Sing along with Bokonon from calypso number 53,

Nice, nice, very nice—
So many different people
In the same device.

Despite my summer of David Mitchell, I still don’t know much about him beyond his books, so I don’t know if he’s a great fan of Kurt Vonnegut or not. But now that I have worked my way backward this summer from his most recent Utopia Avenue in May to last night finishing up his first novel Ghostwritten, I can’t help but think of Vonnegut as I sit here on my back porch and try to come up with something intelligent to say about this extraordinary book, which is easily a five-star read if I were rating it against all the other books I’ve read instead of in context with everything I’ve read by Mitchell.

And it makes sense, the Vonnegut connection, because although you don’t have a lion hunter here or a Chinese dentist or a British queen, you do have an amazingly diverse collection of people from far ranging places who “All fit together / In the same machine.” After all, if you haven’t read it, Ghostwritten is a series of nine (hmmmm? Nine?!?) short stories followed by a brief epilogue, nine stories narrated by eight first-person narrators encompassing the experiences of people stretching across the globe from Okinawa to Ulaan Bator to St. Petersburg and New York City, and as you read along, their stories begin to subtly interweave and then come together in some very striking ways. And why only eight first-person narrators? Well, that final story “Night Train” shifts to a third person structure, and the reason for that would be a bit of a massive spoiler, so I’ll leave it alone for now. Suffice to say, the reader will probably figure out what is happening here long before Mitchell makes it explicit. And, while I do love the book, I’m not sure I thoroughly appreciate the way Mitchell finishes up things in that last story, although, and this was a special treat for me in my Summer of Mitchell, Bat Segundo, that same DJ in London back in 1968 who plays Utopia Avenue’s first single on his radio show in London launching them to fame at the beginning of their career, is now a much older disc jockey thirty-some years later in “Night Train,” working the graveyard shift on a New York radio station, spinning records and talking to the crazy midnight callers as the world slowly slips into chaos.

Like Vonnegut, David Mitchell is fascinated by concerns both physical and metaphysical, but always those at the core of what makes us human. Again, Cat’s Cradle comes to mind because you have here in Ghostwritten the destruction caused by both irrational belief in absurd religious ideology as well the supposedly rational belief in the systems of science and business and government, all of which lead mankind toward doom and destruction. You have a looming apocalypse, the dangers posed by the unhindered pursuit of technology, and that core conflict we humans face at the center of our being between rapacious greed and brutal assholery and kindness and gentle concern for the well-being of others, key concepts explored by Vonnegut in Cat’s Cradle and his other novels.

(Spoiler alert: Mitchell, like Vonnegut, comes down on the side of kindness, but that may not be enough to save ourselves from destruction.)

Here in Ghostwritten, fans of the Mitchellverse will be introduced to nearly all of the themes he explores later in his work. It makes me wonder if at the beginning of his career here he is already sketching out a rough arc of these early ideas and consciously laying the groundwork for his later novels or if Cloud Atlas and the Bone Clocks are just the inevitable development of these concerns as he continues to meditate on them over the next couple of decades. As a young writer, is he already thinking of the Shaded Way, the Horologists, the radio people? Has he already created a timeline for the lives of Luisa Rey, Timothy Cavendish, Mo Muntervary and others or is he slowly stumbling his way toward his later work, making it up as he goes along? And does God really keep his eye on the sparrow? Hamlet thought so. I’m still wondering…

For me, I read Cloud Atlas first, then Black Swan Green, and the Bone Clocks before finishing up Mitchell’s remaining works in reverse order. For the reader unexposed to Mitchell and unfamiliar with the megaworld of his novels, perhaps it would be best to begin with Ghostwritten and watch the magic unfold in the order that he conjured it for his readers. But I’m not sure it really matters. If I can get back to Vonnegut here, Mitchell’s uberwork is a kind of enormous Tralfamadorian novel that transcends the normal laws of time and space and which invites the reader to jump in feet first at any point in the narrative and meet the characters who live there.

