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Ghostwritten
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Ghostwritten by David Mitchell (Angus, Atty. Monique, & Mae). Start Date: June 25, 2012
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MongoliaIt was brilliant, they way things unfolded and fell into place in this chapter. And the narrator was a spirit? MIND = BLOWN. I went crazy when it was revealed that the noncorpum was the one behind the whole talking Tree situation in the previous chapter. How awesome was that?
When it was revealed that the spirit of the monk in the yellow hat was the one responsible for his first transmigration because of of a promise made to the boy's father that he wouldn't die? Holy cow. "I kept my promise." GOOSEBUMPS.
I loved that after losing his host and getting stuck in the ger, he finds himself reborn mere inches away from the answers he seeks. Even more goosebumps.
I have no words. No words at all except ANG GALING GRABEEEE.
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Using my Google-fu, I found out that the holy mountain in the story is Mount Emei. They mentioned kasi in the book that the village/area at the foot of the mountain was called Leshan and that's the prefecture the mountain belongs to. Hahaha hinanap talaga no? :))
BUDDY: Okay, I just have to find out which mountain it is. And the link on Wikipedia about the book says it's Mount Emei.Makes sense because there's a mention of a village called Leshan, right? And in Mount Emei, there's what they call the Leshan Giant Buddha. :)
Check out this site which lists Mount Emei as a UNESCO World Heritage site. And, here are a couple of pics:
I could just picture our old woman's Tea Shack somewhere, on the way up to the summit. :)
Photos from same UNESCO site. :D
EDIT: Okay, ang tagal kong mag-copy paste, haha. But, MAE, there you go. We both found which Holy Mountain it is. And, isn't Mitchell awesome? Hahaha! I sound like a broken record. :P
Parang I want to go there tuloy.
Mae wrote: "Parang I want to go there tuloy."Me toooooo! Haha, kaloka. Gusto ko na ring basahin yung buong book tuloy-tuloy, hahaha!
Hahaha nakaka-bitin diba? The chapters don't end with a cliffhanger, in fact end talaga sya for that specific part, pero parang cliffhanger pa din no?
Oh tara na, Holy Mountain tour! Pero grabe lang, stress ang mga staircases na iyan, hahaha!
PetersburgFrom the very beginning of this chapter, I knew it wasn't to end well. It's Russia. I rarely read a story or watch a movie set in modern day Russia that doesn't feature a criminal activity and lots of people dying. Haha. But yeah, as I read on, there was this steadily rising sense of foreboding that I just couldn't shake.
This chapter revealed even more links and connections that I'm quite tempted to grab a large whiteboard and a ton of colored markers so I could draw myself a map of sorts. Actually, when I'm all done with the book, I might just do that. :P
It's quite a web, isn't it? Neal's death in HK (apparently from diabetic shock) unintentionally sets this unfortunate chain of events in motion, ending in Margarita neck deep in crap.
One thing that confused me is the mention of Leonid Brezhnev. I thought that was the name of the noncorpum in Mongolia because the grandmother called him that, if I remember correctly. But in this chapter, it was mentioned that a certain liquor cabinet in Jerome's apartment was given to him by a Leonid Brezhnev. Did I miss something?
PetersburgThe tone of this part is similar to that of Neal's part. Margarita is prone to relating random stuff, but this story is neater in terms of linearity.
The stories are starting to link like a web instead of chain. We get a teeny-weeny glimpse of Neal here (not explicitly mentioned, but he was referenced as that guy who made a mess with the fund transfer). Also we hear of two characters from the preceding story, Leonid and Suhbatar (sp?).
I also got confused when it was mentioned that Leonid gave Jerome a cabinet. Like how could an eight-year old give this man a gift such as that? Or was the old woman simply referring to a different Leonid? (But I am pretty sure Leonid IS the name of the noncorpum.) @_@
But this story is sad. I mean, what is there left for Margarita to do, with promises of happy children and a peaceful life in Zurich as dead as the corpse of her lover?
