Chapter 2. Questing for the post-postmodern: David Mitchell’s number9dream

Bentley, NP

Abstract

Nick Bentley This chapter argues that number9dream represents a quest narrative in terms of both content and form. The novel begins by inhabiting the postmodernity of late-twentieth-century Tokyo, a setting in which the main character, Eiji Miyake, searches for a lost father and for meaning to his life and the world in which he finds himself. Alongside Eiji’s Bildungsroman narrative, the novel itself is on its own search for a literary form that extends beyond the scepticism, ethical relativism and cynical irony associated with postmodernism. The novel is structured in such a way that it rehearses and develops a number of differing forms of narrative in order to pursue a means of articulating this post-postmodernism, including popular narrative genres, intertextual frames, journals and dream narratives. In analysing Mitchell’s novel, the chapter engages with several theoretical perspectives, including Fredric Jameson’s definition of postmodernism as a late-capitalist form, Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin...

• Online Publication Date: Jul 25, 2019
• Publication Date: Jul 25, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jul 6, 2023
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Pages: 39-52
• Book Title: David Mitchell: Contemporary Critical Perspectives
• Chapter Number: 2
• ISBN: 9781474262101; 9781350215412
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474262132.0008
• Publisher URL: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/david-mitchell/ch2-questing-for-the-post-postmodern-david-mitchell-s-number9dream
• Related Public URLs: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/david-mitchell-9781474262125/; ; https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/david-mitchell/; ; https://www.academia.edu/45601681/Questing_for_the_post_postmodern_David_Mitchells_number9dream