Ghostwritten: A Novel

by David Mitchell

Hardcover, 2000

Call number

FIC MIT

Collection

Fiction

Genres

General Fiction

Publication

Random House (2000), Edition: 1st, 448 pages

Description

David Mitchell's electrifying debut novel takes readers on a mesmerizing trek across a world of human experience through a series of ingeniously linked narratives. Oblivious to the bizarre ways in which their lives intersect, nine characters-a terrorist in Okinawa, a record-shop clerk in Tokyo, a money-laundering British financier in Hong Kong, an old woman running a tea shack in China, a transmigrating "noncorpum" entity seeking a human host in Mongolia, a gallery-attendant-cum-art-thief in Petersburg, a drummer in London, a female physicist in Ireland, and a radio deejay in New York-hurtle toward a shared destiny of astonishing impact. Like the book's one non-human narrator, Mitchell latches onto his host characters and invades their lives with parasitic precision, making Ghostwritten a sprawling and brilliant literary relief map of the modern world.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member ChocolateMuse

This is a clever book, yet manages to mostly avoid David Mitchell rubbing his cleverness in the reader's face. The style is unpretentious - or I should say the styles, as there are many different styles in the book, all done well. Each section is about entirely new characters in an entirely new

place, living an entirely different life - yet in each one, there's a brush with characters that have gone before. And then in the end, everything connects up in this big ohhhhhhh moment. Clever. Nice. I liked it.

The downside with this kind of structure is you necessarily have some sections you enjoy reading more than others - but there were none that I hated, and only one I got bored with. Each one is so very different from the others, it's almost like a book of short stories, only there's a much bigger aspect to them all. One particular section stayed with me, of a Japanese teenager working in a music shop. It's beautifully done - the boy loves jazz, and he falls in love with a girl who comes into the shop, and the whole thing is wonderfully atmospheric, just like the jazz pieces the character loves. Warm, intimate, wistful, rainy. Really quite beautiful. And just one small event in that story enlightens us on something that has gone before, in quite another place, to quite another character - such a small thing, that means nothing much to the character himself, but has a big impact on this other character he has nothing to do with. It's like that all the way through, and makes one think about how insignificant things connect in such unexpected ways, linking up all over the world.

As for the title - well, one story is narrated by a ghost, another by a ghostwriter, another has a ghost in it - yet the supernatural element is somehow made quite ordinary and not particularly important.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's more in this book that I've missed. I read it without trying to understand absolutely everything, and without putting in much effort to connect things up, so I have the feeling I've missed a lot. But that hardly matters in the end. I enjoyed all the journeys very much.

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LibraryThing member gbill

It’s hard to know how to begin a review for a book of such scope; Mitchell kind of takes my breath away. His first novel works on many levels: as short stories with a breadth of voices and story lines, interesting in their own right, the recurring links between the stories, and the touches of the

supernatural, philosophy, and science fiction that are present. It’s a clever, thought-provoking read. Part of the fun is to recognize not just the obvious connections, but also small phrases or actions that are repeated sometimes hundreds of pages later. It’s also fun to make a playlist of the jazz songs referred to in ‘Tokyo’, and the eclectic mix of songs referred to in ‘Night Train’.

But I digress. If you like Cloud Atlas, you’ll probably like this one. The style and the fact that Timothy Cavendish, Luisa Rey, and comets appear here invite comparison to that masterpiece; if I had to relate them, I would say that Cloud Atlas is an ellipse of stories from past to present to future with a greater range of styles and with more dimensions; Ghostwritten is an intersecting ellipse, perpendicular to it, and beautiful in its own right.

Quotes:
On being captivated by someone at first sight; love this description:
“She was so real, the others were cardboard cutouts beside her. Real things had happened to her to make her how she was, and I wanted to know them, and read them, like a book. It was the strangest feeling. I just kept thinking – well, I’m not sure what I was thinking. I’m not sure if I was thinking of anything.”

