Five minutes with David Mitchell

David Mitchell’s first novel, Ghostwritten moved from Okinawa to Mongolia via New York, with nine narrators telling interlocking stories. It won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best work of British literature written by an author under 35, and was shortlisted for the Guardian ‘First Book Award’. His subsequent novels, number9dream (“Blade Runner meets Jack Kerouac”) and Cloud Atlas (“like Russian dolls”), were each shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2003 he was selected as one of the literary magazine Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists’. DM taught technical students in Hiroshima for four years, an experience that influenced his writing and his reading. His 2004 novel Cloud Atlas contained six nested narratives, tracing the consequences of greed from imperialism to the end of civilisation. The writer Russell Hoban (at one time Mitchell’s teacher), along with Hoban fandom, commented on the similarity between one section of Cloud Atlas and Riddley Walker. And, in the booklet to commemorate Hoban’s 80th birthday, in a specially commissioned essay entitled ‘On Reading Riddley Walker in Hiroshima’, Mitchell wrote: “that Russell Hoban guy made me work”. We didn’t want to make our interviewee work too hard, so we wrote down some short questions very quickly:

Do you follow a disciplined, daily writing schedule? If so, what is it and what are you working on at the moment?

“Not really: my four year-old and seven month-old have their own undisciplined schedule. I write whenever a window of time appears or whenever I get determined or worried enough to make a window of time. Right now I’m (slowly) working on a Japanese Dutch historical novel.”

Did being shortlisted for the Man Booker prize two books in a row (for number9dream and Cloud Atlas) change your life and, if so, how?

“Being shortlisted for the Booker raises your reputation, which is good for publicity and sales purposes. It was good for my confidence too. Other than that, nothing much has changed.”

You have said, “American publishers seem to be a lot hotter on perfect proof-reading”. Are you as appalled as we are at NZBC by the declining standard of subediting at major publishers and, if so, to what do you attribute this?

“I’ve never really known a time when subediting was better, so ‘appalled’ might be too strong a word. These things are usually due to a lack of money or an unwillingness to spend it.”

If visitors to NZBC only read one book this year, which book should it be?

“Depends what they like and what they’ve already read! I just read Nabokov’s Pnin and enjoyed it. Another new discovery for me is Bruno Schulz, a Pole, and his book The Street Of Crocodiles.”

Which tracks do you have on your iPod’s ‘On the go’ playlist at the moment, or are you an iPod refusenik?

“Not really a refusenik. I love music and couldn’t live without it, but I like to have stretches of my day when my mind is free to burble on its own. To love music you also need periods of musiclessness. A friend just gave me Wilco’s Summerteeth album which is very promising indeed. I’m also listening to Shostakovich’s Preludes & Fugues: odd, lovely piano music, not at all like his symphonies.”

In a fascinating KCRW ‘Bookworm’ interview with Michael Silverblatt, you said: “Today’s stories are the future’s artefacts.” Could you explain what you meant by this?

“I think I meant that all these copies of my (and everyone else’s) books, which people read — and, on a level, live in — will one day just be objects on second-hand bookshop bookshelves and footnotes in little-read monographs by academics.”

Would you agree that Worcestershire sauce adds instant richness?

“I would. A fine sauce. Transforms tomato juice into something nearly mystical.”