Ben Gould fell down, hit his head and began having odd experiences. In fact, they were so strange that his girlfriend, German Landis, didn't hesitate to break up with him. Along comes Ling, Ben’s female ghost, who is also in love with German. Huh?!

Think this is wild? It gets even more convoluted. If you are familiar with the work of Jonathan Carroll (playful, humorous writing with a pinch of the absurd…and often having good quotes, there for the taking), you know how he loves to use urban fantasy to get across a life lesson. You also know that there will be at least one dog in the book.

Although this is not one of my favorite Carroll novels, I found it lightly entertaining. I'd say that, if you’re in the mood for a ghost story, one that's not too scary, there are enough ghosts in this volume to quickly fill your quota. ( )

Wow... my opinion is definitely in the minority - it would seem that most reviewers actually liked this book! I found it to be... a very poor knock-off of Palahniuk's writing style (i.e. Lullaby). (If you have read Lullaby then you will have an idea of exactly how this story is written) It is, sorta, a fictional look at the nature of identity. The first half of the story is much much better than the second half - probably because you're still hoping that the pieces will come together and you'll have a sensible story.

It does not, and you will not. The second half of the book is a steady slope downhill to some sort of insane understanding of personality/identity, and the end of the book is just stupid... (a philosophy text written by someone who's had too much to drink?)

The description and title are misleading... if you stretch your imagination, it's about a man falling in love (or at least coming to terms with) with the various aspects of himself, but the ghost falling in love is a very minor and almost unnecessary add-on to the story.

I did finish it, but only because I kept hoping it would make sense at the end... now I wish I had skipped to the end from the half-way point, and then moved on to my next book. ( )

I LOVE Jonathan Carroll’s books. I love the crazy places his books take me, and the odd people I meet and the way he can be traveling down one path and then so subtly go a different way…while I am still happily going the original direction. When I finally catch on, it’s still a delight to backtrack and join him on his new route.

I stumbled upon “A Ghost in Love” in Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane, WA. Little did I know that one of my favorite writers had a new book out (well, I guess not THAT new), but Auntie’s would be the place I would find it.

Somehow I held off and didn’t start “Ghost” until days later when I was ready to sit down and bit off a big chunk, and then I fell into the world of Ben Gould and German Landis, and Pilot, their dog.

The reader is introduces to German in a perfect way, “Fifteen blocks away, a woman was walking down the street, carrying a large letter ‘D’.” Of course she was. In a Jonathan Carroll book, of course she was. It is explained later, and everything ends up making sense, it’s just a wonderful of making sure the reader is paying attention.

“A Ghost in Love” is about love and life and the choices people make in both. It deals with who people are at various stages in their lives and how later, all of those people and choices intersect. Instead of waxing philosophic about two such universal subjects, Carroll creates a world of ghosts, talking dogs and verses…and makes his points with a different slant to them.

“A Chinese farmer invented the idea of ghosts three thousand years ago as a way of explaining to his precious grandson what happens to people after they die. God thought it was such a novel and useful idea that He told his angels to make the concept real and allow it to flourish within the system.”

And “German Landis simply didn’t understand people who moped. Life was too interesting to choose suffering. Although she got a big kick out of him, she thought her brother, Guy, was goofy for spending his life writing songs only about things that either stank or sucked. In response, he drew a picture of what her gravestone would look like if he designed it: a big yellow smiley face on it and the words I LIKE BEING DEAD!”

Although I keep mentioning the humor and wonderful absurdity that I find in Carroll’s books – it’s the heart to them that keeps me coming back. He creates characters that I root for and laugh with and start to adore.

“Danielle put a hand flat against her chest. “We’re born with everything in here – everything we need to be happy and complete. But as soon as life starts frightening us, we give away pieces of ourselves to make the danger go away. It’s a trade: you want life to stop scaring you, so you give it a part of yourself. You give away your pride, your dignity, or your courage…When all you feel is fear, you don’t need dignity. So you don’t mind giving that away – at the moment. But you regret it later because you’ll need all those pieces.”

I found such beauty in this book. Even though I was lost at times, many times, it’s such a wonderful journey that I didn’t care. When by turns, I can read something that makes me laugh out loud and then something that makes me slow down and read again to capture the meaning and beauty of a phrase, then I am enjoying a book to the fullest.

And in this book, there was a part about a childhood object that took me back in time, recovered a memory for me that I’d though I’d lost.

“Usually at least once in a person’s childhood we lose an object that at the time is invaluable and irreplaceable to us, although it is worthless to others. Many people remember that article for the rest of their lives…If we describe it to others and explain why it was so important, even those who love us smile indulgently because to them it sounds like a trivial thing to lose. Kid stuff. But it is not. Those who forget about this object have lost a valuable, even crucial memory. Because something central to our younger self resided in that thing. When we lost it, for whatever reason, a part of us shifted permanently.”

