Ghost: A Novel
by Alan Lightman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alan LightmanEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2007-10-23
ISBN: 0375421696
Number of pages: 244
Publisher: Pantheon
Book Reviews of Ghost: A Novel
Book Review: where's the ghost?
Summary: 3 Stars
I think the ghost is the main character, David. He wasn't living life, he was just existing, waiting and searching for something. He didn't know what he was searching for (as it says in the book.)
The style of writing took me a few chapters to get used to and I got frustrated by the many teases of the "something" that David saw in the funeral home. David seems to let things happen around him and this is one of the reasons his wife left him. He wasn't passionate. She on the other hand was never happy. (as is explained later by a friend which makes David angry) But why does it make him angry? Because it's the truth and he didn't want to admit to the truth? And his girlfriend was frustrated with him when he wouldn't speak out when things were being published about him in the paper. She asked him, where's your integrity?
All of the characters are flawed, even the educated characters, but they seem to be living life in their own way. Even Martin, the fourth generation funeral home owner/director, has a hobby and is married. His wife loves him and helps him deal with his panic attacks. Would you say he's agoraphobic?
Then of course there's the debate between the society and the educated professors as to whether David actually did see "something."
When the something is finally revealed it's a bit of a disappointment. But the way David describes it is interesting.
The story does move slowly and the feel of the story seems to be the feeling of David's life. It's sad in a way. There's no vivaciousness.
Summary of Ghost: A Novel
Alan Lightman’s first novel, Einstein’s Dreams, became an international best seller and was hailed by Salman Rushdie as “at once intellectually provocative and touching and comic and so very beautifully written.” His novel The Diagnosis, called “highly original and imaginative” by the New York Times, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Now comes a stunning and disturbing new novel about a man’s encounter with the unfathomable.David is a person of modest ambitions who works in a bank, lives in a rooming house, enjoys books and quiet walks by the lake. Three months after unexpectedly being fired from his job, he takes a temporary position at a mortuary. And there, sitting alone in the “slumber room” one afternoon at dusk, he sees something that he cannot comprehend, something that no science can explain, something that will force him to question everything he believes in, including himself. After his metaphysical experience, all his relationships change-—with his estranged wife, his girlfriend, his mother--and he grudgingly finds himself at the center of a bitter public controversy over the existence of the supernatural. As David struggles to understand what has happened to him, we embark on a provocative exploration of the delicate divide between the physical world and the spiritual world, between skepticism and faith, between the natural and the supernatural, and between science and religion.
Combining a dramatic story with compelling characters and provocative ideas, Ghost investigates timeless questions that continue to challenge contemporary society.
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