Hmmm, I was also sure the noncorpum's name was Leonid. On the other hand, it is pretty weird for a Buddhist boy to have a Russian name. So maybe it isn't his name and the old woman meant something else by calling him that?Just did a search. There was a real person named Leonid Brezhnev and he was the General Secretary of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982. Here's an interesting tidbit: Brezhnev wrote a trilogy of memoirs that were the Lenin Prize for Literature. It is believed, however, that these books were ghost written. Awesome.
Maybe the old woman was referring to this real life Leonid, implying that perhaps the noncorpum inhabited his body for some time? Or is that reaching too much? Hahaha! :P
Day 6: PetersburgBy far, this one was the most predictable chapter for me, and I felt like I plodded through it. The heist, the traitor, the presence of a secret agent-slash-Interpol in the scene, the whoring in order to get right smack in the middle of everything, the ending... I practically guessed right the whole story about Margarita and her thieving ways.
But that's not to say I didn't appreciate it. I will just put it this way: if all of the chapters are my favorites, then this one would have to be the least favorite. :)
For the first time, three stories and their characters have connections: Neal and Gregorski from 'Hong Kong' and Suhbataar from 'Mongolia' are all here. When it became clear to me, however, that this chapter was the one about the art thief, I felt pretty sure Suhbataar from the Mongolian museum would make an appearance. So it was a pleasant surprise that Neal was referred to, as well.
The metaphor about Delacroix' painting, Eve and the Serpent, however, was well thought out. There's Eve, and there's the serpent, and we all pretty much know what happened there. In Margarita's story, there were many serpents - snakes - traitors, and there was also the temptation represented by money and fortune. I think this chapter demonstrated how weak we can succumb to temptation.
Margarita's personal story was also very moving. Given her background - she never knew her father and was never acknowledged by him, she had a hate-hate relationship with her mother, and she flitted from one illicit relationship to the next, until she found Rudi - I thought that she was a very lonely, unloved, and desperate woman who only wanted to be loved, in the truest and sincerest sense of the word. Remember her conversation with Tatyana, who did not believe in love? Margarita insisted, with all her heart, that there IS true love, and that she believed it's what she shared with Rudi. For, she did truly love Rudi - she wouldn't allow herself to be debased so low by the head curator if she didn't. Rudi and the life that awaited them in Switzerland motivated her that much.
I love the fact that the chapters all have a bit of history in them about the place where they're set, and in this chapter it's about the political history of Russia, back when it was still USSR and considered a world power. I wonder if, aside from Japan, Mitchell actually sojourned in these places, no matter how briefly?
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BUDDY and MAE: Whoopsie. I completely cannot remember our spirit's name. I will try to look it up, though.
BUDDY: I guess Margarita would find comfort in the unfulfilled promises of a happy married life in Switzerland, with kids, while she does time in prison. These fantasies that Margarita had were actually dead giveaways as to the fate that awaited her and Rudi. You know how people daydream in the movies, and these just remain dreams because somehow or other, something unfortunate will befall them? That was what I thought about Margarita. :)
ATTY MONIQUE:The metaphor about Delacroix' painting, Eve and the Serpent, however, was well thought out.
It really was! Pretty cool, too.
The snake metaphor is pretty clear, like what you've said. Moreover, of all the periods and movements in art history, Mitchell chose Renaissance. (There was a quick mention of this when the little Japanese girl walks over and offers Margarita some sweets. I could be making a wrong assumption, pero kunwari na lang I'm right. Hehe.) It is interesting to note that in Renaissance art, Eve is sexualized - posed provocatively and often depicted as a seductress.
Mitchell did a pretty awesome parallel there. Margarita was sexualized as well, painted as a seductress as part of their heist operations.
Wala. Mitchell fan na talaga ako.
LondonThis reminds me of Tokyo, only that the narrator is older but not really wiser. Anyway, this part opens with Katy Forbes in bed with Marco. It's the after-sex moment: recalling the events of the previous night and wondering how Marco ended up in bed with Katy (and how much he spent).
