Outside the vista windows of the Hotel New Otani’s Garden Lounge cafe in Tokyo, it’s snowing, in March, and it suddenly feels like the spring flowers in the Japanese garden below may have popped too soon. David Mitchell wonders aloud what kind of flowers they are, before returning to our discussion.
The British author of “Cloud Atlas” and “Number9dream” is in town for the Tokyo International Literary Festival, the first time he’s been back in the country for seven years, and he’s still somewhat jet-lagged.
“I was thinking on the plane, ‘What is it actually about?’” he says of his latest novel, “The Bone Clocks,” published in Britain on Sept. 2. “And I think it’s about limits. But what do I mean by that? Any theme is also about the limit of that theme. So, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is about love, but also about the limits of lovebecause it’s about love.