On that fleeting moment of beauty:
“The last of the cherry blossom. On the tree, it turns ever more perfect. And when it’s perfect, it falls. And then of course once it hits the ground it gets all mushed up. So it’s only absolutely perfect when it’s falling through the air, this way and that, for the briefest time…I think that only we Japanese can really understand that, don’t you?”

On intervening, the dilemma between letting evil take place and taking action:
“The fourth rule says I have to preserve visitors’ lives. If I directly PinSat the convoy I will kill forty visitors plus two Doberman dogs. This will constitute a Class 1 violation. I will experience extreme pain and guilt. Furthermore, a PinSat crater may convince alert militia that the locals are concealing superior weaponry, justifying reprisals and bloodshed. If I do not PinSat the soldiers’ truck, they will massacre another village. My inaction will cause this action. A Class 2 violation.”

On London:
“Italians give their cities sexes, and they all agree that the sex for a particular city is quite correct, but none of them can explain why. I love that. London’s middle-aged and male, respectably married but secretly gay.”

On love, the debate between romantic and cynic:
“’But love’s the opposite of self-interest. True, tender love is pure and selfless.’
‘No. True, tender love is self-interest so sinewy that it only looks selfless.’
‘I’ve known love – I know love – and it is giving and not taking. We’re not just animals.’
‘We’re only animals…’ … ‘Why does he love you, and why do you love him back?’
I shook my head. ‘We’re talking about love. There is no ‘why.’ That’s the point.’
‘There is always a ‘why,’ because there is always something that the beloved wants. It might be that he protects you. It might be that he makes you feel special. It might be that he is a way out, a route to some shiny future away from the dreary now. … Love is a big knot of ‘why’s.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘I’m not saying anything’s wrong with it. History is made of people’s desires. But that’s why I smile when people get sentimental about this mysterious force of pure ‘love’ which they think they are steering. ‘Loving somebody’ means ‘wanting something.’ Love makes people do selfish, moronic, cruel, and inhumane things.’”

On terrorist organizations:
“Graduates from the school of the Americas in the state of Georgia have trained death squads responsible for thousands of casualties in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, and Pan Africa, and the overthrow of elected governments in Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, and Nicaragua. Your logic dictates that these nations may legally target that institute.”

On truth:
“Integrity is a bugger, it really is. Lying can get you into difficulties, but to really wind up in the crappers try telling nothing but the truth.”

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LibraryThing member writestuff

David Mitchell's debut novel - Ghostwritten - won the 1999 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best work of literature from a British author under the age of 35. After reading this complex, brilliantly crafted book, I can see why it won this prestigious award. I have come to expect a certain level of

excellence from Mitchell having read his most recent novel Black Swan Green, as well as his 2004 masterpiece Cloud Atlas. Readers who have read other Mitchell works will be delighted to see some of the same characters re-appearing.

Ghostwritten is a series of linked stories narrated by nine different characters. The novel spans the globe from the streets of Okinawa, Tokyo and Hong Kong to the rural wastelands of Mongolia to the historical city of Petersburg and the Hermitage Museum to the urban beauty of London to the desolate Irish landscape of Clear Island and finally to the dark streets of New York. Along the way, the reader is treated to Mitchell's pitch perfect prose, exposing our weaknesses and the power of human connectivity. The novel explores this idea of connectivity by demonstrating how each character is attached to the other, often without their knowledge, and how these associations impact the future. Another major theme of the novel is that of fate vs. chance.

Mitchell also leaves the reader to wonder about the validity of his story. Are the events really happening? Or are they possibilities? What is real and what is not? he asks. And what of the title of this novel? Ghostwriters are professionals paid to write stories officially credited to someone else. A single author (the ghostwriter) may pose as several different people. How reliable are the narrators? Are they in fact a single person, pulling together the threads of an imagined tale?

As with all Mitchell novels, this one will make the reader think. Beautifully crafted with fully imagined characters and events, Ghostwritten is a masterpiece of fiction.

Highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member annbury

A wonderful book by David Mitchell, who is fast becoming one of my very favorite modern novelists. "Ghostwritten" is his debut novel, and is similar in structure to "Cloud Atlas", his third effort and probably his best known book. Like "Cloud Atlas", "Ghostwritten" is made up of several short

stories, which are connected in small ways -- a character from one story making a cameo appearance in another, coincidences of place, specific objects. As the novel progresses the small connections make a tighter and tighter web. At the end, there are still things we don't know, but the unity of the whole work has become clearer.

This structure sounds artificial, post-modern, etc. etc. etc, but Mitchell infuses it with life and emotional content. Many of his characters are convincing, some are touching, and one or two are horrifying. Also, he writes like an angel -- the descriptions of nature and cities, in particular, are wonderful.

This leaves me two more Mitchell novels to read, since I have also read (and loved) the very different "Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet". Let's hope that there are lots more that will appear in the future.

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LibraryThing member chrisblocker

This is a hard book to rate because, let's be honest, it's David Mitchell: that's an automatic 5-star rating there. But knowing that it's David Mitchell, I find this book a little lacking. It's his first novel; it's not perfect. Despite its imperfections, however, it still destroys most of its

competition. I certainly couldn't have written it. So it deserves all five stars.

If you've read only one Mitchell novel, it's likely you've read his third, Cloud Atlas. Ghostwritten is Cloud Atlas, Junior. It is Cloud Atlas taking its first steps, burying its face in a birthday cake, making it through its first day of school, playing at the park, kissing the neighbor girl, surviving its first day in junior high, learning to drive, and attending prom with the girl with a comet-shaped birthmark. Cloud Atlas is everything Ghostwritten hoped to become. But it was Mitchell's first and, as such, he tried to cram a lot in here. Maybe that's just David Mitchell—he does try to fit much into all of his stories—but here it feels a bit forced at times. It’s all about interconnectedness, but sometime the connections are a little too flimsy. Sometimes the style Mitchell employs to tell his story is strained. Sometimes the narrative voice is a little too shaky. And once—dare I even say it—Mitchell switches verb tense for an entire section for no reason. It’s almost like he just… made a mistake.

But putting all that behind us, Ghostwritten is a brilliant novel. It’s intelligent, thought-provoking, and fun. Though not as grand as Cloud Atlas, it utilizes the same variety in place, method, and voice. And best of all, it connects us to Mitchell’s other works—the Cavendishes, Luisa Rey, Neal Brose, and a certain birthmark all make an appearance. It’s an ambitious work from a very ambitious author. Ironically, I’d say my favorite episode from this novel is the least ambitious, that being “Tokyo”; it was interesting and full of heart without trying as hard as the other stories.

I really like David Mitchell. I wouldn’t say he’s my favorite living author because I think there are other writers who can capture my heart and mind without gimmicks—which is exactly what Mitchell employs in his works, albeit with exceptional skill—but his works certainly keep me more riveted than any other writer does. I look forward to the next.

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LibraryThing member Paulagraph

I’ve become quite a fan of Mitchell’s. I loved Cloud Atlas and now much appreciate Ghostwritten, his first novel. Both novels employ the device of linked narratives very effectively. While CA progresses and then regresses through large swaths of time, the various narratives that make up

Ghostwritten are roughly contemporaneous beginning at the time of the gas attacks in the Tokyo subways in 1995 and tracking into an apocalyptic proximate future. As for location in space, the action moves from Okinawa to Tokyo to Hong Kong to Holy Mountain (a ferry ride away from Hong Kong) to Mongolia to Petersburg to London to Clear Island (off the coast of Cork, Ireland) to Night Train (late night radio music oldies & talk show in New York City) back to the Underground (Tokyo? London? New York?). Mitchell must get around, because each location feels “right” and all characters read “true.” Intriguingly, at least two minor characters in Ghostwritten reappear to inhabit their own narratives in Cloud Atlas: Timothy Cavendish and Luisa Rey. Even more intriguingly, they appear in Ghostwritten before having been written in, so to speak. I mean that Ghostwritten places them in a time after the events in which they are involved in Cloud Atlas have happened. In this case, after precedes before, a notion that would be quite at home in any David Mitchell novel.