And then they stand up, eat breakfast, and get it on with real life. Neal was mentioned briefly. Marco asked about the photo of that man in the toilet. So it's the ex-husband. I was touched that Neal still sent the Queen Anne chair, and I think Katy still has tender feelings for him regardless of what happened in their past.
I think this part properly explains why the novel is entitled Ghostwritten. Marco is a drummer-ghostwriter. He is ghostwriting other people's autobiographies. I think that there will be more of Alfred and Roy in the next parts, who were friends with our dear Jerome, the art history teacher and painter killed by Margarita.
And then there is ... Timothy Cavendish! This man has his own story in Cloud Atlas (Mae, you should look it up). I didn't really think that the Cavendish firm would be connected to him because I remember Tim is a publisher-editor. So it's his brother who owns the firm.
We are also with some of Marco's philosophies on chance versus fate, which I personally do not buy because I hate to think of a life dependent on chance and a life dictated by fate. But sometimes, we just can't help thinking that these could be true especially if the events of our lives seem to follow the patterns of chance and fate.
Marco here is a guy who still has not decided what he wants in life. It is obvious: his sleeping around with other women and the impermanence of his jobs speak of it. But this would not last long since he will come to realize what he wants to do for the rest of his life after ... staying at the casino!
The casino part is fun. I even had to cover the succeeding paragraphs so that I would not read ahead. Anyway, he gets this illumination that he wants to make things right with Poppy and be a good father to India while he was hiding inside a cupboard.
I like the ending of this part. I like it how he thought of just walking home instead of taking the cab because that would buy India more food. Call it maudlin sentimentality, but haaay. I just love it!
Mae: Maybe we should reread the last parts of the Holy Mountain chapter just to clarify this stuff about Leonid Brezhnev?
Buddy: There's some deep tragedy in Margarita's story. Remember how she burned her sister's letter without even reading it and the bitter contempt that her tone has when she speaks of her mother? I actually didn't mind her sleeping around with men because I felt that there's more to her than her looks and actions (and she believes in love).
Day 7: LondonCHANCE.
I think this is the theme of the story of Marco, our actual ghostwriter (which, by the way, lends weight to my theory about why the novel is called Ghostwritten).
(1) Neal's ex-wife, Katy Forbes, has a one-night stand with Marco.
(2) Alfred, the old guy whose story Marco is ghostwriting, is intimately acquainted with Jerome, the art forger in the Petersburg chapter.
(3) Hey, Tim Cavendish from Cloud Atlas is here! And Denholme, too, his brother. The name "Cavendish" has been consistently mentioned in Neal's chapter, but I only thought Mitchell was fond of the name. So, Tim and Neal are brothers, right?
(4) Tim's printing firm actually published a book on Quasar's His Serendipity and the Revelations.
(5) Even the part when Rob (Alfred's partner) made the mistake of putting in two filters on the percolator, causing coffee spillage, was exactly the same error that Neal made in the beginning of his story.
And of course, there are comets and comet birthmarks - I think this novel served as the springboard for Cloud Atlas. Amazing David Mitchell. :)
I remember your observation, Buddy, in the previous chapter about Mitchell creating a web instead of just connections from one story to the next, and you're right. This is like 6 degrees of separation in beautiful, brilliant storytelling - ghostwriting. ;)
The part about this chapter that made an impact on me was when Alfred began to narrate seeing himself - a doppelganger? - once upon a time in 1947. The story began when, from a cafe one evening, he saw a ghost, supposedly of himself, wearing a hat that got blown by the wind. And so he begins the chase... which ended in front of the very same cafe from where it all started, with Alfred's very own hat getting blown by the wind as well. To me, it's a representation of a story coming full circle, like the one of our Mongolian spirit. It's an ashes-to-ashes story, you know, things and people eventually going back to where they all began.
And yes, chance. The casino - what better place to demonstrate it?