With Ghostwritten you catch glimpses and sometimes even longer scenes of the feature-length greatness that’s to come in Cloud Atlas. This was Mitchell’s publishing debut. As may be true of many first works, he could barely contain all that he wanted to say. It was chock full of people, places and ideas. He gave himself nine very different vehicles for addressing the question of why things happen as they do. The settings of the nine stories span Asia, Europe, and the US. Good, bad, young, old, East, West – it’s all there, with different tones for each. They connect often in incidental ways. For instance, events in story A are probably not crucial antecedents in story B. But the links can be entertaining in the same way that recognizing characters Mitchell reused in his other novels can be. Seeing the likes of Neal Brose, Luisa Rey, and Timothy Cavendish, who reappear in later books in different phases of their lives, can be fun. It’s like when you watch Mystic Pizza years after it was filmed, and see Matt Damon in a minor role as the kid brother of the spoiled, rich guy. Anyway, these connections, and all connections, could be mere happenstance. Or they could be fate. Then ask yourself this: Is everything determined by sets of causal inputs? Is there a role for free will? Is choice an illusion? What are the drivers within the system, the control variates, the precipitants? What part is played by love, greed, altruism, or self-interest? Mitchell’s answers to these questions were sometimes oblique, but he deserves full credit for raising them.

Getting back to structure – the focus of many reviews – Mitchell’s hallmark inventiveness was in early evidence here. To be honest, though, I didn’t think the pieces were stitched together quite as effectively in this one as in Cloud Atlas. Still, there were signs of the mastery to come. He switched voices well, clearly recognized the importance of good storytelling, and only occasionally dragged when describing the many people and places. I thought the stories set in Tokyo and London were especially well done. Other characters were appealing, too, or if not that, at least interesting. The common thread of the parts I enjoyed most was that they were told without devices, in a straightforward, true-to-life kind of way. I felt in other parts of the book that the then less mature Mitchell relied too much on transmigrating spirits, sci-fi AI constructs, and other phenomena not of this world. The supernatural entities helped tie things together, but for my taste they took more away in cogency than they added in creativity. He was also more convincing with the nobler traits. The young sax player in love was so much better drawn than the terrorist who was brainwashed. Thank you, David, for that.

I’ll sum up my experience reading this with a reference to Keith Jarrett. He’s the pianist that the young jazz buff in the Tokyo chapter appreciated for his improvisational skills. Jarrett will occasionally throw in little vocalized drones during his solos that can be a distraction. Despite this, you often get some of the best original work ever. And he just makes it all up.

With a rating of four I’m dropping a star, but not my membership in the Mitchell as Marvel Fan Club.

"Disbelieving the reality under your feet gives you a license to print your own." Ok, relevant. David Mitchell's first novel shows an affinity with some of my favorite writers: Vonnegut, Wallace, Pynchon, Chabon, Spiotta, Lethem, LeGuin. But he has a through line that seeks to scatter dots and then connect them. Written in 2000, his homing device sets his attention on the divergent paths of humanity: one group seeking unity and peace, the other breaking widows in the Capitol. As our late night DJ Bat Segundo puts it, "Sure, we’re all moon-howlers in a moon-howling world." But some are learning to harmonize.
There is some evidence that Mitchell feels that a salvation of sorts lies in stories. That's a view I am interested in. One of his most unusual and compelling characters is a seeker, searching for the genesis of a particular Mongolian myth. Like Salman Rushdie, Mitchell has many characters tell small stories that enliven the book.
He spent some significant time in Japan and my favorite character is the young Tokyo musician Satoru, full of hopeful melancholy but still harboring hope. His girlfriend, Tomoyo, is compelling but does not get enough screen time. A shortcoming of Ghostwritten is that too many of the characters are dislikable and uninteresting. Quasar, who opens the book, is a bitter spoonful for sure and almost two dimensional. The Irish folks on Clear Island are a little too disarmingly charming to be true. But a strength of this novel and most of his subsequent ones, is the global setting, these are books about life on Earth. He is one of a very few writers whose new books I will always read. People who read this when it came out and saw promise had the reverse of the experience I had. For me it was like hearing demos of a young Janis Joplin, and thinking, damn, she's a necessity in my life, and she was great from the start.

Ghostwritten is a novel of nine interconnected stories, the connections become more overt as the novel goes on. I enjoyed the whole book but the latter chapters are compelling. One of the chapters is about a guy who is a ghostwriter, there’s a kinda ghost or an untethered spirit in the tea house and Mongolia chapters. One of the stories is about a woman who’s a quantum physicist working on AI control (Quancog, quantum cognition maybe), the “quantum mechanics of sentience”.
It’s about life, is it choice or chance, or is everything fate? And humans, how we like destroying our world and what’s an AI to do watching it all. This is David Mitchell’s first novel and its amazingly good. It has references to stuff that would be built on in Cloud atlas. There’s comets mentioned, one of the characters has a comet shaped birthmark, some minor characters are in the later book. I’m sure I’m probably missing stuff. There’s so much in it, I’m glad I’ve read it at last!

