David Mitchell: Black Swan Green

LA CLUSTER THOUGHTS:

• Discuss the narrative structure of the novel: why the split of chapters into significant incidents without narrative continuity for the main character? Does the way the story is presented, without explanation or conclusions about certain events reflect the way a person Jason's age thinks about his or her life? Is there a 'tying up of loose ends' at the end of the novel?

• The novel has been called a bildungsroman, one that is semi-autobiographical for David Mitchell. Does Jason Taylor really grow up by the end of the work? What types of characterization reveal his changes? Is it a unique form of acquiring maturity, or a story that has been told before? How do your own experiences in Middle School reflect the kind of dynamics that do not change across continents and time periods?

• Discuss some of the narrative elements critically. Should we be skeptical about the inclusion of the story about the Gypsy camp and Jason's mentoring by French intellectual Eva van Crommelynck? How much do these events serve as expedient catalysts for Jason's characterization, rather than believable events in the life of a tween in rural England?

• What, for Mitchell, characterizes 'growing up'? Is it the loss of innocence – Jason kissing the girl? Is it acquiring active integrity in the face of outside pressure – Jason destroying his tormentor's calculator? Is it loosing the naivety associated with family – the divorce of Jason's parents? Or are these three strands somehow connected?

• Jason destroys his poems during the bonfire his dad organizes. What is the function of the poetry in Jason's characterization? It leads him to Eva van Crommelynck, but does Mitchell try to convince us that Jason is an 'artist'? Discuss the ideas of the 'duty' and 'ethics' of being true to developing a personal talent, in the face of popular resistance.

• Mitchell brings up major socio-economic themes when contrasting Jason with his classmates and when exploring Jason's father's dismissal from work. How much of Black Swan Green is a commentary on England in the early 1980s? The extensive discussion of the Falklands War and Jason's reaction to it also has political undertones. Do the ways Jason reacts to the propaganda of the British government perhaps serve as metaphor of the way the entire British population felt about the war?

• Discuss the linguistic style of the book. How well does Mitchell's use of local dialect work in creating the atmosphere of Black Swan Green? Is it believable?