I felt, however, that in an attempt to include so many characters in this chapter, Marco's story meandered just a tad. I was practically half-expecting that a familiar character would make an appearance after every chapter. But, I still loved it. :) It gives me something to look forward to.
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BUDDY: That's why I admire Margarita for her staunch belief in true love, because of those experiences you mentioned. And yes, the inward monologue by Marco while he went on a losing streak was hilarious!
BUDDY and MAE: Okay, I'll help you guys clarify the Leonid confusion. :)
MAE: Welcome to the David Mitchell fans club! :D
N.B. Guys, in an attempt to see how Delacroix' Eve and The Serpent looks like, I ran a search over the weekend. Guess what? I don't think Delacroix had an actual painting called Eve and The Serpent. Other artists have, but not him. I don't know how accurate this information is but you can check out this site for his (purportedly) complete works: Eugene Delacroix: The Complete Works
Sorry I missed posting yesterday. My connection was wonky the entire day and won't stay on long enough for me to post anything. I'll post for two chapters today.ATTY MONIQUE:
The artist in the book was a Lemuel Delacroix and there seems to be no artist by that name so Mitchell probably just made him up, along with the painting.
ANGUS:
Wow, he has characters that feature in different books? That's so cool. Will definitely be reading Cloud Atlas once I'm done with this one. Or is it better to read in chronologically? Just got a copy of number9dream.
Day 8: Clear IslandDon't you just look forward to "meeting" a "familiar" character or face when you start a new chapter? I do. And when I "meet" them again, I just love it. I want to tell the character, Hey, we've been introduced in Hong Kong and Mongolia, it's so nice to run into you again. And in Clear Island of all places! :D Yep, it's Huw Llewellyn and Australian backpacker Sherry in the house. :P
Off the south west of County Cork in Ireland lies Clear Island, or Cape Clear Island, the birthplace of our quantum physicist Dr. Mo Muntervary. I knew the orange anorak-donning lady in London - the one who almost got done for by a taxi before Marco intervened - would appear in a later chapter, and here she is. However, while I appreciate her value as a scientist, and sort of envied the laid-back life on her little island, she kind of lost me when she spoke of protons, electrons, physics, Bohr, etc etc. This is why I'm a lawyer, not a scientist.
I think this chapter, while it had quite some action and suspense what with the three American thugs running after Mo, was quite unassuming and quiet. The calm before the storm that will tie everything up in the end?
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MAE: Ah yes, after I posted the link above, I went back to the book and looked up the artist's name. Since you've come up with the correction I didn't find it necessary to edit my comment anymore. Thanks! And don't fret if you weren't able to post yesterday - it's the weekend, so the lack of posts is understandable.
Oh and yes, Timothy Cavendish is one of the 6 major characters in Cloud Atlas. :)
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My favorite chapter, STILL, is Mongolia. :D
LondonWe get a direct reference to the title. The stories are getting more complicated, but at the same time we start to see things a lot more clearly.
For me, this line basically sums up this whole part:
She'd said that the whole of London seemed like one vast rat's maze to her. I'd said yes, but what if the rats happened to like being in the maze>
Marco believed in chance. He would go about his business, not really working towards anything because hey, what will happen will happen, right? He's like a rat in a cage and he might actually like it. That way of thinking tends to make a person lazy and complacent, which he was until his epiphany after the incident at the casino. Good for him.
Clear Island
Morals. What would you risk and what you you be willing to let go of for what you believe is right? That's what I think this chapter was about.
I like Mo Muntervary. She realized her work was being used to something she believed was wrong so she resigned. And when they won't let her resign, she left. Of course, she had no choice but to come back and work again, but she made sure it was on her terms. And, if things go her way, she was going to make sure her work was only to be used for good.
I liked that she went back to her hometown and that she found a way to visit her mother on her way there. When you have nowhere left to go and nothing left to do, you'd want to be with the people you care about and who care about you. When push comes to shove, they're the ones you can count on to be on your side.