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LibraryThing member johnbakeronline

Ghostwritten was a good book to read. Mitchell was generous and clever and witty and coincidental without being too obviously self-conscious and his descriptions and evocations of place were astounding and worth the time spent on this novel by themselves. His command of character and voice and the

ease with which he seems to outline a life are impressive. This is an author I'll be visiting again.

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LibraryThing member melydia

No matter what the book jacket claims, this is not a novel. It is a series of vaguely interconnected short stories spanning the globe and leaping around in time. A more studious reader may have found more synergy than I did - I have my suspicions regarding the relationships between, for instance,

the narrator of "Mongolia," His Serendipity, and the Zookeeper in "Night Train," but they are only suspicions. Nothing is confirmed, nothing is clear. Summing up the plot is impossible, but here's a taste: the book starts with a doomsday cult member awaiting the end of the world in Okinawa, trots back and forth across hundreds of years and thousands of miles, and finally meanders its way back to him at the very end.A lot of people like books with open endings where you're not quite sure what's going to happen or, as in the case of this book, what the hell just happened. I personally prefer things to be at least tied up loosely. I like to know how the characters are related, both to each other and to the overarching story, and there's simply no hope of that for this story. Too many characters, too many details, not enough repetition for the slow kids like me to keep up.That's not to say I didn't enjoy this book. The characters were phenomenal. All so different and yet so three-dimensional, so real. There was a lot more dialogue in this book than I'm used to, to the point where I occasionally had to backtrack to figure out who was speaking, but in general the speech patterns were distinct enough that he said/she said weren't strictly necessary. Also, the descriptions of life in the various locations were brief yet so concise I felt like I was there.In the end, I believe this is a book that requires multiple reads to totally grasp. That is both high praise and harsh criticism. If you like your fiction to be a total mind trip, then Ghostwritten is for you. If you prefer something a wee bit less convoluted, I'd recommend skipping this one.

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LibraryThing member edgeworth

"Ghostwritten" is the first novel by British writer David Mitchell, who also wrote the Booker-nominated "Cloud Atlas," a book I read earlier this year which I loved to a degree words cannot express. Naturally eager to read the rest of his works (of which there aren't many), I started with

"Ghostwritten." In the same style as "Cloud Atlas," this novel is a series of short stories or novellas that have wildly different settings but are linked through multiple connections, sometimes large and obvious, sometimes small and subtle.

Whereas "Cloud Atlas" is a voyage through time and space, "Ghostwritten" is merely a voyage through space, taking us from the busy subway of Tokyo, to the empty deserts of Mongolia, to the gloomy streets of St. Petersburg and to the thousand of little rooms, attics and offices of London. There are nine stories in total, some better than others. Mitchell has lived in Japan, the U.K. and Ireland, and these locations are portrayed more vividly than the others - particularly Petersburg, which didn't sit right at all with me. Likewise, some plots are stronger than others; I was naturally more invested in the Irish physicist on the run from the CIA who makes a last stand in her hometown than I was in the thoughts and feelings of a jazz store clerk with a crush on a customer.

What's the book about? A lot of things. The major one would seem to be the connectivity of the world, how everything we do has repercussions and how we are all linked together. This didn't impress me much - it's been done before and is somewhat gimmicky. But there's a myriad of other themes present: destiny, desire, responsibility, identity, globalism, helplessness... the problem is that there's far too many of them, and they're expressed rather clumsily. While "Cloud Atlas" focused on one major theme (power), "Ghostwritten" has a hundred little morals elbowing each other out of the way for stage time. Nonetheless, there are a few pieces of thoughtful wisdom littered throughout. This was my favourite, a depressing condemnation of the existence of altrusim:

"A traveller went on a journey with an angel. They entered a house with many floors. The angel opened one door, and in it was a room with one long bench running around the walls, crammed with people. In the centre was a table piled with sweetmeats. Each guest had a very long silver spoon, as long as a man is tall. They were trying to feed themselves, but of course they couldn't - the spoons were too long, and the food kept falling off. So in spite of there being enough food for everyone, everyone was hungry. 'This,' explained the angel, 'is hell. The people do not love each other. They only want to feed themselves.'

