Number9dream
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- The correct title of this article is number9dream. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
David Mitchell’s second novel, number9dream, is a coming of age/perception story that breaks convention by juxtaposing Eiji Miyake’s actual journey toward identity and understanding with his imaginative journey. By portraying Eiji in terms of his narration as well as through fantasies, books, games and dreams, Mitchell enables us to read more deeply into Eiji’s experiences and ideas, as we learn that our perception of events is often even more important than the facts behind them.
With a thoughtful narrative voice that changes based on Eiji’s immediate experiences, Mitchell cultivates not just one character in a novel, but a whole community of influences through his narrator. This community is made up of media as well as individuals, emphasizing the sociological role of media in creating and supporting personal identities.
number9dream is structurally broken down into eight full-length chapters, as well as a final chapter ‘nine’ that is untitled and unwritten. Eiji narrates all of these chapters, and yet each chapter is still unique because the alternate reality that Eiji experiences changes in each one.
The first eight chapters are titled as follows: PanOpticon, Lost Property, Video Games, Reclaimed Land, Study of Tales, Kai Ten, Cards, and The Language of Mountains is Rain. The ninth chapter is blank because according to Eiji’s dream John Lennon, “the ninth dream begins after every ending” (398).
In PanOpticon, the alternate reality that Eiji experiences is his fantasy of breaking tight security restraints at PanOpticon to find his father. In Lost Property, Eiji is sidetracked from his search because of his job at Lost Property. This is also the chapter where he first discusses memories of Anju, his ‘lost’ sister. And so on.
This all-encompassing novel even includes the entire collection of children’s short stories that Eiji reads in Study of Tales, and the journal that Eiji reads in Kai Ten, revealing Mitchell’s skill and creativity in developing and combining different types of narrative. As well as adding to the novel’s creativity and entertainment, this completeness of detail also adds a greater dimension to Eiji’s character so that we are able to perceive Eiji’s experiences with him as we wonder when and why he resorts to alternative realities instead of facing his own.
The escapism that Eiji uses throughout the novel in his fantasies and alternate realities lead us to empathize with his character, especially during his memories of his twin sister, Anju when his true journey, toward coping with her death, is revealed. What Mitchell cumulatively achieves through Eiji’s multi-level experience is a sense of the importance of psychological reality: it is only through all of Eiji’s experiences, both real and imagined, that he comes to terms with the history of his parents and the death of Anju and is ready to move on with his life, and theoretically, reach the number nine dream once that is accomplished.
Eiji’s pain over the loss of Anju and his subsequent need for escapism is explained when he says, “after Anju I dreamed of drowning several times a week, right up until I got my guitar” (167). What is implied then, is that music helped him cope with losing Anju at first - then fantasies, video games, books, and cards – all of his alternate realities developed from his initial feeling of loss when Anju died. Thus his quest to reconcile this loss is the underlying reason for Eiji's journey. Since he is not aware of this, Mitchell is further suggesting that the coping process is also something we are not consciously aware of – another alternative reality.
Throughout the novel, Eiji is on a mission to find his father, and yet when he finds him he is disappointed. He says, “I feel sad that I found what I searched for, but no longer want what I found” (375). In actual fact, the search was more important than the outcome because it yielded results that were different and more significant than what he expected to find when he began. In the process of the search, Eiji finally faces Anju’s death, and develops his own identity.
Eiji’s growth and coming to terms with his past is marked in the eighth chapter, The Language of Mountains is Rain, when he finally perceives himself as a part of the conscious world. Unlike his previous idea that “that was who I really was – a dream of the Real Eiji Miyake,” (408) Eiji says in a moment of devastation, “I would give anything to be dreaming right now” (418), revealing a change from the escapist he was throughout the novel.
In number9dream, David Mitchell successfully articulates the multifaceted complexity of human experience. Through his narrative detail and creativity, he incorporates history, culture and media through Eiji and leads us toward a better understanding of the importance of psychological reality and perception in developing and coping with both personal and social identities.
[edit] See also
- 9th Elsewhere
- Number 9 Dream - song by John Lennon
