Ghostwritten

After the mild letdown of Number 9 Dream I didn't have high expectations for this, but it was surprisingly good. At least if you have a brain like mine that is obsessed with finding the interconnections between the stories, it's very satisfying as a puzzle-box. I thought I had it figured out at about the halfway mark, and was feeling quite smug, but it went in a different direction entirely. This one feels more closely connected to Cloud Atlas / The Bone Clocks / Slade House than many of his other novels, and it was pretty cool to see how many of those later themes are present even in this first novel. Four stars because I'm still not sure about that last section ???

I truly hated this book.

There were points where I wasn't sold on the narrator's voice. Some of it felt gimmicky, some of it was beautifully written.

Gisteravond uitgelezen. Inmiddels fan van Mitchell geworden voelde ik me verplicht al zijn oudere boeken ook te lezen, voldeed geheel aan de verwachtingen. Magistraal boek. Waar haalt die man het vandaan? Fantasie tot in het oneindige en daarbij ook nog eens het vermogen om in verschillende stijlen meerdere verhalen in meeslepende vorm te schrijven. Geweldig boek, geweldige schrijver.

It's hard to believe this is anybody's first novel. A group of stories with seemingly wildly different characters locations and plots, but all linked by a gradually developing theme. The stories also have scattered, sometimes humorous, references to each other that are reminiscent of the way that cinema shots are linked. A brilliant, puzzle-like creation; perhaps better than his similar later Cloud Atlas. Also includes a Murikami-like segment a la number9dream. The only thing that keeps it from 5 stars for me is that the author's interest in fate/chance/the connection of events doesn't interest me as much as it does him.

I really liked about 90% of this book. Very well written, super engaging, brought up a lot of interesting ideas. I'm going to stop writing now and just accept that this is a vague review. K?

It's more a 3.5 star book. Pretty strange book, with the ending sort of tying all the disparate pieces together, although I never was completely sure what was happening, why, and what the final outcome was!