Ghostwritten, by David Mitchell, 1999
426 pages
This is probably my favorite of the four of his books I've read so far. I had to read it immediately after finishing it the first time because I was hellbent on unlocking its secrets, of which there are many. Many little hings too, like a single sentence that didn't mean anything the first time or a word that was forgotten before you realized its significance. There's a lot of that.
The story's told through the narratives of a handful of different characters whose actions are seemingly coincidental but totally interlocking. Imagine that for a book right idea right? We have a believed telepathic doomsday cultist/chemical terrorist that despises society, a jazz kid working in a Tokyo record shop that name drops 70 musicians per page and falls in love with a girl on her way back to Hong Kong, a lawyer
in Hong Kong with a little girl haunted apartment and failed marriage, a woman that runs a Tea Shack on the side of a Chinese Holy Mountain that's always getting wrecked, a transmigrating conscience searching for the origin of a story that is its only memory aside from being "born" on the Holy Mountain, a museum attendant in St. Petersburg also involved in art heists and such criminal activity, a musician/ghostwriter/womanizer in London getting down on the science of chance, a physicist on the run from the American government for resigning from a project, and a late night radio show dialogue.
So like, it's fairly complex, and the last two (or the two before the last, the last one is short) chapters are arguably where all the money is. We're in the midst of some kinda war, and there's some kinda comet, so some kinda doomsday cult is formed, and some kinda mad science (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cognition) is being studied by some kinda scientist whose awesome brain is being used to develop intelligent weaponry unbeknownst to herself, so she some kinda leaves the project and retreats to her home island. So, the disembodied spirit plays a lot into it all, transmigrating into the scientist's mind and gathering the information, and by the time the last chapter rolls around some things are outrageous and come back around.
It's a book that's hard to describe without giving out spoilers, it would seem, but it's quite a treat. The prose is the same as always, simple but engaging and elegant, there's some nice humor, a lot of deep stuff regarding chance and coincidence and how it shapes the world and whatever and love. I'm pretty sure there's red herrings for days, and all kinds of references to everything else that two reads are probably necessary.
8.5/10