"Then the angel took the traveller to another room. It was exactly the same as the first, only this time instead of trying to feed themselves, the guests used their spoons to feed one another, across the room. 'Here,' said the angel, 'the people think only of one another. And by doing so, they feed themselves. Here is heaven.'"

Tatyana thought for a moment. "There's no difference."

"No difference?"

"No difference. Everybody both in heaven and hell wanted one and the same thing: meat in their bellies. But those in heaven got their shit together better. That's all."

Having said all of this, it's unfair to compare "Ghostwritten" with "Cloud Atlas." This was Mitchell's very first novel, and for a debut it's quite impressive. Yes, the message is a bit messy, and yes, some of the sections are weak. Yet it still drew me in, and entertained me, and presented a thoroughly interesting and well-constructed world.

As a novel, Ghostwritten is quite good, and as a first novel it's amazing. It's just a shame for Mitchell that the first of his novels I read was "Cloud Atlas," one of the crowning literary masterpieces of this decade, and thus I envisage him as a being of pure energy that pumps out miracles 24/7. It's the same damned thing that happened with Michael Chabon and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay."

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LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha

"The act of memory is an act of ghostwriting. ... And it's not just our memories. Our actions too. We all think we're in control of our own lives, but really they're pre-ghostwritten by forces around us." (286-7)

David Mitchell's 1999 debut Ghostwritten is one of those rare fictions that has a

useful reason to subtitle itself "A Novel." It seems at first to be a string of nine tangentially connected novellas, each with its own speaker, and separated by great leaps of geography. But the short tenth chapter--almost an epilogue, though set chronologically before the first--for any readers who were still confused in the previous climax should clarify the identities of the two superhuman ghostwriters whose machinations have propelled the rich array of characters and settings throughout the book.

There is a lot of unreliable narration and dramatic irony in this book that starts with a narrator who is a terrorist adherent of a lightly-fictionalized version of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult. Many central and incidental characters re-appear in Mitchell's subsequent novels, usually at chronological points prior to their stories in Ghostwritten.

As Mitchell would later do even more assertively in books like Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks, he gives an account that moves from the past through its time of inscription into a projected future. Of course, the "present" of Ghostwritten is now a full generation old, and its relatively tight diachronic window shows its age a little bit, but that is amply compensated by the vivid characters and mordant prose, leavened with recurring motifs that intimate the larger shapes behind each scene.

"I added 'writers' to my list of people not to trust. They make everything up." (145)

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LibraryThing member maryreinert

Loved the first 2/3rds of this book (read in almost one day) --- then it develoed into this weird dystopian thing and I wasn't sure what was what.

The individual stories of people from different parts of the world were interesting and fascinating how the author managed to somehow link them together.

The writing is clear, readable, and interesting.

However, I just got lost in the final chapters. Mitchell is no doubt a good writer, but some of it is just not my cup of tea.

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LibraryThing member sabreader

Having read a few of Mitchell's later novels, I was looking forward to reading this one, his first. And I wasn't disappointed. I love the different styles and povs in each chapter, and how they are interconnected. I also loved the bits that detached from realism. All in all a great read.

LibraryThing member sirfurboy

David Mitchell's first book is an astounding debut by a first rate author. This book is not a single narrative but 10 short stories, each one linking with the previous and yet each one with a different narrative voice, and different storyline. In the end, things come back to where we started from

but in a way that invites you to challenge your assumptions about how you read the first story.

There is a sense of surrealism in the whole - you are left at the end of the book wondering what is "true". This perhaps is the books intent, and in this it is strongly reminiscent of Murakami. Mitchell has lived in Japan, and much of this book is set in East Asia, and it seems likely he has deliberately learned from Murakami. His writing is easy going, humorous but with hidden depths. However, I much prefer David Mitchell's work because, unlike Murakami, his work actually seems to go somewhere! There are none of the characteristic dropped threads of Murakami that make you think he just stopped writing when he got bored. Instead, Mitchell's work has a clear structure that takes you through the entertaining short stories leading to the final conclusion.

