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Ghostwritten (Paperback)

by David Mitchell (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Sceptre; 2 edition (20 April 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0340739754
  • ISBN-13: 978-0340739754
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 3,106 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #2 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > M > Mitchell, David

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
"What is real and what is not?": David Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten: A Novel in Nine Parts, plays with this question throughout its "parts". (That there are 10 sections is just part of the mystery of this book's schema.) Told through a range of voices, scattered across the globe--Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Petersburg, London--Ghostwritten has been described as a "firework display, shooting off in a dozen different narrative directions" (Adam Lively).

Certainly, Mitchell offers his readers a vertiginous, sometimes seductive, display of persona and place. "Twenty million people live and work in Tokyo," he writes in "Okinawa", the first section in the novel. "It's so big that nobody really knows where it stops." That sense of the global extension of the (post)modern city, the networks-- cultural, technological, phantasmagoric--to which it gives rise, is one key to this story of a Japanese death cult devoted to purging the "unclean" (gas attacks on the metro). "No, in Tokyo you have to make your place inside your head": that's how this immense world gets smaller, more subjective, more mad, as the narrator, Mr Kobayashi, sheds his "old family of the skin" to join a new "family of the spirit". It's a common theme. "I'm this person, I'm this person, I'm that person, I'm that person too," chants the voice of "Hong Kong", in the second section of the book. "No wonder it's all such a fucking mess." Neal's talking about his world, his life as a Hong Kong trader--"he's a man of departments, compartments, apartments"--but he might also be describing the experience of reading Ghostwritten. At once loquacious and knowing, leisurely and frantic, Mitchell offers his readers a huge, but fragmentary, portmanteau which builds in the links between its parts--aching bodies, reality police, the "ghost" writer in the machine of contemporary life, its mad, comic, and cosmic voices--without quite convincing you that they really do come together. -- Vicky Lebeau

Lawrence Norfolk, Independent
'Demands to be read and re-read...an astonishing debut'

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80% buy the item featured on this page:
Ghostwritten 4.4 out of 5 stars (46)
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Customer Reviews

46 Reviews
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (46 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting, intriguing and intelligent debut, 14 Oct 2005
By Linda Oskam "dutch-traveller" (Amsterdam Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Ghostwritten is at first glance a collection of short stories, located in places as diverse as a small jazz shop in Tokyo, a tea shack on Holy Mountain, a small Irish island and a radio studio in the United States. But all the stories have connections with each other: characters from previous stories pop up, sometimes so glancingly that you have to be very aware. In the end this is a (very intelligent and masterfully crafted) novel about what is and is not true, what is real and what only exists inside (or even outside) the human mind and why do make people which decisions. It is actually quite diffucult to summarize the contents of the book, but it is absolutely wonderful: read it!
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33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Neither a mystery-thriller nor a traditional novel., 1 Nov 2003
By Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)   
Eight people and one strange, disembodied spirit give dramatic, first person stories here, in nine different locales, ranging from Okinawa to Mongolia and New York. Each chapter is as compressed and carefully drawn as a short story, and the author gives a virtuoso performance in finding an appropriate, and different, narrative voice for each individual character--from the tough art thief in Petersburg, to the romantic lover in Tokyo, the savagely abused young woman in China, the disillusioned scientist in Ireland, and the manic night-time talk show host in New York.

As good as these individual chapters are, and as good as the writing is within each chapter, however, the feeling persists that the author is almost auditioning--showing all the wonderful talents he has (and they are many) and all the diverse writing styles he can employ. Ultimately, the book remained for me a collection of interrelated short stories. They did not come together into a coherent novel.

Some obvious overlaps of people and events occur among the chapters, along with many subtle overlaps of theme, reflecting the author's concern with free will vs. control, love and connection vs. alienation and isolation, and the planned vs. the random. But these overlaps serve to whet the reader's appetite for a big conclusion that will tie together all the many characters and the world-wide events in some significant way, and they understandably lead the reader to expect some comprehensive resolution, thematically. With the entire world as his scope and some of literature's biggest themes as a focus, this book ended, "not with a bang but a whimper." Mary Whipple

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Ghostwritten is an engrossing, haunting read, 19 Sep 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Ghostwritten (Paperback)
On its title page, Ghostwritten is described as a novel in nine parts, but it's really a collection of interconnecting short stories. In the first section, an insane Japanese cult member is hiding out after gassing the Tokyo subway. Then the narrative moves gradually west, through Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mongolia, London, all the way to New York, where a late night DJ talks on despite the threatened end of the world. On the way, we meet crooked businessmen and art thieves and, in one of the strongest sections, an old Chinese woman who lives on a mountain, bemused by the evils of the wider world. Like in Iain Banks's Walking On Glass, the multiple narrative works brilliantly, creating a coherent, fascinating world-view. David Mitchell's prose style is varied but always very readable. This is the best book I've read so far this year, and I'd strongly recommend it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Disconnected from the fundamental interconnectedness of everything
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... Read more
Published 13 days ago by Mr. O. Buxton

5.0 out of 5 stars Astounding Debut Book
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... Read more
Published 21 days ago by Sir Furboy

4.0 out of 5 stars Greater than the sum of its parts
Overall, this novel came as a surprise. From the blurb I'd suspected it would obtuse and difficult, whereas in fact it was surprisingly easy to read, engaging and interesting... Read more
Published 8 months ago by BookWorm

4.0 out of 5 stars Rambling but fascinating
A series of interlinked short stories. It's possible to discern the beginnings of the more mature writer that created 'Cloud Atlas'. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Jezza

5.0 out of 5 stars The world talking to itself
It's difficult to know what's most wonderful about this book. The grand design leading nine stories from disparate corners of the globe to an apocalyptic conclusion? Read more
Published 10 months ago by John Lynham

4.0 out of 5 stars So many strands
When I started reading Ghostwritten, I wondered why it was marketed as a novel instead of the collection of short stories it seemed to be. Read more
Published 19 months ago by S. Bentley

3.0 out of 5 stars a brilliant writer but an overly self-conscious book
I agree entirely with Mary Whipple - this was a book in which an author was less telling a story and more showing what talents he has. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Helen Guthrie

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceeds Cloud Atlas
Despite Cloud Atlas winning all the plaudits and serving as my introduction to David Mitchell, this has always been my favourite of his books so far. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Estrella

5.0 out of 5 stars 3rd best of his four books
having read all four of Mitchells books, I rate CLOUD ATLAS his best, just nosing out NUMBER9DREAM leaving this book GHOSTWRITTEN as a close third. Read more
Published 23 months ago by P. Wagg

4.0 out of 5 stars Stunning debut showing massive talent and potential
This is an impressive debut, and a very good book indeed. Mitchell spent a long time living in Japan, and you get the feeling he read a lot of Murakami. Read more
Published on 4 Feb 2007 by Greshon

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