Short stories ( )

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. ( )

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.

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. ( )

The structure of David Mitchell's Ghostwritten is ambitious, particularly for a debut: it is told through nine different prisms - each chapter is a new story, superficially unrelated to the others, but each has fleetingly contiguous episodes: during the first, a fugitive cultist subway bomber telephones his anonymous handler and leaves a cryptic message. In the second story we see the other end of that conversation: the phone is picked up and treated, as a crank caller, by an unwitting record shop owner from Tokyo. Later the record shop owner follows his girlfriend to Hong Kong and, in the third story, we see the pair observed from afar as passing figures by the subject of the third story, an expatriate lawyer who is involved in financial fraud. And so on. These inter-plot encounters are inevitably light and seemingly incidental, but plainly they're deliberate, knitting the narrative ever so loosely together. It's a striking effect, and led me to reflect on the way we tend to hermetically seal our compartmentalised worlds when at some level there is a fundamental interconnectedness of things, but all the same I doubt this was Mitchell's primary concern.

What it was, however, I really couldn't say. The knitting of the episodes was extremely loose, and scarcely drew tighter as the book progressed: the stories are otherwise very different, and each obliges the reader to acquaint himself with a new set of dramatis personae, infer a new set of relationships between them and absorb a new set of personalities. Allowing roughly three significant characters in each story (there are often more) that's roughly thirty characters to hold in contemplation, none of whom can be segregated from the others (as they might in a collection of short stories, for example) since, for all the reader knows, they may need (and if usual conventions are obeyed, ought) to be held *in relation to* one another. That's an imaginative feat which may well be beyond my powers of literary comprehension, and was certainly beyond the limits of my patience.

In places, therefore, I found Ghostwritten very frustrating indeed. Just when you'd expect an ordinary novel to pick up some momentum, Mitchell asks you to put on the brakes, set aside what you've learned, and start learning about a new set of characters. As a result, the book is rather too easy to put down and it took me some time to finish it.

It might have been passable were the episodes self-contained dramatically - if each had its own dilemma, plot and resolution - but for the most part they did not - each episode asks the reader to engage for closure in the next: figuring out this book involves assimilating some very odd pieces of jigsaw, which don't make much sense by themselves, and are only really brought together at all - and even then only weakly, at the very death.

I thereby confess I didn't understand the point of the last two episodes - and therefore the book - at all, as these were the ones which seemed intended to pull the book together (and in the last, join back to the beginning as if some sort of Möbius strip). As a piece of fiction Ghostwritten failed spectacularly for me.

Mitchell writes well in places but lazily in others, and his characters are mostly underdrawn and generic (all were narrated in the first person, and most spoke in more or less the same idiom). There were some interesting contrivances along the way - the disembodied being in Mongolia was fun - but Ghostwritten didn't grab my interest nearly hard enough, nor pay off that attention nearly well enough - to make this a recommended read. ( )

Starts out feeling like short stories, and in a way it is, but a thread runs through them, and gradually ties them all together in a rather unexpectedly science fiction ending. Terrorists in Japan, a banker in Hong Kong, an old woman in china, a spirit trying to find its origins in Mongolia, gangsters in St Petersburg, a ghostwriter in London, a physicist on the run and a New York radio presenter, all through it as well run themes of love: both happy and sad, and in many different forms. Charming throughout and gripping towards the end, though I was left a little lost by the epilogue. Fab. ( )

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. ( )

"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." ( )

I love the post-modern nature of this book and how David weaves together apparently disparate stories into a single novel. ( )

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Although I haven't brought up the subject here in awhile, the fact is that as a book critic and a lover of underground literature, it's important to me to become a "completist" of certain artists out there, or in other words to have consumed every single artistic project they've ever done. After all, I'm behind on a lot of this stuff compared to other critics my age -- I spent my twenties and early thirties as a working author myself, concentrating much more on writing my own books than reading other people's; and that leaves me near the age of forty with just these sometimes giant holes in my underground-arts education, embarrassing holes that as a critic I absolutely shouldn't have.

Take, oh, say, David Mitchell for example, who over the course of a decade now and four celebrated novels (three of them nominated for the freaking Booker) has become widely acknowledged as one of the best living surrealist authors on the planet; but before this week I hadn't ever read a single word by him, which should be some sort of crime against the underground arts if it isn't already. And it just so happens that one of the Chicago library branches up here by my place owns all four of Mitchell's books (I'm looking at you, cute nerdy acquisitions manager with the clunky glasses), so I've decided to finally start tackling them all myself, starting with the oldest, 1999's Ghostwritten. And that of course brings up one of the interesting things sometimes about reading the early work of someone who's now famous for their mature work; because many times, although not out-and-out terrible, such novels simply won't hold up to the "early masterpiece" hype of later years, or will contain diamonds in the rough that the author ends up polishing in later work, or sometimes are just so influential that they become blasé later in history, simply for all the ripoffs that came afterwards.

