Audiobooks and I have a very complicated relationship. We are not particularly friends, but we are getting along. I usually listen to them while slowly falling asleep since my partner is a snorer and my mind apparently always in need for entertainment before finally shutting up. The problem here is obvious. I fall asleep before a chapter is finished an have to listen to some passages more than one or two times. Often my thoughts start to wander and I lose track of what is happening in the story, but the combination of “lying in bed in the dark” and “audiobook” seems to work astonishingly well. I can’t say that I grasped everything of the story, but like to think that I understood the main threads of it. I’ve never been a huge fan of Japan or overly interested in the culture like many others happen to be (the Manga and Anime culture makes it possible) but I was able to follow the descriptions and understand how different those two cultures – Japanese and Dutch – are and what a living on the edge it must have been for the protagonists. A very huge compliment to the two narrators, Paula Wilcox and Jonathan Aris. Especially the latter is a fantastic reader. He modulates a unique way to speak for every single character. Even with forgetting their names, which were partly rather complicated when you just listen to them, I was able to recognise the person by the way Mr Aris let him or her speak. In between it was so thrilling that I forgot about sleep and had to listen to the book for 2 hours straight (and actually fight sleep back), because I simply needed to know what would happen. The end left me with a feeling of sad happiness or happy sadness but I will refrain from giving away too many details. It is one of the bittersweet parts of this entire story. David Mitchell is a wonderful writer, as far as I can tell, and he gave his characters a lot of depth and personality. All of them. The good guys and the bad ones. His researches on Japanese and Dutch culture, history and language must have taken ages and although I’m far from being an expert, it is obvious to me, that he put a lot of thought into it. This book will be a companion for a while, because there is just so much to think and ponder over and maybe at some point I will listen to it again, just for the joy of it.