David Mitchell's second novel number9dream uses a similar episodic format to his brilliant
but fragmentary debut Ghostwritten to create a more coherent and assured narrative that is part
detective part coming-of-age story. Eiji Miyake 20 naïve and wholly loveable encounters a
frantic exotic world when he comes to Tokyo from his small island home to find the father he
has never met. Pin-stripped drones a lip-pierced hairdresser midday drunks ... Not a single
person is standing still ... a thousand faces per minute ... oven-hot ... ready to buckle under
the weight of cloud at any moment. Eiji is a dreamer a Billy Liar for the Cyberpunk
generation. His fantasies structure this frenetic kaleidoscopic narrative conducting the
reader on an exhilarating disorientating tour of metropolis and mind. One minute Eiji is
contending with arcade-game cybourgs the next caught up in a Blue Velvet-type nightmare with
real-life (perhaps) gangsters: "dragged into a turf war between wolves with rabies". So what
was crazed and charming becomes dangerous and gripping. This exotica and cyber-unreality allow
more traditional novelistic concerns--a boy's coming of age the exploration of ethical
responsibilities or the great human universals of love and duty--to creep up unobtrusively.
Pretty soon the realisation dawns: this isn't just fun this isn't just clever this is a great
perhaps a very great novel. A Joycean delight in language and parody combines with
affectionate characterisation and an impressive narrative control to make number9dream an
extraordinary and rewarding experience. --Robert Mighall
