_lara

David Mitchell is rumored to be a bit of a puzzle novelist in a post-modern kind of way--you read something fairly subtle in say, the tenth chapter that if you are a careful reader, will unlock some clue to a mystery or elusive event or person you encountered in the first few chapters. Even further, this occurs between Mitchell's novels (of which there are four, at the moment), which suggests almost a fictional interconnected alternate universe he is creating, in my mind a little akin to Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. Ghostwritten is his first novel. An episodic collection of short stories each told from a different character's perspective, probably, as much as a novel--it shows such a range of Mitchell's knowledge of people, localized cultures around the world, and ability to create organized randomness, that these things alone could have kept me reading. His craft with language, characterization, and empathy made me love this book more than most I've read.

2023-05-31 15:03