This predates the more famous “Cloud Atlas” (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...) by about four years; it has similarities of theme (connectedness, migrating spirits), structure (linked narratives, in contrasting styles), and even characters, but in a less contrived format. The subtitle is “A novel in nine parts”, and although some of the earlier ones could be read as standalone short stories, that would be missing the point, particularly with the later sections. Much as I love Cloud Atlas, I still prefer this.

THEMES

Despite the many similarities with Cloud Atlas, particularly the themes of connectedness and migrating spitits, there is a profound difference of main theme and thus tone: whereas CA is primarily about the many ways humans exploit each other, Ghostwritten is ultimately more positive, focusing on turning points in people’s lives, leading to new starts – even though there is often a great deal of menace and (often justified) paranoia leading up to that point.

Related to that, the way people collude in their own deception is also a common thread in most of the stories, whether by a cult, the desire for wealth, a political power, fear of the mob, love for an abuser, or craving for world peace. As one character explains, “The bigger the fib, the bigger they bite… Tell people that reality is exactly what it appears to be, they’ll nail you to a lump of wood” and he then gives examples of far-fetched theories, adding “Disbelieving the reality under your feet gives you a licence to print your own. All it takes is an original twist.”

The other recurring word is “chance”, especially in the later parts: the odds of finding a long-lost relative, the name of a band, visiting a casino, and even explaining quantum physics (“Quantum physics speaks in chance, with the syntax of uncertainty”). More fundamentally, it's about how much free will we have, and how much is predestined by external forces.

1 OKINAWA

The first story follows ‘Quasar’, a member of a Japanese doomsday cult, who is on the run after a terrorist incident. It explores his reasons for joining, how he has come to believe that ends justify horrific means, the way he seeks and sees meaning in chance, and even how he explains away the hypocrisy of guru His Serendipity’s personal wealth and lifestyle. There are also some delightful cameos of small town Japan, including a farmer who “every time he used the word ‘computer’ he sealed it in inverted commas”.

2 TOKYO

Satoru is a young jazz fan, working in a record shop. He’s a bit of a loner, and in quiet moments, he contemplates the chance of him randomly meeting his real father. Jazz is his “place”, very necessary in such a crowded city, and because, as he notes, “People with no place are those who end up throwing themselves onto the tracks”. He meets and falls for a customer, Tomoyo, but she lives in Hong Kong.

There are some lovely passages describing cherry blossom at various stages, culminating in “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.”

For such a layered and connected novel, I was amused to read “For a moment I had an odd sensation of being in a story that someone was writing”!

3 HONG KONG

This is a more confused story, with a different sort of paranoia: Neal Brose is a yuppie financial lawyer who has guilty dreams about secret bank accounts and, it turns out, other things. This affects his health and muddles his mind and narrative even more. Although I’ve read it before, I was sometimes confused about the status of various females he refers to (alive, dead, estranged, imaginary, ghostly). ”I’ve been living with three women. One was a ghost, who is now a woman. One was a woman, who is now a ghost. One is a ghost and always will be.” At one point, “I looked up, and saw myself looking down through smoked glass, from amongst the tops of my unmoving heads. Like I was spirit-walking”.

Neal describes himself as “a man of departments, compartments, apartments… My future is in another compartment, but I’m not looking into that one.” Introspection doesn’t really help, “Is it not a question of cause and effect, but a question of wholeness?” Inevitably, things come to a head when such distinctions start to encroach on each other.

4 HOLY MOUNTAIN

Most of the stories take place in the space of a few days or hours (with a little backstory), but this covers a lifetime of a Buddhist girl in a tea shack on a holy mountain in Tibet, from where she encounters all the political upheavals of the 20th century.

She is brave, philosophical, devout, and though not formally educated, very perceptive. “On the Holy Mountain, all the yesterdays and tomorrows spin around again sooner or later… We mountain dwellers live on the prayer wheel of time.” Similarly, after encountering warlords, nationalists and Communists, she realised that they’re all different but all the same: unlike protagonists in some of the other stories, she is aware of the dangers (and resistant to) delusions and brain-washing; of the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward, she notes “They didn’t want to believe it was true, so they didn’t”. I was often reminded of “Wild Swans” (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...).

Towards the end of her life, her thinking seems a little less clear (she sees a spirit girl, and her Tree bears almonds, hazelnuts – and persimmons), but it’s all about laying spirits to rest, continuity and responsibility.

5 MONGOLIA

This is the central section of the book, in terms of position and content. Right from the start, there is something odd about this narrator, who seems to know too much, although the reason soon becomes clear. It’s impossible to say much about this section without explaining the narrator, which is the key to the whole novel:  it is a disembodied spirit (noncorpum), who travels from host to host. “Backpackers are strange. I have a lot in common with them. We live nowhere, and we are strangers everywhere. We drift, often on a whim, searching for something to search for. We are both parasites… We chew the secretions of solitude”.

