CC BY
53Gennady Koshevin 5th Year student Magnitogorsk State University
Black Swan Green
Jason Taylor is a 13-year-old kid from a small motionless village in South Worcestershire, England. Thirteen chapters, thirteen self-contained short stories, thirteen months from January 1982 to January 1983, which Mitchell often ends in the middle of the action leaving the reader with questions, thoughts and emotions, and an urge to continue reading up to the very end.
Throughout the novel, Jason is confronted by many worries, foremost of which are his debilitating stammer problem and his reputation among Black Swan Green kids. His parents’ failing marriage, his sister, sex and girls, poetry, the War, and his broken Omega Seamaster watch give Jason a hard time as well.
Jason’s reputation with his schoolmates is dynamic. Starting off as an average ranked kid, having built up some respect in the chapter
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“Spooks”, he loses it immediately after his initiation into the secret gang, and becomes the school ‘Stutter Boy’ in the brutal chapter “Maggot”, where he not only becomes an outcast, but gets systematically bullied and laughed at by most of the kids. In “Disco”, Jason stands up to his bullies, regaining the respect of the people who mattered to him, and gets to kiss a girl.
A happy ending, it seems. The last chapter, though, “January Man”, shocks the reader as much as it shocks Jason with news of his parents’ divorce. The relationship between his parents is wobbly throughout the novel, with several awkward and uncomfortable episodes. In “Souvenirs”, Jason ‘gets to spend a few days ‘with’ Dad in Lyme Regis in the first half of the chapter, and another few days with Mum in Cheltenham in the second half of the chapter. Both parts start with almost the same words and actions, which is ironic and somewhat amusing. Nevertheless, the endless quarrels over Mum’s ‘pile of rocks’ and Dad’s secret remortgage, the 5-star quarrel rating that Julia and Jason developed, show us that Helena’s and Michael’s is heading for the worst.
Jason’s endeavours at coping with his stutter are very interesting to follow. He is in constant battle with Hangman. There are three voices inside Jason: Unborn Twin (the candid and blunt, braver and stronger Jason), Maggot (the shifty wimp), and the most dreaded -Hangman (the one who chooses when Jason stammers). Jason tells us how he outsmarts Hangman by testing unsafe words and replacing them with synonyms on-the-fly. The short pauses and parenthesized comments are of utmost interest and curiosity.
“Black Swan Green” is filled with emotion; a perfect balance of joy and grief, laughter and tears. Jason’s subtle observations, for instance, are truly enjoyable. They are the result of David Mitchell's skill with dramatic irony which frequent and truly funny. An example of an entertainingly funny episode from “Souvenirs” would be the one where Jason stumbles into an antiques shop and a woman, whom Jason takes for the shop assistant, starts telling Jason of her son for quite a while, until Jason finds out that she is not the shop assistant.
On the other hand, the final episode in “Disco”, encompassing a conversation between Dad and the nanve Jason alone at home, is one of the most heartbreaking episodes in the book. Jason can hardly hold his tears back when they’re moving out with Mum in the last chapter, and neither can the reader.
David Mitchell shows pure mastery in the evoking of laughter, tears, sympathy and amusement. I was captivated by this enthralling book which, even when, superficially, nothing of great import is happening, has the gift of truth which holds the attention without fail. “So there are no swans in Black Swan Green?”
