| Author: |
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Alan Lightman
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| Title: |
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Ghost: A Novel |
| Moochable copies: |
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No copies available |
| Amazon suggests: |
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| Recommended: |
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| Topics: |
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| Published in: |
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English |
| Binding: |
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Hardcover |
| Pages: |
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244 |
| Date: |
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2007-10-23 |
| ISBN: |
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0375421696 |
| Publisher: |
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Pantheon |
| Weight: |
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0.75 pounds |
| Size: |
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5.75 x 0.98 x 8.43 inches |
| Edition: |
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1 |
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| Description: |
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Product Description
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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| Reviews: |
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Lori (USA: PA) (2008/12/13):
I really wanted to like this book after reading glowing reviews of it everywhere, but couldn't. Although many of the characters were intriguing and well-drawn, the main protagonist, David, was a disappointment. He spent most of the book drifting through his own life, buffeted by events and doing nothing to change his circumstances or exert his own will. Frankly, I found him so irritating and tedious I came away confused as to why he had a girlfriend at all, and thinking that if he existed in the real world, his ex-wife probably would have left him much sooner.The author succeeded in creating a man whom I couldn't sympathize with, which is surprising, given my ability to sympathize with almost anyone who undergoes a transformative or harrowing situation. Instead I found myself wanting to smack David across the face and say, "For God's sake man, get some cahones, why don't you, and stop the navel gazing!?"
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| URL: |
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http://bookmooch.com/0375421696 |
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