The spirit is on a quest to find out about itself (“whether others of my kind exist”) and also to discover the source of a tale about the three animals who think about the fate of the world. There are lots of interestingly described ideas and sensations about transmigration: “As my infancy progressed, I became aware of another presence in ‘my’ body. Stringy mists of colour and emotion condensed into droplets of understanding… Like being plugged into a plotless movie”, and “The fact that touch is a requisite provides a clue that I exist on some physical plane”.

As with all the other stories, the spirit is faced with a choice that will change everything: it chooses mortality.

6 PETERSBURG

Back to a more straightforward narrator (though plenty of crossings and double-crossings in the plot), but with an increasing number of nods to other stories (e.g. casual references to Hong Kong, not directly linked to the plot). It is a relatively straightforward heist, set in the Hermitage. Margarita is a curator with an unsavoury boyfriend (many dodgy aspects and businesses) who does most of the organising, though he isn’t the guy at the top. They are planning to take “Eve and the Serpent” by Delacroix – lots of symbolism there! There is also Jerome, a retired English spy (shades of Anthony Blunt).

7 LONDON

The connections are stacking up, but this is primarily about Marco, a philandering ghostwriter and some-time drummer in a band called The Music of Chance. He gets philosophical at times, contemplating fate and the relative importance of chance and choice in determining our lives. His girlfriend, Poppy, accuses him, “You love talking about cause. You never talk about effect.” He also explains his career: “I couldn’t hack the Samaritans… I couldn’t get to sleep afterwards, worrying about the possible endings of the stories that had been started. Maybe that’s why I’m a ghostwriter. The endings have nothing to do with me.” Later , “We’re all ghostwriters… We all think we’re in control of our own lives, but really they’re pre-ghostwritten.” This is probably the most connected story, and the fact it is also about a ghostwriter is presumably no coincidence, given that this is Mitchell.

This story has a strong sense of place and there is a delightful riff on the personalities of different Tube lines:” London is a language” and the District and Circle lines are “as bad as how I imagine Tokyo is.” However, it gets a little mysterious when there is a near accident and strange men in suits appear.

8 CLEAR ISLAND

Shades of the cold war, here. Mo is an Irish scientist who has been researching an AI called quantum cognition (quancog), but having realised the dangerous military uses it will be put to, she has fled home, where she wrestles with her conscience and fear of being found. “Can nuclear technology… be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’? The only words for technology is ‘here’ and ‘not here’. The question is, once here, what are we going to do with it?”

It’s not immediately clear whether her options are sequential ones that really happen, or parallel possibilities, only some of which happen. It creates uncertainty in the mind of the reader – in a good way.

9 NIGHT TRAIN

The Night Train is actually a late-night phone-in show on a New York radio station, hosted by Bat Segundo. Naturally, it’s common for weirdos to ring, and one such goes by the name of Zookeeper. People can’t agree if Zookeeper sounds male or female, and Z talks in a slightly stilted, prophetic, and ominous way reminiscent of HAL in 2001. It’s not immediately clear whether Z is a standard oddball, or somehow connected to one of the other characters.

It turns out that Zookeeper is Mo’s AI, now trying to save the world from global war (life on Earth being the zoo), within certain laws, which are not explicitly spelt out, but seem to echo Azimov's laws: the first is accountability (to who?), the second is invisibility (to humans), the third I missed and the fourth was preserving life (not just human) - so maybe the third is preserving human life specifically. Zookeeper is self-aware and raises the question of whether AI is equivalent to a noncorpum soul. The latter asks it, “How could a being with your resources believe yourself to be the only non-corporeal sentient intelligence wandering the surface of creation?” Zookeeper says, “They regard me as the fallen angel. They transmigrate into human chaff for hosts, and meditate upon nothingness on mountains”.

UNDERGROUND

The last, very short, section takes us full circle. Quasar is on the subway, about to detonate his device, filled with images (many from adverts) of other people and places in the book, questioning reality and what he will do. “Wait for the comet, wait for the White Nights.”

