Book Review - Utopia Avenue - David Mitchell
The first thought that came to me as I was starting ‘Utopia Avenue’ by David Mitchell was ‘Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.’ It came to me, because this is a book very much about music, about four people who come together to form a band in the sixties.
Sixties London
It’s a hard trick to pull off, when you are describing music and song, because books don’t come with speakers. But because David Mitchell is so detailed about the period, and so many other songs are mentioned as playing in the background, although you can't hear them, it becomes easy to 'almost' hear the songs. There’s so many points of reference, and one of the great delights of the book are the appearances of other artists from the period who pop up in the story (though sometimes it feels some of them are shoe horned in). The lyrics of the songs are rooted in the experiences of the writers and Mitchell is such a fantastically gifted writer that it becomes easy to make that leap. You just get pulled into the narrative and believe it. It’s set in the psychedelic scene of 1967 London, as the band form and burn out in a blaze of sex, drugs, Rock N Roll and all the stuff in between, you get caught up in the social history of it all.
I’m a fan of David Mitchell and as usual characters and story lines from some of his other books appear (the lead guitarist is a de zoet). The horologists of ‘The bone clocks’ make an appearance and there are probably a few more connections to the Mitchell universe that I missed. But it’s mostly a book about youth and idealism, tinged of course with death and loss and all the other stuff in between, written with Mitchells usual exuberance and energy. It's also intertwined with so much of the cultural, social and political events of what was a tumultuous period.
Music
David Mitchell has also pondered the notion of writing about music, because when the story has been told and the book is finished, he includes an essay he has written, entitled ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture’ (nobody knows who exactly the quote is attributed to). It’s a really interesting piece about the parallels between the two art forms and really answered a lot of thoughts that had occurred to me as I was reading ‘Utopia Avenue.’ I think he managed to pull it off, but in the end he has written a great story about four people who come together to form a band in the sixties.
Book Review - Utopia avenue by David Mitchell
574 pages, Hardcover
July 14, 2020 by Random House