So David Mitchell. He is known for his magical realism novels, mostly for Cloud Atlas, but more recently for The Bone Clocks, which I reread a couple of months ago. Utopia Avenue is seen as one of his more 'realistic' novels, comparable to Black Swan Green, which has long been one of my absolute favourites. The wonder of his novels is that they all fit together into one big Mitchellverse; characters from one novel reappear in the next, or their parents, or their children, even if the novel is set in another country or century or different realism realm. I'd heard good things about Utopia Avenue, but I tried to keep away from any spoilers, to have the joy of that magical first read.
So Utopia Avenue. It's a band, three guys and a girl, trying to make it big in the final years of the 1960s. They are an unlikely combination, coming from folk, jazz and more electronic types of music to combine into a magical sound mix. They also each come with their own set of problems, psychological, sexual, social, and/or financial, which gives them more than enough source material for their songs. Unfortunately, we cannot of course hear their actual music, although Mitchell's descriptions make it seem he at least could hear their songs in his head.
The novel's chapter titles are all taken from these songs, with the author of the song being the main character of their own chapter. The lyrics are interspersed with the action, usually a bit later than the actual chapter, since the events in a chapter are the inspiration for a song that still has to be written. This structure feels a bit forced at times, with several big events of a similar vein crammed into one chapter to show all the inspiration for that particular song.
The characters themselves are nice, even though they can feel a bit flat. It's probably because there are four (actually, five) of them, but I felt I got to know them less well than Holly in The Bone Clocks or Jason in Black Swan Green. They are struggling with growing up, with the changing times, with their changing lives. As any good Mitchell character, they are swept up as the tides of their lives take them from good to bad luck, inspiring their songs along the way. It felt like they came out of this novel as better people than when they started, but how they grow exactly is not always particularly clear.
In the meantime, it is a cameo fest. As they make their way through the 1960s music industry, first in the UK and then in the US, we meet anyone and everyone, from Janis Joplin to David Bowie. Some took me by surprise, some felt a bit too obvious. None of them really added anything to the story, apart from 'a-ha!' moments and entertainment value. But there are other cameos too, the characters from other novels I previously mentioned. I was very happy to have read The Bone Clocks so shortly before, as there are many allusions to its storyline and characters. But other, smaller mentions too; Luisa Rey, Crispin Hershey, Robert Frobisher. Each of these brought a little smile, a little mental jump of joy.
But sadly, those were the things I enjoyed most about the novel. Sure, it is an interesting picture of the 1960s world, of the cultural and social change taking place, of how music brought young people together and could liberate them, in a way. And Mitchell paints that picture well. And sure, I enjoyed spending time with his characters, learning about their lives and their struggles, seeing how they become a band and push each other to greater heights. And of course, I loved the language, Mitchells writing style and the way 400 pages seem to fly by. But apart from a couple of moments, I didn't feel I was reading a novel by David Mitchell. I was reading a great novel, sure, but not one of the best I'd ever read. Not even when I got to the end, where as usual the knife that has slowly been inserted into your heart, the knife you don't know that is there until David Mitchell suddenly twists it and then pulls it out, leaving you feeling devastated and fulfilled at the same time, did it feel like the great read I had upon first reading his other great novels.
So I enjoyed it, I would recommend it, it's a good read, but it's not one of his best.