CONNECTIONS

There are many people, events and things that crop up in more than one of the stories, all emphasising the secondary themes of connectedness and migrating spirits. Spotting them is a bit like a treasure hunt, hence the spoiler tags (I’ve listed them primarily for my own reference and I’m sure there are plenty I’ve missed):



•tThe preface quotes “The Bridge of san Luis Rey”, and Luisa Rey pops up in Night Train [9] and is a major character in CA.
t
•tQuasar [1] eavesdrops on “businessmen buying and selling what wasn’t theirs”, like Neal Brose [3] and the art theft gang do [6].
t
•tHis Serendipity [1] was on Holy Mountain [4] thirty years earlier, where he received a transmigrated “being of pure consciousness named Arupadhatu”.
t
•tSatoru [2] receives a phone call from Quasar [1], who thinks he is calling an emergency number for The Fellowship.
t
•tNeal Brose [3] works for Denholme Cavendish [CA].
t
•tIn a burger bar, Neal Brose [3] sees a couple who are probably Satoru and Tomoyo [2].
t
•tNeal Brose [3] remembers childhood fishing trips with his father in Wales – mentioned in Black Swan Green (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...).
t
•tThere are numerous references to comets [CA], including “could it be bathing the world in evil?” [4]; one around the time of a transmigration in Mongolia [5]; the possibility of one in the sky above Petersburg [6] (“The stars are not quite there tonight. A light is moving amongst them. A comet, or an angel…?”); Katy Forbes [3, 7] has a comet-shaped birthmark; Zookeeper [9] mentions a book called “Earthbound Comet”; the passing of Comet Aloysius is mentioned several times in Night Train [9], and at the end, Quasar is waiting for the comet.
t
•tThe tea house [4] woman’s granddaughter “cleans foreigners’ apartments” and when her wealthy lawyer employer dies, he is very generous to her in his will. He is almost certainly Neal Brose [3].
t
•tA visitor to Holy Mountain [4] has a mother from Mongolia who passed on a story about three animals who think about the fate of the world. In Mongolia [5], Caspar knows this Mongolian legend, but can’t understand how/why he knows it. Also in Mongolia, the spirit narrator states its mission to trace the origin of this story.
t
•tThe narrator in Mongolia [5] says “My own infancy was spent at the foot of the Holy Mountain” [4], and later specifies that its first host was the girl in the tea shack.
t
•tCaspar [5] sold jewellery in Okinawa [1].
t
•tCaspar [5] once saw a film about an art heist in Petersburg [6].
t
•tThe noncorpum narrator [5] moves into Mongolian KGB agent Suhbataar who has overlords in Petersburg [6] and turns up there.
t
•tMargarita [6] dreams of a gas attack in a subway [1].
t
•tRudi [6] launders heist money through Neal Brose’s [3] secret bank on behalf of Gregorski’s money.
t
•tNeal Brose’s [3] estranged widow Katy has a one-night stand with Marco in London [7].
t
•tTim Cavendish [CA, 7] is Marco’s [7] literary agent and the brother of Neal Brose’s [3] boss, Denholme Cavendish.
t
•tMarco [7] is a ghostwriter – echoing the title of the book – and one of his subjects is a friend of Jerome, the art forger [6].
t
•tWhen Marco [7] contemplates escaping his life, he says “Mongolia [5] would suite me fine”.
t
•tTim Cavendish [CA, 7] is publishing His Serendipity’s [1] sacred revelations.
t
•tIn a café, Marco [7] chats up a woman who is reading a book about spiritwalking, by Dwight Silverwind [9].
t
•tTim Cavendish’s [CA, 7] publishing company runs into trouble when his brother’s company is sunk because of Neal Brose’s [3] dealings.
t
•tKaty Forbes [3, 7] has a comet-shaped birthmark that Marco [7] sees.
t
•tThe woman Marco [7] saves from being run over by a taxi is Mo [8].
t
•tMo [8] flees to Hong Kong [3] and Petersburg [6], having previously been in London [7]. In Mongolia[5] she meets the Australian, Sherry, who hooks up with Caspar.
t
•tMo’s [8] husband plays random notes on the piano and describes them as “the music of chance”, the name of Marco’s 7] band.
t
•tMo [8] sees Neal’s [3] collapse and death on Lantau.
t
•tLuisa Rey [CA] calls Night Train [9] and is a true crime writer whose works include “The Hermitage” [6].
t
•tZookeeper [9] mentions Dwight Silverwind [7].
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•tAt the end [10], Quasar has impressions of a mountain tea shack [4], Mongolia [5], Petersburg [6], a Land Cruiser [5, 6] and others.
t