That's something you can honestly say about Ghostwritten too, although I found it more interesting than disappointing; that when all is said and done, the novel is essentially a British guy writing like Haruki Murakami, back in the late '90s before most English-speakers had heard of Murakami, making it not nearly the revelation anymore that I'm sure it was to Western audiences when it first came out. It's essentially what filmmaker Richard Linklater calls "vertical storytelling," a collection of tales that are mostly unrelated but with a series of fascinating synchronicity-style details, small decisions within some stories that will sometimes have devastating major consequences in others, with the chapters set around the world but especially in many Asian countries, and examining among other things the various stereotypical ways that Asians think of other Asians when white people aren't looking. All of these stories, though, have some sort of metaphysical or poetic element to them, and are written with an engaging mix of Asian minimalism and British fascination with language; one for example concerns a poltergeist in a yuppie apartment in Hong Kong, one a subway-bombing cult member hiding out from the cops in Okinawa, one a jazz-loving hipster teen in the middle of downtown Tokyo.

Ten years later, we've gotten a lot more used to these things -- metaphysical elements in our mainstream fiction, the influence of Asian minimalism on Western literature -- but when it first came out, seeing it in Ghostwritten I'm sure made a lot of people freak out in a pleasantly positive way, which I'm sure is how Mitchell gained his intense cult following to begin with, and what allowed him to go on and kick out three Booker nominees in a row after this one. And let's face it, even this novel isn't bad, even ten years later when many of its tropes have become a lot more common; even with this very first book of his, Mitchell displays a confidence in his material usually only seen in veteran authors, a relaxed assuredness with what is already experimental work, being written at a time when there were literally no precedents for it in English-language literature. Granted, I suspect at this point that his later books are going to be even better, and that readers not purposely trying to become Mitchell completists might want to actually skip this first one; then again, you might not, especially if your interest in weird lit is only a passing one, and if you mostly prefer the narrative feet of your stories planted firmly on realistic ground. I can definitely say, though, that I'm glad I read Ghostwritten; and I can also definitely say that I'm eagerly looking forward to his next, 2001's big breakthough hit number9dream, which hopefully I'll be tackling before too terribly long. ( )

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.

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. ( )

Not as good as Number9Dream or The Cloud Atlas (the latter is the best), but still quite dazzling for the sheer exuberant inventiveness of style, fantastic dialogue, wonderfully paced, fascinating plots, and a well-devised sense of connectedness not only between the mini-stories, but between many hidden over-arching themes as well. ( )

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. ( )

Ghostwitten is the debut novel by David Mitchell and is a true gem. This is the third novel I’ve read by Mitchell, the previous two being the fantastic Cloud Atlas and Number9dream. It’s tough for me to pick between Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas as my favorite. Both weave a narrative through multiple short stories that interconnect in a Robert Altman kind of way. Cloud Atlas is a bit more complex and subtle while Ghostwritten is far more raw and angry.

Mitchell has many gifts as a writer, the first and foremost being a natural storyteller. Whether writing about love, theft, quantum physics or Mongolian culture, Mitchell can rivet your attention to the page. He propels you through the narrative, plunges and dunks you with an amazing descriptive capability and empathy for his characters. I never felt cheated by any one of the stories or characters in Ghostwritten, which is amazing given there are ten distinct stories within the novel. One would think a few of these would be less satisfying and that Mitchell might have had passion for just 7 of the 10.

Read my full review at the Used Books Blog:
http://usedbooksblog.com/blog/ghostwr... ( )

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. ( )

His first and I think best - and somehow I don't think he is going to top it now. An exhilarating, unexpected read ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

http://blueidol-notesofabookdreamer.b... ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

I was really looking forward to delving into this book after reading so many great reviews. As the story progressed from chapter to chapter, I kept wondering whether I should continue reading ... the lack of cohesion of all of the stories was frustrating. Finally, in the Mongolia chapter, things seemed to be coming together. I *thought* I knew where the story was headed. I was wrong. I quit after reading the first few pages of the Petersburg chapter, thinking that I could no longer take the boredom. Unfortunately (for me), I eventually decided to slog through the rest of the book. It definitely was not worth it. The second portion of the book was no better than the first (in fact, it may have been worse), and the ending was horrible!

I'm shocked that so many people think Mitchell is a good writer. The characters were flat and poorly developed. Each chapter contained a plethora of boring and unneeded details ... and the elements within each chapter were barely connected! I'm annoyed that I wasted so much time on this "novel"! I'm definitely staying away from any further works by Mitchell. ( )

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. ( )

This book is very similar to Cloud Atlas - it fact a little too similar for my liking. When one of the Cloud Atlas characters first popped up it threw me completely.

The stories intertwine nicely, and I love the way that certain sentances or passages are repeated spoken by different people - it gives you a sort of reading deja vu! Mitchell has a clever way of bringing far off places and people together into a circle. Was a little dissapointed with the end, but still a great read. ( )