I loved the little tidbits that showed life on the island, especially the people. They're a feisty bunch, aren't they? Makes me kinda wish I'd been born in a small town, the kind where everybody knows your name. There's some kind of comfort there, I think.
MAE: But won't you agree that it was careless and irresponsible of Mo to go back to her island home, knowing that she's on the run and that, eventually, the Texan and his goons will find her? That going back to Clear Island would put her family and her fellow islanders into great peril? She was running for a time, as in fact she went in hiding in Hong Kong and other places before she finally decided to go back. I could understand that she got exhausted from all the hiding, that eventually she knew that the net would close in anyway and that there's nowhere to go, but she took a very great risk going home, and she put John's and Liam's lives in danger. GUYS, there are two chapters left: NIGHT TRAIN and UNDERGROUND. The latter chapter is a very short one. Shall we include it in tomorrow's posting? :D
^Yes, of course there was a great risk involved. Yes, it was a tad irresponsible but not entirely careless. The way I see it, she knew they were going to catch up with her eventually and she was already set on going back with them. But there's a certain level of security when you're on home turf, especially one with a close-knit community ready and willing to back you up. Being there grounded her, and I don't think she would have been able to come up with the leverage that she had at the end had they caught up with her somewhere else. She's a smart lady, I don't think she would have gone home if she didn't think it was relatively safe. That whole conversation in the pub made me think that the men weren't going to cause any trouble unless they had to, and she knew that as well. Last two chapters na pala! I'm okay with doing both tomorrow :)
BUDDY and MAE: I checked on our spirit/noncorpum's name and revisited the chapter on Mongolia. I think that the context in which the grandmother called our spirit "Leonid Brezhnev" was sarcastic. Their conversation was like this: NONCORPUM: "I am here."
GRANDMOTHER: "Well, I didn't think it was Leonid Brezhnev poking around in there. It's about time! I saw the comet."
That's my take on the "Leonid" name. It wasn't really our spirit's name, now. It's just grandmother trying to be sarcastic, and using a famous Soviet person's name just to drive home the point. Sort of like when you call your mom over the phone:
"Hey ma, it's me!" "Well, of course I'd know it's you. You'd think the Queen of England would be calling me."
Something like that. :)
Methinks. :)
Oooh... Yeah, it makes sense now. :)
Will postpone writing down my notes for the last 2 chapters until Buddy checks in with his Clear Island post. :D
Buddy: Huuuy, that's fine. Baka makalimutan mo ang notes mo (unless you have them ready for copy-pasting, hahaha).Mae: Sorry, I'm behind by 1 and 1/2 chapters. I've been on a motoring trip, hahaha!
Actually, di ko na nga yata maalala. Haha! :DI'll try to write them down after lunch. :P
Okay, di ko na matiis. Haha! Sorry Buddy, I have to write them now kasi makakalimutan ko ito. Alam mo na, I have moments... senior moments, hahaha! :PLast Day: Night Train
Okay, this was the chapter that I found most difficult to follow. The conversations on air were fun at first, but then there were parts where 3 people were sharing a conversation, so I had to go back and reread some passages lest I be lost somewhere. Thankfully, I figured it out naman. (Or did I? Haha.) :D
Our noncorpum makes an appearance, and how awesome is that? And Quasar is still the disillusioned disciple. But all the talk about nuclear stuff, PinSats and EyeSats and those scientific crap was word vomit for me. But hey, those were necessary, right?
Quite obviously, the Zookeeper is the creation of Dr. Muntervary, and the "zoo" is the earth. With the appearance of Dr. Stolz, the Texan who captured Muntervary in the previous chapter, we can infer that the Zookeeper is counteracting the attacks made by Stolz. It seemed his personal mission was to prevent doomsday from actually transpiring. His dilemma on conflicting principles, on which he consulted Bat Segundo, was valid. What if you believed in two conflicting principles, which one would you faithfully observe and which one would you forego? And how would you weigh them? Lesser evil? Is there no halfway mark?
