In “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet,” David Mitchell offers what seems to be a restrained novel of manners and expands it into something far more unruly, strange and marvelous.

Our setting is a small island in shogun-era Japan, home to a handful of Dutch traders, the only Europeans permitted contact with the island. Jacob de Zoet is a young clerk, newly arrived with hopes of earning a fortune large enough to make him worthy of marrying the woman he loves back home. He struggles to understand this new place, to make allies, unravel corruption and stay committed to his would-be fiancee.

It seems the book will spend its span exploring this little world and the challenges of fealty and duty. But Mitchell doesn’t limit himself to that. It takes some time, but the world expands beyond the tiny Dutch island, and it also expands beyond de Zoet’s point of view, introducing us to betrayals and conspiracies, cults and cannon fire. There are whiffs of magic too, although whether it’s sorcery or stagecraft isn’t quite certain.

de Zoet is revealed to be more than he seems, as is the whole cast. Many of traders pause the narrative to briefly take center stage. They their own sad histories, from being trapped in a room of hungry orphans to gaining and losing the love of a lifetime in a brief stopover in Cape Town.

Mitchell is a special writer. One scene in particular still resonates in my memory. It centers on a one-sided sea battle, an execution ordered, than rescinded, for reasons that are carefully built but clear only to the person who offers the stay. The emotions in that scene are raw and real, speaking to Mitchell’s skill but also his daring. The book as a whole offers those same rewards.