These are also slightly spooky stories. Some are blatantly supernatural, but others just are classic ghost stories - where a likable protagonist has to work through bad things happening to them.

Each story has plenty to occupy you too. There is astute political comment, some interesting science that leads into philosophical questions and so on. Definitely a book to discuss with friends.

Now some small criticisms: Firstly, I read this book after reading Cloud Atlas. David Mitchell wrote this book first, and that now makes me think Cloud Atlas was less innovative. The inter-related short story idea being largely what Cloud Atlas does first. This seems characteristic of Mitchell. Even in his wonderful "Black Swan Green", the chapters could almost stand alone as short stories on their own, even though they all add to a very coherent narrative. Mitchell is a master of the short story form though.

Secondly - and this one is just me being picky - the scientist mentions a jiffy and we are told there are so many in a second. Except we are treated by a 1 followed by very many noughts. Two things struck me: (1) How are you supposed to read that number? What word did she actually use when she said that? and (2) no scientist would have said that. They would have said that there are 3 times 10 to the 29th power jiffies in a second. In any case, unless I miscounted, there were too many noughts there! But making that point shows I am a pedant, and not that Mitchell is a bad writer!

All in all this is a very good book, well worth reading.

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LibraryThing member arthos

It's hard to decide whether this is a novel or a cycle of short stories. Each chapter is a new story, though the protagonist from one chapter plays a bit part in the next.

The stories are imaginative, to say the least. Some of the main characters are a Japanese terrorist seeking to bring on the

apocalypse, a girl's ghost who "adopts" a man and drives him from his wife to a mistress because she (the ghost) likes the mistress better, a talking tree that protects a woman through a lifetime of political turmoil in China, a parasitic spirit that wanders from body to body, an art thief in St. Petersburg, an AI researcher who is pursued by intelligence agencies across several continents back to her home on an island in the Irish Gaeltacht, and a New York shock jock who strikes up a friendship with the ghost in the wires that the AI researcher created. Closing the circle, the ghost in the wires brings the terrorist's vision to fruition, after a fashion.

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LibraryThing member jorgearanda

Ghostwritten is unfortunately not as polished as Mitchell's more recent books, though it's still quite good. I feel as if it was a draft of what eventually became Cloud Atlas --similar technique and taste for a variety of styles, similar topics and a mix of the personal and the transcendental.

LibraryThing member cinesnail88

Having read Number 9 Dream earlier this year, I decided to venture back to Mitchell's debut novel. All in all, I was very pleased with (most of) its characters, but at a few points I could see that Mitchell's writing style was significantly less developed in this one. Still, Neal and the noncorpum

were probably my favorite characters, though I also enjoyed Mo and Bat. It was a very well written and highly enjoyable book, and I would recommend it.

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LibraryThing member jbushnell

It's kind of amazing that a story cycle containing so many different hot-button global elements (art thieves! disembodied souls! apocalyptic cults! artificial intelligences!) can end up feeling so oddly understated. The end result is something like one of Warren Ellis' Global Frequency trades, only

four times the length and lacking most of the kinetic energy. Interesting enough to be worth finishing, but I would have preferred the faster, denser book that the subject matter suggests.

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LibraryThing member queen_evie

I didn't realise it, but this is sort of a prequel to Cloud Altas, from what I can tell - featuring a few of the same characters and actually the same sequence of events that is implied between the lines of Cloud Atlas. At any rate, it stands on it's own as a brilliant novel, particularly because

it's his debut. I was thoroughly impressed although I didn't think the characters and voices were as well-realised and articulated as in CA. But that makes sense. The story itself is clever, fast-paced, and well thought-out... Mitchell gives himself lots of room to move as a writer, having one of the characters as a spirit that moves from person to person, inhabiting their minds. I just think it was captivating, quite raw, and eye-opening, overall. Brilliant, as expected of Mitchell.

