Utopia Avenue

I definitely enjoyed it, but really toes the line with cheese. A fun read.

I might be a David Mitchell fan. This was superb. It's a sweeping novel about four very different young people who form a band in the late 1960s. It's also about the times, their families, and how hard they work. Without spoiling any of the plot, characters from Cloud Atlas and Bone Clocks might appear, also. I found myself caring very much for these four people, their manager, and their families, as well. It's a fascinating read, and I do recommend it.

Utopia Avenue is disappointing. Not just because it's another lackluster outcome from an incredibly talented author, but because I want to agree with Mitchell's central thesis: that styles and genres (naturalism! fantasy! character sketch! superheroes!) can coexist harmoniously, or even benefit from jostling up against one another.

As I write this, something occurs to me: it's not that Mitchell has a hard time welding the natural and real onto the pulp fantasy, but that his fantastical world-building isn't up to the task. He's writes remarkable and sensitive inner lives, but his dueling groups of magical immortals in whose hands lie the fate of the world are a snooze.

Intricate dance step narratives weaving our band of characters to songwriting and life's traumas and performances. Hesitations for how Almost-Famous-Forrest-Gump name-dropping the whole thing goes, and tbd for a re-read of some earlier Mitchell.