Underground
We are brought back to Quasar/Tokunaga, who is on a train to "clean" the "unclean," to carry out His Serendipity's mission. As he plants the vials and seeks a way out of the compartment, he comes across all the places that were mentioned in previous chapters: China, Mongolia, Petersburg, London. It is a subtle recap of all the places and events in the novel.
The novel ends with Quasar/Tokunaga staring off into the back of the train, roaring off into the blackness. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. We can only venture guesses as to what he was thinking. My opinion? He was thinking, What did I just do? Is this really what I want to do, is this real, is this what my life really ought to become?
Who is blowing on the nape of my neck?
Night TrainAn AI gone rogue. To be honest, I wasn't all that engaged with most of the chatter between the Zookeeper and the radio host. Feed me with too much technical jargon and my mind drifts off. I did love the parts where there discuss conflicting principles. It's one of those things you can think about and debate for ages yet never really know for sure what the right answer is.
The Zookeeper had four principles. The first was accountability, the second was invisibility. I didn't quite catch what the other two were.
Bat presents a solution via his story on the African mercenaries. If you booby trap a bridge that your enemies are planning to take, you are stripped of accountability. I think that logic is kind of twisted and that things are not as simple as that. But it seems as if the Zookeeper has found his answer in Bat's idea , but what he has decided to do exactly, we don't know.
Underground
And we end where we began. Quasar.
It's clear that this was not a suicide mission. He wanted to get out of that train. In the midst of his panic, we see flashes of the places and images from previous chapters. (Goosebumps.)
What is real and what is not?
He has always been firm in his beliefs, but I think, like most human beings, after his distress he can't help but question his reality.
WOW, five stars from all of three of us! I think this is a first! Or rather, I am assuming this is a first.Thanks for the background research. Let me just share what happened to me for the past couple of days. I went to NSO East Ave to get an authenticated birth certificate and found out that I didn't have any record. Reason: I changed names more than a decade ago (due to my grampa's adoption of me). So yes, the pertinent documents required to change my birth certificate were not endorsed to NSO (even if my old birth certificate has an NSO stamp). Now, I went to my hometown to fix this, and it turns out that my adoption papers were registered elsewhere. It just feels like I'm using a required nonregistered surname. Weird.
Is someone ghostwriting my identity? Wala lang, gusto ko lang iconnect, hahaha!
Clear Island
This part is heavy with physics, but I thought it was ingenious to entwine physics and philosophy into one solid knot. I feel that this is a scientific approach on the question of chance versus fate (with all that talk about the position and direction of electrons, DNA structures, etc.). I love this part mostly because of its small town feel. There are these stock characters (the priest, the neighbors, the godmother, etc.) but you don't really mind them.
Mo is jittery with worry, and that's very obvious with the way she gets paranoid or talks to herself. It's amazing how a superscientist can emerge from a place so idyllic. And really, if you buddies haven't mentioned that Mo is that woman wearing that orange anorak, I wouldn't have any idea how London connects to Clear Island.
Some things that intrigued me are: the woman who was asking for directions (is she a spy?), what really is Huw (a good spy? a hacker?), the terms that Mo asked to be changed/added.
Night Train
This is totally devoid of any narrative other than dialogues. I had the urge to list (and download) all the songs mentioned by our DJ Bat just so I could get a feel of what it's like be a listener of Night Train. It's also worth noticing that this is the only part not entitled after a tangible place. I first thought that they were talking on a literal train until Bat said his program spiel.
So this is the commencement of WW3 (it's like the name of my personal blog on indefinite hiatus!). Okay, I will no longer relate the events, but let me just say some things that stunned me.
I thought The Zookeeper was Mo (because of the super intelligence) until it was revealed that s/he was only designed by Mo. Is Mo dead? And then that interceptor (the one who party lined) said something about five existing noncorpi (is that the plural of corpum?), that the other three preferred to live at the foot of the Holy Mountain. Does our Mongolian spirit, the one we mistook for Leonid, know about this? Gosh, I got really confused, but I felt that my head will explode with all the sci-fi talk so I just read on.
