The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
By David Mitchell
Sceptre/Hodder and Stoughton
2010, 469 pages
ISBN 978-0-340-92156-2
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
This readable historical novel set in Japan has been well reviewed in the national press. Many Japan Society members will have read about it and some may already have read the book. Anyone interested in the life of the tiny Dutch merchant colony at Dejima in Nagasaki bay during the Edo era is likely to be fascinated by Mitchell’s depiction of the scene. Mitchell, who was advised by among others Professor Tim Screech of SOAS, has clearly done his research with care and attention to detail, but readers need to bear in mind that the book is fiction and not history.
The story begins in 1799 when Jacob de Zoet, a young Dutch clerk, comes out to Dejima with a new chief appointed to weed out fraud and corruption. The chief soon becomes as corrupt as his predecessors and Jacob suffers for his honesty. The members of the colony come to life as the story progresses especially the cantankerous doctor to the colony who is teaching western medicine to Japanese students. The Dutch relationship with the Japanese interpreters is also described in fairly convincing terms. However I found the romantic attachment of Jacob to a Japanese woman who is being trained as a midwife unconvincing. Her kidnapping on the orders of Abbot Enomoto and the nefarious practices of his monastery seem far fetched. The term abbot suggests that Enomoto was a Buddhist, but the practices he alleges took place were certainly not Buddhist.
One of the most convincing episodes in the book is that of the visit to Nagasaki of a naval vessel HMS Phoebus alleged to have taken place in 1800. Captain Penhaligon of the Phoebus with his painful gout could well have existed.
HMS Phaeton did visit Nagasaki in 1808 flying a Dutch flag and took Dutch hostages while its demands for supplies were being considered. The port’s garrison was under strength and the magistrate had no alternative but to meet the British demands. He took responsibility and committed ritual suicide. British ships again entered Nagasaki harbour in 1814 with instructions this time to contest the Dutch trading monopoly. On board was a former Dutch chief factor enlisted to persuade his fellow Dutchmen to stand down, but Henrik Doeff, the chief factor in Dejima at the time, stood firm and warned the British that the Japanese would react violently to any attempt to force the issue. In the novel the two episodes have been conflated and alleged to have taken place at an earlier period in the Napoleonic war before Sir Stamford Raffles for Britain had taken temporary control of the Dutch East Indies. The doctor to the Dutch colony who became such an expert on Japan in the early 19th century and taught Dutch medicine was Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1868) who arrived in Nagasaki in 1823. He had a daughter Ine (or Oine) by his Japanese mistress.