are spot on. For example when he likens bus diesel fumes to a newly sharpened pencil smell it is exactly what a schoolboy would say. I particularly liked how the author dealt with Jason's stammering via the 'Hangman' squeezing his throat so that he could not get his words out. The bullying made me feel quite emotional. Do read this if you can.

Brings back all of my wretched memories of the bullies and hazing with a vengence! And makes me grateful that I made it through that period in my life without even more scars. At turns poignant and funny, this story is told in a year-long stretch of something resembling short stories. Low key but luminous.

Story of Jason Taylor, 13, a young boy growing up in England. Family is well off and lives at Black Swan Green. It is told in episodes, short stories taking place over the course of a year.

For some reason, I rate this more highly than others in my book group. I sympathized with Jason. He is trying to find his place in the ranks at school, dealing with kids who label him as a loser for various, silly reasons. He is very naive. His parents' marriage is falling apart. I didn't have it quite so badly - I was never beat up, for one - but I do remember, vividly, the feeling of being an outcast, particularly in sixth grade.

I loved reading about Jason's adventures, his highs and lows, his attempts to find his way in an unkind world, his emerging poet-self, his application of what he knows of morality to the situations in which he finds himself. He has quite a few adventures, notably, his initiation into the Spooks gang, his foray into Gypsy territory, and his conversations with Madame C.

I can never seem to convey the feeling of a book - but by the end of this one I felt flooded, overwhelmed by how much I cared about this character.

Another great Mitchell book. A modern "Catcher in the Rye" set in England. Both funny and sad. A good coming-of-age story.

"The cow of an awkward pause mooed."
This sentence alone is reason enough to read Black Swan Green. I didn't enjoy this novel nearly as much as Ghostwritten or Cloud Atlas - after the fireworks and tricks of those other books I kept expecting something out of the ordinary to happen in Black Swan Green, which never eventuated - but Mitchell remains one of my favourite writers for his command of descriptive language and his ability to completely inhabit the voice and personality of his narrators.

A beautifully written book in the main. I found the early chapters a bit maddening with their constant cultural references - OK, its the 80s, I get it - but then it seemed to get into its stride more and the characters and atmosphere developed in a more fluid way. He captures the trauma and confusions of growing up, of childhood friends and enemies, of family strains really well. It's very different from his previous books, but (I think) littered with references to people and events from them - really should do some re-reading to pick up more of these. Some events seem quite surreal, and some chapters stop before events are fully explained, but it all feels like its come to a satifying solution by the end.

Un coming of age que sigue al protagonista, un niño tartamudo de 13-14 años a lo largo de un año de su vida.

Me costó un poco cogerle el tono, ya que cada capitulo es como una mirada a su vida, casi como relatos individuales (mas normal en el estilo de Mitchell) que como capítulos que forman una historia larga. Es una novela muy costumbrista pero que en muchos momentos me ha retraído a recuerdos de mi propia infancia.

Me ha gustado más de lo que esperaba.

Loved this, not really what I was expecting. Surprisingly poetic but a straightforward read. Although I'm too young to remember that early in the 80s, the book captures the monocultural, village life that I recall very well from my youth - definitely brings back how awful early secondary school life is and the social stratas between kids which are a minefield to navigate.

Highly recommended.

Mensmerizing, nuanced & poignant coming of age story about a young boy with a stuttering problem growing up in 1980's England. The book takes place during his 13th year and it is awe-inspiring how Mitchell, telling the story in first person, subtly and gradually matures his character's way of thinking about and relating to the world. Mitchell is a mster. Black Swan Green has entered my personal pantheon of favorite books.

In the words of Jason Taylor, thirteen year old hero of Black Swan Green, David Mitchell “is ace.” I would go so far as to say he is the most brilliant of all contemporary popular authors. Show me the writer who can write in six very different styles with six unique voices and hold it all together; now show me the author that can do it in one book as Mitchell did in Cloud Atlas.

Black Swan Green was Mitchell's follow-up to his renowned third novel. Because of this, I'm sure many readers had massive expectations. How could Mitchell follow such a ground-breaking epic with a story about a stammering thirteen year old? Yet Mitchell does it quite well, getting into the voice of another character much in the fashion of Cloud Atlas. David Mitchell was largely believable as Jason Taylor.

If you've never read Mitchell before, know that his novels aren't necessarily easy and often start with muddy direction and understanding. When I started Cloud Atlas I struggled with it; I wondered what I was getting into. I've heard many others express the same sentiment. But as it moved along it became better and clearer until the book was carrying my along. Though significantly smaller in scope, Black Swan Green carries much of the same experience. It starts slow and events at the beginning seem insignificant, it's hard to get invested in these characters, and come on, what's original about the adolescent coming of age story? Midway there's that change and by the end, well—Mitchell's show more brilliant.

My favorite thing about David Mitchell is how he ties his books and stories together regardless of how separate they are in time and scope—it's the premise of Cloud Atlas retold in Mitchell's own writing career. Amazing. Black Swan Green makes allusions to every Mitchell novel that preceded it, as well as to several published stories. It motivates me to read his entire collection straight through from the beginning. And that's what I'm going to do. Next time I pick up a Mitchell novel (which will not be long from now), I'm starting from the beginning with Ghostwritten. Hopefully I'll have read all of his works by the time his sixth novel is published. show less

David Mitchell has no idea of how an American sounds like.
Annoying, the way eccentric characters are twirled into the story and twirled right back out.

I guess those are my only two reservations about this book, a coming-of-age story that feels spot on. Books where I can see myself, that vibrate with shared experience or shadows of familiarity, those are the ones that can slice to the deepest quick. This isn't one of them, since I wasn't a smart boy who was 13 in 1982 in a small village in England with a stutter who had to navigate an intricate tangle of kid politics. But while my quick went uncut, this came as close as anything could. I loved the lessons learned, though it was a little heavy-handed in making sure we got it by spelling it out for the reader at the end of many of these little capsules in time, strung together to make up an eventful year in the lift of Jason Taylor. And while his immediate world around him went belly-up, I appreciated the happy ending in the form of gargantuan personal development. Also, funny bits, triumphant bits, soft in the heart bits.