For me, that object was an ivory (probably fake ivory) bracelet that my dad bought me at a Chinese restaurant. When it broke, I knew something, some part of me, was broken and couldn’t stop crying. When I read the passage above, the memory of the delight in having it and the sorrow in losing it came back to me.

That’s the power of books. We live lives that are not our own, and in doing so, discover things about ourselves and others that we might never have known, or have forgotten. This idea of forgotten or unknown aspects to ourselves is woven throughout “A Ghost in Love” in a wonderful way. We are the sum of all that we have done…and more than that, we are different things to different people.

“Why do people love us, Ben? We’re always trying to figure that out, but only by using our own point of view. That’s so limited. Sometimes they love us for things we don’t even know about ourselves. For example, they love our hands. My hands? Why would someone love my hands? But they’ve got their reasons. You must accept that and realize that the Ben they know is different from the Ben you know.”

“The Ghost in Love”, too, is a book that is different for me than it is for any other person; all books are. The version of it read through my eyes? Wonderful. ( )

Ben fell and hit his head. He was supposed to die, but he didn't. Some glitch in the computer system back at headquarters, his ghost is told, could you please stay with him, observe him and report back? Ben has a ex-girlfriend named German which he still shares a dog (Pilot) with. The complications are only beginning when the ghost falls in love with German. Soon we learn what happens when humankind decides to take control over their own lives, to thwart fate in favor of free will, and what it takes to do that. A Jonathan Carroll novel is always a wild ride with the top down, one never knows what's around the corner, and this novel is no different. It gets a bit slow and muddy in the middle but rallies to a satisfying conclusion. And yeah, don't underestimate the dog. ( )

Do you remember that one night in college, where you stayed up too late with your friends, sitting in someone’s living room and drinking terrible rotgut alcohol and talking about the meaning of life, and identity, and love, and eventually around 3 a.m. you reached a drunken state of pure lucidity that was filled with revelation, and suddenly you Got It, and the universe made perfect sense to you? (No? Just me, then?) In any case, if you bottled the feeling of that night, transmuted it into paper, stretched it out across an entire novel, and padded it with ghosts, time traveling into one’s own past, reincarnation, murderous bums, white earless spectral dogs, and the Angel of Death, you’d have something very akin to The Ghost in Love.

Summary: This novel starts with Ben Gould, a young man who falls and hits his head on the ice, and is supposed to die, but doesn’t. Ben’s ghost – who is supposed to help Ben transition into the afterlife, and clean up any of his unfinished business – is therefore somewhat stranded, and the Angel of Death isn’t being particularly helpful; he tells the ghost just to hang out until they can figure out the “glitch” that resulted in Ben’s non-death.

Ben, in the meantime, doesn’t realize that anything’s gone wrong. Sure, he’s broken up with his girlfriend German, and spends most of his days regretting that decision, but it’s not until strange powers and occurrences start manifesting around him that he begins to suspect that there’s really something wrong. The stranger things get, the more apparent it becomes that in order to really survive death, Ben is going to have to take a hard look at his life – and himself.

Review: The Ghost in Love walks a very fine line between being deeply profound and entirely pretentious, and which way you think it tips will depend on whether or not you like a hefty dose of philosophy in your books, and the relative importance you put on philosophy versus story in your reading. Because make no mistake, this is not a sci-fi/fantasy novel with some philosophical underpinnings; this is a philosophical novel dressed up in paranormal clothing.

Personally, it’s been a while since I finished it, and I still can’t decide quite how I feel about it. There were times when I was listening when I was struck by the truth of a point that Carroll was making, and the simplicity of the language and the elegance of the writing with which that point was made. Other times, though, I’d draw back from the story, particularly when another bizarre paranormal element was introduced in service of some Deep Truth about the Nature of the Self, and think to myself: “Really? I mean, really?”

It probably didn’t help that the storytelling is supremely non-linear; even forgoing the time-traveling bits, the narrative jumps back and forth through Ben and German’s relationship with only the barest of signposts to let the reader know what’s going on. Carroll also reveals the workings of his story very, very slowly, creating confusion which may or may not have been intentional – for instance, I was halfway through the book before I realized that Ben’s ghost is not Ben’s ghost in the traditional sense, but rather a separate (and female) entity. The title is also somewhat misleading: we’re told the ghost is in love with German, but that aspect barely comes into play, and was certainly never the focus of the story.

The audiobook production was clean and well done; Ray Porter’s voice is for the most part easy to listen to, although his voice for the ghost was overly whiney, and almost certainly contributed to my dislike for that character.

Overall, this book has left me with a welter of conflicting emotions and opinions. It was interesting, but I was never absorbed in the story to the point where I would be dying to listen to more. I vacillated between being impressed by the clarity of its message and point of view, and being amused by the aura of “this novel is filled with Deep Thoughts” that it radiated. It’s well written, but strangely plotted. I can’t quite say that I really liked it, nor did I really dislike it, but I am still thinking about it… so it must have done something right. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: If you like your fiction with a heavy dose of philosophy, it’s worth a try. Just be warned: it’s strange. ( )