MISCELLANEOUS QUOTES

•tA hotel receptionist, “her smile as ironed as her uniform”
t
•tJapanese city department stores “rising up like windowless temples, dazzling the unclean into compliance”
t
•t“Jigsaw pieces of my dream lay dropped around”
t
•tBeing engaged “adds the thrill of adultery while subtracting any responsibility”!
t
•tTokyo is so cramped “You’re pressed against people body to body… Apartment windows have no view but other apartment windows. No, in Tokyo, you have to make your place inside your head”
t
•t“The her that lived in her looked out through her eyes, through my eyes and at the me that lives in me.”
t
•tThe tyranny of mobile phones, “When these things first appeared, they were so cool. Only when it was too late did people realise they are as cool as electronic tags on remand prisoners”.
t
•t“I answer it, allowing the electrons of irrelevance to finish their journey along wires, into space and back into my ear.”
t
•t“We walk up the steps… brighter and brighter, into a snowstorm of silent steps.” Referring to Neal’s death, on Lantau.
t
•t“Silence thickened the air. The mist had closed in… The afternoon became so sluggish that it stopped altogether.”
t
•tHaving borne a child (only because she was raped), a girl realises “Perhaps in a few years some widower pig farmer might be persuaded to take me in as a mistress and nurse for his old age. If I was lucky. I resolved then and there not to be luck.” The feelings of the rape victim, many years later, are explored very sensitively and plausibly.
t
•t“His skin had less life in it than a husk in a spider’s web.”
t
•t“Night stole over the land again, dissolving it in shadows and blue. Every ten or twenty miles tongues of campfire licked the darkness.”
t
•t“Dusk was sluggish with cold”
t
•t“Petersburg is built of sob stories, pile-driven down into the mud.”
t
•tWhen drunk “my words forgot their names”.
t
•t“Indifference as dent-proof as fog” and “a sigh [that] would drain a salad of all colour.”
t
•t“My room is too much like a Methodist chapel. I’m more of a Church of the Feral Pagan type.”
t
•t“Memories are their own descendants masquerading as the ancestors of the present.”
t
•tTapes from family “prised the lid off homesickness and rattled out the contents, but always at the bottom was solace.”
t
There are a few weak joke reversals that seem out of place from a writer of Mitchell’s stature, who loves Japan and SE Asia so much (he lived there for years and his wife is Japanese): Westerners all look the same, and can’t learn Japanese. Then, on Holy Mountain, an old woman has her first ever hamburger but “I was hungry again less than an hour afterwards”.

HOW TO READ THIS – and CLOUD ATLAS

I first read them in the early 2000s, in publication order, and this year, I’ve reread them in reverse order. I don’t think the sequence matters, but there are benefits to reading each of them in a few longish chunks of reading time, and not having too long a gap between the two. That way you’re more likely to notice when some trivial thing from an earlier story is mentioned again. An ereader would help, too.


Review from early 2000s

His first novel, generously infused with his experiences of living in the Orient (the Chinese strand, Holy Mountain, is exquisite).

It is several stories told by different protagonists, in different styles, some with an ethereal/mythical quality, some much harsher and more modern - all of them believable and enticing. I found this a more subtle approach to linked lives than the somewhat gimmicky method in Cloud Atlas (though I still enjoyed that: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...).

Just as the stories are linked, so are the spirits of the characters, each looking for their own private head space in a busy and changing world, but these links also question the nature of free will and chance versus determinism - and more besides.

In lesser hands it could come across as a showy literary exercise in writing in different styles, but he pulls it off as a coherent, profound, intriguing and enjoyable book.

I want to shout from the rooftops about how much I loved this book! I don't think this is going to be a very coherent review, as it's another of those books that is difficult to describe without giving everything away. Ghostwritten was David Mitchell's debut, published in 1999, and it is similar to his better-known Cloud Atlas in that it consists of a number of diverse - but interconnected - stories (and, indeed, a number of characters from that book also make appearances here). It's hugely entertaining, intellectually engaging, funny, fast-paced and addictive. It's been a long time since I read something that I really, really didn't want to tear myself away from, but lots of things, from work to TV to sleep, were jettisoned in favour of this book.

As with my review of Cloud Atlas, I have briefly summarised what happens in each chapter below, so what follows may count as spoilers, although I have tried to avoid spoiling what might be considered plot points. However, if you haven't yet read Ghostwritten, I would advise you to skip the below - I think the surprise of each new chapter enhanced my enjoyment.

