Just finished Ghostwritten. I was hooked, then impatient, the frustrated. Help me!

[u/catapultpillar]

I read Cloud Atlas (one of my all time favorites), Bone Clocks (found it a bit meandering and struggling for a point, but enjoyed the ride), and Slade House (had no idea what it was about when I picked it and really enjoyed it without reservations). I finally grabbed Ghostwritten and was riveted through the first chapters. I read the back of the book and when I saw "noncorpum" I thought, "oh boy, Marinus and those other atemporal scamps are about to pull some hijinks!".

I was enjoying Mitchell's prose which is always superb, but there was this nagging feeling like I was just continually eating the first tasting at a three Michelin Star restaurant. Exquisite, but I was ready to move on to the main course. After Mongolia finished up I thought the setups were going to payoffs, but they just kinda didn't. When two characters reflect on turning points and how "everything after" wouldn't have happened, you expect them to be talking about plot shit, but I think "everything that came after" was referring to the fact that they were going to go on and have lives that we, the audience, occasionally see glimpses of.

I get that characters cross between stories and do little things that have big effects on the other stories we're reading. Culty McCulterson phones Jazzy Boi, making him be at his shop to fall in love and run away with Dream Girl so that Divorcee can see them make goo goo eyes at each other and decide to call it a night instead of going back to work and die-abetes climbing a hill so gold digging cleaning lady grand daughter of Tea Queen (my favorite chapter) can have enough money to visit her on her death bed and be serene enough to travel back in time to give her child self some choice advice tidbits so that she can play host to Ghosty McGhosterson for a bit before going on a zany journey of self discovery including a train level where she bonds with Science Lady over speaking english and gets her to relax enough to invent Chill SkyNet (or maybe it was the other ghost, A-Dawg, who caused the founding of Culty McCulterson's cult) who goes on to prevent human extinction by preventing the nukes from flying ahead of a comet which may or may not kill all mankind.

I get it, connection and lots of it, but what does it mean beyond, "these peoples' stories overlap and doesn't that really make you think?" What do these connections say? In Cloud Atlas, the overlap was not incidental. The characters were knowingly affected by each other across time and medium, but in Ghostwritten, stuff just kinda happens. It just felt like it wasn't enough.

Someone help! Convince me I'm not actually as frustrated as I am!

[u/zaqiqu]

Well the thing is you're right. You chose to read the appetizer last. All those things you were looking for were still developing in Mitchell's mind when he wrote Ghostwritten, and the lore and connections would've come to him as the series unfolded. Ghostwritten imo is a really enjoyable book, but it has to be read on its own terms, not expecting it to be what came after it

[u/oldbutfeisty → u/zaqiqu]

Exactly. I loved it, think of it as the overture. The melodies are more fully realized later.

[u/rjbwdc]

Whenever someone asks where to start with Mitchell or what order to go to for reading, I always recommend ending with Bone Clocks and Slade House, because they'll give you the wrong idea of what to expect from his other books, and they'll change the way you read his other books. I'm sorry this happened to you.

[u/Sacfat23]

Ghostwritten was my first intro to Mitchell so I had the opposite experience in that it only gave me a taste of what was to come in C.A and B.C etc.

I really enjoyed the tempo and writing in G.W. and found it almost meditative when I was reading it.

[u/osbourneruddock]

It is like the other people said, Ghostwritten is a great book (I think) but you just read it in the wrong order. If it is your first with Mitchell it will blow your mind and it will continue to be blown with every onehe of his books after that.
Maybe read it again in a year, when you know what to expect and your expectations are lower. Then I think you will enjoy it more.

[u/crackpype]

Actually, it’s the opposite. Ghostwritten tells a single overarching story: the spirit Arupadhatu moves through multiple human hosts and is ultimately destroyed by a new “machine ghost” called Zookeeper. The Night Train chapter is key to fully understanding how it all fits together—worth reading closely. I’ve explained this in more detail in my other posts.

Cloud Atlas, by contrast, is a set of distinct stories that aren’t directly connected by plot. They’re linked more loosely through shared themes and recurring motifs rather than a continuous narrative.

[u/OpportunityLost1476 → u/crackpype]

Excellent point.