The Ghostwriter

A wonderful combination of the humorous and the mundanely surreal, as well a thought-provoking work on pseudonymous nature of online interaction between people via e-mail and chat rooms. Told as first person narration, the novella-length story covers a single morning in which the author receives and responds to e-mails from his computer. In his e-mail correspondence, the author uses the name of his cat 'Felix' as his online handle. Similarly, his various correspondents use pseudonyms as well, such as 'Banana' and 'P-0'. Eventually, a strange pattern emerges in the e-mail requests and proposals that the author receives. It is amazing how such a seemingly bland concept becomes totally engrossing in the hands of the author. The humor show more stands out more in this work than his previous works.

I'm not sure I fully understand the ending, which seemed a bit unsatisfying on my initial reading. Still, highly recommended for those who have read and enjoyed previous works by this author. I still think his earlier collections Time Gifts, Impossible Encounters, Seven Touches of Music, and Steps Through the Mist are the best introductions to his work. show less

I'm a great fan of Zivkovic's work and have read half a dozen of his other books. This one is probably my least favourite. It's very smart but I never found it fun to read. It builds to a typical, for Zivkovic, increasingly absurd climax but the story never felt like it ever got going. Perhaps this is because, no matter how clever what lies beneath the story, this book is essentially about a man reading and responding to e-mails and almost nothing else. Zivkovic also usually chunks his books into easily digestible sections. This novella is one single 85 page stretch and it did feel as if Zivkovic didn't have enough material to make the story interesting for that entire length. I can remember another Zivkovic story (without recalling its show more title offhand) that revolved around e-mail correspondence - at maybe ten to fifteen pages that story worked fine and was one of Zivkovic's engrossing little gems. The Ghostwriter just feels too long and too uninteresting, regardless of its smarts. show less