1. Okinawa: A member of a doomsday cult, responsible for an attack which has resulted in a number of deaths, flees the scene of his crime and attempts to go into hiding.
2. Tokyo: A jazz-obsessed teenage boy who works in a record store meets, and falls in love with, the girl of his dreams.
3. Hong Kong: A corrupt financial lawyer, with something of Patrick Bateman about him, hurtles towards a breakdown as he struggles to keep his dodgy dealings a secret. His narrative also touches on the disintegration of his marriage, an affair with the maid, and the apparent haunting of his flat by the ghost of a little girl.
4. Holy Mountain: A woman runs a tea shack outside a small village on one of China's holy mountains. This story differs from the others in that it spans her whole life, and shows the damaging effect of different periods of political unrest on her peaceful existence.
5. Mongolia: Even more unusual - the protagonist of this one is a disembodied entity which inhabits different individuals' minds and jumps from person to person by 'transmigrating' when they touch. It is searching for the secret of its existence through the only thing it remembers, a fragment of a folk tale, which seems to have originated in Mongolia.
6. Petersburg: A gallery attendant, a fading beauty with delusions of grandeur who is desperately clinging on to an abusive relationship, becomes caught up in an art heist.
7. London: A womanising drummer in a going-nowhere band, who also works as a ghostwriter, is dragged into a bet which involves gambling away all the money he has - despite the fact that he is already in a large amount of debt.
8. Clear Island: A brilliant scientist who is being pursued by agents of the US government returns to the tiny Irish island she grew up on.
9. Night Train: The host of a late-night radio show in New York receives a strange phone call from a person calling themselves 'the Zookeeper'.
10. Underground: The protagonist of the first story reappears, and this time is depicted in the midst of his attack, on an underground train.

At first, I also started making a list of ways in which the stories are connected, but there were just too many. There's a lengthy list on the Wikipedia entry for this book, but even that isn't exhaustive - I spotted some that aren't listed there.

My favourite of the stories? It has to be #6, Petersburg - I adored the protagonist, Margarita, and could easily have read a whole book about her story. However, I really loved ALL of them. I can't emphasise this enough.

With short story compilations or novels made up of separate narratives, my overall opinion of the book often suffers because I find myself absolutely falling in love with one story/section, then being yanked out of that world and left with something I just don't enjoy in quite the same way. That didn't happen here, not because I didn't want any of the stories to be longer (I definitely did!) but because each new one was just as unique and engrossing as the last. I've really enjoyed the other David Mitchell books I've read, but this was the best (so far, anyway): it was everything I wanted Cloud Atlas to be.

La narrativa de Escritos fantasma comienza y termina en Okinawa, en la mente de un miembro de un culto milenario que comete asesinatos en masa con un gas venenoso en el metro de Tokio. Una llamada de teléfono errada lo vincula con el empleado de una tienda de música en Tokio, enamorado de una estudiante. La pareja es observada en Hong Kong, donde un abogado financiero británico se ve involucrado en el blanqueo de dinero de la mafia rusa. Una casa del té en la montaña sagrada conecta con un espíritu incorpóreo en busca de sus orígenes por Mongolia, empastando con el robo de un Delacroix en San Petersburgo y el trabajo como escritor fantasma de biografías de un baterista de jazz desarraigado, que salva a una científica en pleno escape de los servicios secretos y huye a la costa de Irlanda, mientras en el final del mundo, un solo programa nocturno de radio permanece en antena.

Tal y como indica su título original (Ghostwritten: A Novel in Nine Parts), Escritos fantasmas es una novela en nueve partes. O también, son nueve novelas que hacen una. Está escrito de forma episódica; donde cada capítulo detalla una historia diferente y un personaje central nuevo, aunque todos están interconectados a través de eventos aparentemente coincidentes. Mitchell sintetiza una colección de cuentos que se mueven a través del mundo, en un intrincado rompecabezas que mantiene una alerta permanente en el lector: siempre estamos buscando intensamente el próximo punto donde personajes, lugares y cronología confluyan. La interconexión es fundamental en el texto, teniendo intersecciones activas y dinámicas, individuales, pero aun así colectivas, semejando el papel que tenemos todos los individuos dentro de nuestra sociedad.

En cada historia, Mitchell presenta de cero un narrador en primera persona. Un rostro que adherimos a cada lugar, emergiendo de cada una de las narrativas algo diferente. Ninguno parece seguir un arco tradicional, con principio, desarrollo y fin, si no que establece un escenario y un momento a través del que ir montando el puzle. Todo resulta una pista potencial, nada carece de importancia, obligando al lector a ponerse en una especie de estado hiperlector donde desgranar cada detalle. Mitchell es un narrador sutil, sensible e imaginativo, cuyas historias funcionan por que sus preocupaciones son globales, pero por que utiliza mecanismos de metaficción que están engranados y parecen romper las reglas establecidas en el mundo de la literatura.

