Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

Okay so it's been a while since I update my readings.  Excuses to that can be several blog entries so I safe you the agony and proceed to this book.
At this point I'm still unsure on how to upload the photo of the book from my iPhoto into this new spanking MacBook Air of mine but I hope I'll figure it out soon so I can paste the book pic here.

But first thing first before I'm bogged down by other things in real life, my Apr-May reading.  Can you believe it that I'm only updating this now? I can't either.  Let me see, where's my note...

Okay I have several David Mitchell's books.  This is my first attempt to read him.  It's a combination of several short stories where one or two characters from each story will somehow interlink or with the other story very briefly.  Sometimes you have to really pay attention to your reading in order to notice that.

Chapter Tokyo
pp44  Then one of them asked why Japanese kids try to ape American kids? The clothes, the rap music, the skateboards, the hair.  I wanted to say it's not America they're aping, it's the Japan of their parents that they're rejecting.  It's not American culture exploiting us.  It's us exploiting them.
Hmm, thought provoking.

Conversation between two friends pp49
Koji: Do you believe in love at first sight?
Satoru: I believe in lust at first sight.
Koji: Seriously
Satoru: Well, love has to be based on knowledge, hasn't it?  You have to know someone intimately to be able to love them.  So love at fist sight is a contradiction in terms.  Unless in that first sight there's some sort of mystical gigabyte downloading of information from one mind into the other.  That doesn't sound too likely does it?
Are you smiling yet?

Chapter Hong Kong
It's about a corrupt financial lawyer.  I don't know what to make of it.  Don't quite like it but not totally disliking it either.

Chapter Holy Mountain
p146 I think my father was Emperor Chi seen shit.  Finding virtue in him was harder than finding a needle in the Yangtze river.  He never spoke a word of kindness or thanks to me and he sold my chastity for two tea bowls.  But, he was my father and the souls of the ancestors are the responsibility of the descendants.

An old woman who lives at the foot of a holy mountain all her life made her pilgrimage to the summit of holy mountain only to find - it was not holy anymore.  This is a tragic story but it has a justified ending.

Chapter Mongolia
This is my favorite chapter thus far.  One word, magical.

Chapter Petersburg
This one took me longer than expected.  But the last 10 pages were fast but story was not to my liking.

Chapter London
pp271 Question: Why do you exist?  Answer: Rugged lust and ruptured rubber?
LOL
pp285 I don't believe in an afterlife.  I consider the idea of God to be a childish prank and worst, a sick joke probably pulled by the devil.  And oh yes, you can have one without the other ...
London is about a guy who has to convince himself that he can make a commitment to marry the mother of his child.  I think ...

Chapter Clear Island
Scientist with a conscience, a fugitive, a woman - a page turner for me.  My favorite chapter thus taking over the previously liking above.

Chapter Night Train
This one completely baffled my mind.  I couldn't phantom who is whom etc.  Confused BUT the story is intriguing and clever for me to keep ploughing through. To sum up, a page turner with clever dialogues and complicated plot.

Chapter Underground
Epilogue of Okinawa.  The closure of the first chapter.

So I finished the book, more than a month later.  I think its an acquired taste, to read Mitchell that is.  I don't really enjoyed my first attempt.  But I can't strike it off entirely bcos com'on people this is THE David Mitchell we talking about and not to mention that I have 3 other titles that belongs to him which I bought and have yet to read!!!  Don't ask how come?  All I can say, not all recommendations out there works for you.  But read you must of anything you fancy.

Note: at this moment I have yet to figure out how to download the book's pic so I may have to post this without the book cover.