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Ghostwritten
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Ghostwritten by David Mitchell - BR Feb 2021
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With the intuition of an old dying woman, I know she isn’t telling the whole truth.
With the certainty of an old dying woman, I know it’s not the truth that much matters.
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"How do I know that there aren’t noncorpi living within me, controlling my actions? Like a virus within a bacteria? Surely I would know.
But that’s exactly what humans think."
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"I really am a writer, too. A ghostwriter."
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"I couldn’t get to sleep afterwards, worrying about the possible endings of the stories that had been started. Maybe that’s why I’m a ghostwriter. The endings have nothing to do with me."
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As I reached the top floor I found that my mind was chewing over a conversation I had the first time I met Poppy. Everyone else at the party was unconscious, and a drizzly morning was watering down the night.
‘Do you ever think of the effect you have on your conquests?’
‘I don’t see where you’re coming from, Poppy.’
‘I’m not coming from anywhere. But I suddenly noticed that you love talking about cause. You never talk about effect.’
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Ghostwriters, like psychiatrists, have to know when to shut up.
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You know the real drag about being a ghostwriter? You never get to write anything that beautiful. And even if you did, nobody would ever believe it was you.
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Tim Cavendish chuckled - ‘Are autobiographies supposed to be factual? Would you like the straight answer or the convoluted one?’
‘Straight.’
‘Then, from the publishing point of view, the answer is “God forfend.”’
‘I’ll try the convoluted answer.’
‘The act of memory is an act of ghostwriting.’
Very Tim Cavendish. Profundity on the hoof. Or has he said it a hundred times before?
‘Look at it this way. Alfred is the ingredients, the book is the meal, but you, Marco, you are the cook! Squeeze out the juice! I’m glad to hear there’s still some left in the old boy. Ghosts are welcome.'
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‘It doesn’t seem very honest. I’m not writing what really happened.’
‘Honest! God bless you, Marco! This is not the world of Peter Rabbit and his woodland friends. Pepys, Boswell, Johnson, Swift, all freeloading frauds to a man.’
‘At least they were their own freeloading frauds. Ghostwriters do the freeloading for other frauds.’
Tim chuckled up to the ceiling. ‘We’re all ghostwriters, my boy. And it’s not just our memories. Our actions, too. We all think we’re in control of our own lives, but really they’re pre-ghostwritten by forces around us.’
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The future already exists. Prophets can see what is already there. Anyone can predict effects from a given cause. That’s a definition of sentient life, from storing food to satellite weather forecasting. Suppose you could do the same, backwards . . . See the cause from the effect. It wouldn’t be an intellectual process. It would be . . .
Ah, bollocks. I’m sounding like Nancy Thing from Iannos’s café.
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Memories are their own descendants masquerading as the ancestors of the present.
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"‘But you’re a writer. They are lunatics.’
‘Lunatics are writers whose works write them, Bat.’
‘Not all lunatics are writers, Mrs Rey – believe me.’
‘But most writers are lunatics, Bat – believe me. The human world is made of stories, not people. The people the stories use to tell themselves are not to be blamed."
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Done.
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Em Lost In Books, EmLo is my Name, PIFM is my Game
(last edited Mar 18, 2021 05:10AM)
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rated it 3 stars
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these are some really good quotes. Gives me an idea of sharing quotes here once we start reading next book.
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those quotes - i had them highlighted in Kindle while reading.
I loved that the purpose of this BR is met!We had so many discussions and Eureka moments!
Let us create a new Thread for Number9Dream thereby preserving the sanctity of this thread discussion :P
Indian Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
Weave World (other topics)Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (other topics)
Ready Player One (other topics)
Grudges are demons that gnaw away your bone marrow. Time was already doing a good enough job of that. Lord Buddha has often told me that forgiveness is vital to life. I agree. Not for the well-being of the forgiven, though, but for the well-being of the forgiver.