Muchos de los temas y estructuras de Escritos fantasmas continúan en las novelas posteriores de Mitchell, como number9dream, El atlas de las nubes y Relojes de huesos. Por supuesto, algún que otro guiño importante (a las leyes de Asimov, por ejemplo) o personaje encontramos en futuras novelas del autor, en esa especie de juego que el Mitchellverso o übernovel supone para todos sus fans. El lema All is conected ya lo llevaba por bandera desde esta primera novela. Sin embargo, Escritos fantasma se centra más en los puntos de inflexión en la vida de las personas. Momentos que las llevan a nuevos comienzos. Es una exploración de nuestra búsqueda de comprensión y significado de la vida, desarrollando preguntas sobre el papel del azar o de como si fuera su Matrix particular, las personas se confabulan en su propio engaño vital. Somos solo personajes de la historia de otra persona. Estamos escritos por fantasmas, somos solo las teclas de su máquina de escribir.

Reseña en el blog: https://boywithletters.blogspot.com/2...

Γινεται να εχω διαβασει το "βιβλιο της χρονιας" μολις απο τον Μαρτη? Πολυ πιθανον.δε ξερω τι ακριβως να γραψω για να αιτιολογησω αυτη τη δηλωση.αυτο το βιβλιο απλα με συνεπηρε.δεν μου αρεσουν σχεδον ποτε τα βιβλια που αποτελούνται απο διηγηματα, ειμαι παντα επιφυλακτικη με τους διθυράμβους για τα εξαντλημενα βιβλια και παρολο που αυτο το βιβλιο συνδυαζει και τα 2 αυτα στοιχεια, το λατρεψα. Να χρησιμοποιησω τα λογια του συγγραφεα μηπως? "Μερικες φορες η γλωσσα δεν μπορει καν να ερμηνευσει τη μουσικη των νοηματων."
Το βιβλιο αυτο λοιπον αποτελειται απο 9 επιμερους ιστοριες που εκτυλισσονται σε διαφορετικα μερη, με διαφορετικους αφηγητες(υπαρκτους και μη) με τελειως διαφορετικα θεματα που ομως καταφερνουν να συνδεονται με εναν μοναδικο τροπο και να δινουν αυτο το αριστουργημα..δεν ξερω τι αλλο να πω για να σας πεισω ΝΑ ΤΟ ΔΙΑΒΑΣΕΤΕ!! Ειναι εμπειρια.
Υ.γ.1: εαν οπως λενε οι περισσοτεροι το cloud atlas ειναι ακομη καλυτερο , τοτε απλα δεν ειμαι ετοιμη για κατι τετοιο.
Υ.γ.2:στο σημειο που λεει οτι το "here comes the sun " ειναι το κομματι των beatles που θα διεσωζε στη διαστημικη κιβωτο, εαν ερχοταν το τελος του κοσμου, απλα ηξερα οτι αγαπω αυτον τον συγγραφεα :))
Απειρα αστέρια...

https://knyguziurkes.wordpress.com/20...

It’s easy to miss an important reference, or two, or three, while reading a David Mitchell novel – I learned that the hard way. After flipping the final page of the Ghostwritten, I did one of these moves: (think Lou Costello).

Then I swallowed my pride and headed off to Wiki to find some answers. Here’s me while reading Wikipedia’s page on Ghostwritten: “Missed that…Definitely didn’t see that…Was that even in the book?...Hey, there’s something I remember!” I’m exaggerating a little, but you get the point. It’s kind of brilliant when I think back now. The occasional semi-obvious reference linked these nine stories into one slightly-related entity. I caught most of those. Then there were the few subtle, yet mind-bending, references that spoke to the overall meaning. Sort of. Blink and you’ll miss them – like me.

I won’t even try to spell out the plot here. My reason for picking up Ghostwritten is due to first reading, and very much liking, another of Mitchell’s books, The Bone Clocks. No doubt I missed a few things in the midst of that one too, but if that’s true, I had a lot more fun while doing so. And that’s the thing with Ghostwritten. Fun was absent. Truth is I liked about three of the nine stories. At one point while reading, I thought of my little niece, and the time we pulled a variety of board games out of the closet. “Borrrriiiing”, she’d loudly quip to each game offered up for play. Yeah, I was a little like that.

This in no way means that I’ll quit reading the David Mitchell books. I still think he’s a brilliant writer, and I’m drawn to this idea that all of his books are tied together, if only by the tiniest of threads. After Ghostwritten comes Number9Dream. Please be more fun.

3.5*

If bookwriting is an art, this is wizardry!!!