The discussion on clashing principles is illuminating. It's something that we always have to deal with internally and I'm pretty sure that we act on these based on instinct. It's not something that can be programmed (not even a decision support system can do that the way the human mind operates) and that ultimately is the reason Zooey seeks the advice of Bat.
Underground
Reading this part made me remember that movie Sliding Doors. If Tokunaga did not make it out of the train, do you think everything that we have read would have happened? Is it chance that Tokunaga's fingers were caught between the closing doors, or is it fate that got him out of the train?
I think that, as a novel, this part is both the climax and anticlimax. Well done, Mitchell! You now have four 5-star novels from me.
And by the way, it was Internet time well-spent posting our thoughts on this wonderful book.To Mae, I'm glad to have met you through this book. Do you think it's chance or fate that made you check out this post? You can read Mitchell's books at random, but I think it would be nice to read them chronologically. I think Mr. Ikeda, Satoru's PE teacher, is present at number9dream as the protagonist's football coach. And if you love that Mongolia chapter, there's a beautiful chapter in it that has fables about a goat, a chicken, a dog, and their journey to some place.
And to Atty. Monique, what more can I say to the best buddy ever? We've read classic and stylistic and long and boring and postmodern books together, and I think that speaks a lot of our book buddyship. Thanks again, and I'm looking forward to The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet! :)
BUDDY! There you are. Oh I know you would give this 5 stars; how can you not? Haha. Just these things:
..the woman who was asking for directions (is she a spy?)
I don't think so. Remember what General Stolz said? They'd been following Mo since Hong Kong, allowing herself to complete her research and record everything on the little "black book", so I don't think they really needed a spy to find out where Mo is. Tsaka, it's so easy to find her! Siempre, hometown nya yon di ba? :D
what really is Huw (a good spy? a hacker?)
The first choice, I think? Some sort of a private investigator? His connection with Mo is personal - Mo mentioned that Huw is a friend of John's in the beginning of the chapter.
the terms that Mo asked to be changed/added
Completely no idea. Haha! :D
Hey, isn't our Mongolian noncorpum the very same one who called and party-lined with Bat and the Zookeeper? Remember he said his name was Arudhapati (is this name accurate? Ah, I can't remember now) and our spirit mentioned once that he inhabited this person.
Chance vs. Fate. I always hate this debate. In Tokunaga's case, I prefer to think of it this way: it was by Chance that Tokunaga made it out of the train, and his Fate allowed it to happen. Did that even make sense? Haha!
YAY to David Mitchell! :)
So, taking my cue from Buddy~
Congratulations, Mae, you've just discovered one of the best writers ever. :) Ditto to everything that Buddy said - except for the part about number9dream, which I still haven't read BUT will read next month. :D
BUDDY! I've lost count of how many books we've read together. *mentally ticks off titles* Okay, this is the fifth, right? And we have more coming up, yes? Yay! Cheers to reading buddies! :D
Hey, isn't our Mongolian noncorpum the very same one who called and party-lined with Bat and the Zookeeper?I think they are different because he chose to give up his immortality to live a life as a Mongolian girl with his nomadic tribe mates. It's one of the most beautiful scenes for me, when he told the grandmother to touch the dying baby's hand so that he could transmigrate.
In Tokunaga's case, I prefer to think of it this way: it was by Chance that Tokunaga made it out of the train, and his Fate allowed it to happen.
Chance and Fate are like Siamese twin sisters noh? They have to be together to do their stuff.
Yay! Thanks, you guys. I think it was chance that I saw this thread on the top of the Buddy Reads section while I was browsing, but it was fate that made me click it. After all, I was pretty sure I already had the book. Haha odiba may ganon? I honestly don't know what made me butt in, I usually just lurk. Tapos mga Mitchell fans pala ang nasalihan ko! Hehe. But seriously, I really loved the book and I really enjoyed doing this with both of you. Thank you. :)
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At chapter five, my upcoming rating is not too hard to guess. :D