Slade House

Mitchell has described his novels as installments in a larger body of work he refers to as an “über-novel,” akin to J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium of Middle-earth (Murray, Mitch R. “Thinking Polyphonically: A Conversation with David Mitchell.” Los Angeles Review of Books, 11 Sep. 2020). Stylistically, this choice represents the possibility of allowing characters to bring their experiences from one novel into the next as emotional baggage, finding their resolutions in interactions with other characters.

Consequently, Slade House is full of allusions and intertextual references that might register to seasoned readers of Mitchell’s work. Although Slade House functions as a standalone novel intended to be accessible to newcomers, another layer of meaning is available with some understanding of the major elements that recur across Mitchell’s über-novel and how Slade House fits into this larger mythology.

Mitchell’s novels characteristically span epic lengths of time, as demonstrated in his most popular works, Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks. This accounts for the fact that some of the characters in the über-novel have the ability to transcend the mortal limits of their body and live life again in new or restored bodies. These characters generally refer to themselves as Atemporals, highlighting the idea that time has little impact on the boundaries of their lives. Instead, Atemporals think in terms of their metalife, or the sequential collection of all the lives they’ve lived across different bodies. Aside from the persistence of their souls, Atemporals have access to psychic abilities that are typically honed through training. The broad term for their abilities is psychosoterica.

In The Bone Clocks, Mitchell reveals that there are multiple opposing factions of Atemporals. Horology is one such faction that the novel frames as a heroic group. It is composed primarily of Atemporals who, upon dying, naturally move from one body to another. Horologists live in opposition to the Soul Carnivores, Atemporals who gain immortality by exploiting the spiritual energy of other human beings. In The Bone Clocks, the Carnivores are represented by the antagonist faction known as the Anchorites. In Slade House, Mitchell reveals that there are also outlier Carnivores like Jonah and Norah Grayer, who operate with similar objectives regardless of the larger factions.

Marinus, who appears in the last chapter of Slade House and defeats the Grayer twins, is a Horologist and features prominently across Mitchell’s body of work. Marinus first appears in the 2010 novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet as Dr. Lucas Marinus, befriending the titular Dutch clerk during his time in 18th-century Nagasaki. In The Bone Clocks, which begins in the 1960s, Marinus takes the form of Dr. Yu Leon Marinus and saves the life of protagonist Holly Sykes. Dr. Yu Leon Marinus appears again in Mitchell’s later novel, Utopia Avenue, saving the life of Jasper de Zoet, Jacob’s descendant, from the malevolent spirit of the abbot Enomoto, the antagonist of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Marinus is then reborn as Dr. Iris Marinus-Fenby, the form they assume in the latter half of The Bone Clocks. By the end of The Bone Clocks, Marinus is reborn again as Harry Marinus Veracruz. Mitchell has stated that the character of Marinus was the origin point for planning the über-novel, and later works will continue to feature new incarnations of Marinus.

Outside the character of Marinus, other references link the events of Slade House to Mitchell’s other novels. In the third chapter, Sal Timms speaks to Fern Penhaligon about the death of Fern’s brother, Jonny, which is a minor plot point in The Bone Clocks. In the fifth chapter, the Grayer twins also float the possibility of visiting Enomoto, the antagonist of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which suggests that Enomoto survived his clash with Marinus in Utopia Avenue.