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LibraryThing member wordwench

It is easy to see reading this, where the magnificent Cloud Atlas came from. The layout is similar in that it takes individual stories and overlaps them in a subtle manner.
Really great characters, interesting stories and it had me gripped from beginning to end. Testament to the genius of David

Mitchell.

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LibraryThing member Humbert_Humbert

This was my first venture into the interconnected world of David Mitchell. For a first novel I thought he did a great job. Written as a set of short stories where each tale has an influence on the next I was quite intrigued. Definately worth picking up if you want to see what Mitchell is all about.

LibraryThing member alzo

3.5 stars. The first few stories were very enjoyable however I couldn’t really see where the book was taking me, though the final part of the book was enjoyable and tied it up nicely. I just felt that Mitchell could have restrained himself to the story a little more. At times I felt the style was

taking over from the substance a little – Mitchell seemed to feel the need to showcase his fantastic versatility. Overall though a very enjoyable and thought-provoking read – the themes much the same as Cloud Atlas but not quite as good in my opinion.

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LibraryThing member lindap69

pick up when I have the time to read it all in one sitting

LibraryThing member madcurrin

I read Cloud Atlas first which I really enjoyed, and I have to say, I enjoyed Ghostwritten even more.

First and foremost is David Mitchell's prose. He is one of the annoyingly excellent writers whose sentences I keep wanting to write down to have on file for instant access.

Beyond that it's the

ideas and the thrill of the detective work that the reader gets to do in spotting the links between all of the parts of the novel. I really perked up when I realised that not only is Ghostwritten a novel in nine parts that are related to each other, but Ghostwritten is also related to Cloud Atlas and his other books. David Mitchell is building an entire world with his novels. Sneaky bugger.

You could accuse him of being a bit too clever but his novels have a way of arriving at something far greater than the sum of their parts. And the parts are good enough on their own already.

I probably won't read Cloud Atlas again but I will very likely return to Ghostwritten one day.

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LibraryThing member clfisha

Essentially a series of short stories, albeit ones that rub up against each other with characters and themes interlinking. It's all very much chaos theory in action or one of those 90s Indie films with a multiple interweaving storylines or even maybe just a flash of unreality in the minds eye.

This

sadly wasn't as interesting as it sounds.. their impact on each is very slim and whilst it was fun to spot references to this (and Cloud Atlas) it did not really enrich the stories, plus the overarching plot is a bit of a let down: the suggestion of unreality seem tagged on.

So these stories really had to stand on their own two feet and at first they were a rather mixed bunch, soon however you start to find some absolute gems: a simple tale of a ladies man falling in love, a immortal ghost searching for his roots, a girl living through tumultuous times in China, a radio phone-in show with rogue AIs.

A theme of places is used to frame these tales and the linking gave a post modern edge but in the end I felt this was a fun and rewarding short story collection nothing more. Although who knows maybe I will get more out of it in a second reading? I do heartedly recommend it though, because when David Mitchell is good he is very very very good.

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LibraryThing member cestovatela

David Mitchell is a writer who challenges me and I mean that in the best way possible. His books are interconnected short stories more than they are novels. Each story takes in different settings, genres and characters and each one has something important to share. Ghostwritten is not quite as

masterful as Mitchell's most famous work Cloud Atlas but I'm still very glad I read it. He excels at getting into the heads of complex and unusual characters. Often his settings are so vivid and atmospheric that they're like another character in the novel. I savored images like "getting drunk on opals" and ideas like "the world is made of stories, not people." The book grapples with mysteries of the human condition like destiny, character, free will and how to choose the right principles to guide you through an uncertain world. Sometimes the characters are a little too theatrical. Sometimes the metaphysics and the symbolism is too heavy handed. But this book grasps essential truths of living: "laws help you hack through the jungle, but no law changes the fact that you are in the jungle." That's what makes it worth reading in spite of its flaws.

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