Ghostwritten

By: David Mitchell

Narrated by: William Rycroft

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.

©1999 David Mitchell (P)2013 WF Howes

A message book without a message.

I had difficulty reading Cloud Atlas - tried three times and gave up, so thought I would try the embryonic effort. The writing is excellent, the characters, with some exception, are not developed enough to care about, and some are so shallow, one does not want to care about them - I thought I would try to give this book a fair read. As with many male authors, the female characters are victims or pathetic or unlikeable or unfathomable - while the story has some historical accuracy, in some instances, the knee jerk pace of the story telling makes it a struggle to even remained interested. The Irish/US vignette is ridiculous. The one character with a conscience is a spirit, the rest seem to wander around as monsters of their Id, with few exceptions.

Great stories. Great writing.

Ghostwritten will put you in the shoes of characters that find themselves in extraordinary situations. You will feel what the characters feel through David Mitchell's storytelling ability and superb command of English.

Best book I've read in a decade

Any additional comments?

First, I like his writing. it's so meticulous but gentle. in any case, this, i think is far better than bone clocks (with its whole back story of good v. evil). the plot is intricately interwoven but not easily disentangled. This, to me, is the prefect combination of conceptual bravery and brilliant craftsmanship. the single narrator can make things confusing at times in transitions but if you know that going in, it won't be a problem.

A David Mitchell novel that actually makes sense!

Great story, complex and mysterious per usual from Mitchell. Vivid descriptions of the interior and subterranean selves. production could have benefited from longer pauses or short musical segue between shifts in narration.

Well written

While I liked this, I didn’t like it as much as Cloud Atlas. Some of the characters’ stories didn’t grab me, although I really like the tea shop owner and the cult member.