Hungry Ghosts
Registered by JeepACV on 4/24/2008
1 journaler for this copy...
From the back cover:
"Emerging from Susan Johnson's hallucinatory evocation of late twentieth-century Hong Kong - a fading colony bathed in neon, teeming with political and emotional refugees and evaporating dreams - are the overlapping stories of two best friends and the man who comes between them. Rachel Gallagher is careful, inhibited, and achingly self-conscious. Anne-Louise Buchan is fearless, charismatic, and intent on wresting meaning from life's chaos. Polar opposites, they are bound together as artists hungering for experience. Martin James Bannister, exceptionally handsome, is a futures dealer with a talent for reinvention and a menacing hunger of his own.
Through this trio, Johnson explores the fragility of the unquiet mind and love's capacity to glean redemption from even the darkest malignancies. In Hungry Ghosts she presents a vision of life that is eerie, passionate, and affecting."
One online reviewer had this to say:
"A reviewer, 06/30/2003
This book was rather disappointing to me. The characters in the book were all wierd and stayed that way at the end of the book. I had to force myself to keep reading it. Each chapter focused on one of the 3 characters. One paragraph I was reading present day events and the next it was something that happened years ago. It was rather like reading someone's diary out of order. I am still a fan of Susan Johnson's work just dont expect any exciting material like her other books provide!"
My notes:
A novel about the friendship between two women. While on the surface it seems as if it’ll be simply a new twist on an old theme ~ two women friends torn apart by having the same love interest ~ in hindsight, that theme is minor. While there is certainly the uncomfortable fact that both women fall for the same man, the message is more than that.
The two women are artists struggling for their craft. The bravado that comes with youth who know everything and the manic moments practically smack the reader in the face with the characters underlying instabilities.
The writing style is fluid. Intentionally mixed chronologically and with constant shifting points of view, it does take concentration to stay on track. One moment Rachel is married and living in Hong Kong, the next moment she’s still in London lamenting over Anne-Louise.
Rachel
“ I was dreaming my life and felt as if I were waiting for my real life to arise. I was growing restless to begin, to feel that keen unhesitating propulsion toward my fate. This is how we come to collude in our own destruction, this is how we come to long for the invading army to appear.”
Anne-Louise
“ She walked the streets admiring bursting trees, smelling the rich crack of opening flowers. [...] She walked and walked, daring to be happy, risking the wrath of the Gods. She raised her large smiling face to the sun and when she was not struck down, dared to hope for herself again.”
Wikipedia article about the term ‘hungry ghosts’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost
"Emerging from Susan Johnson's hallucinatory evocation of late twentieth-century Hong Kong - a fading colony bathed in neon, teeming with political and emotional refugees and evaporating dreams - are the overlapping stories of two best friends and the man who comes between them. Rachel Gallagher is careful, inhibited, and achingly self-conscious. Anne-Louise Buchan is fearless, charismatic, and intent on wresting meaning from life's chaos. Polar opposites, they are bound together as artists hungering for experience. Martin James Bannister, exceptionally handsome, is a futures dealer with a talent for reinvention and a menacing hunger of his own.
Through this trio, Johnson explores the fragility of the unquiet mind and love's capacity to glean redemption from even the darkest malignancies. In Hungry Ghosts she presents a vision of life that is eerie, passionate, and affecting."
One online reviewer had this to say:
"A reviewer, 06/30/2003
This book was rather disappointing to me. The characters in the book were all wierd and stayed that way at the end of the book. I had to force myself to keep reading it. Each chapter focused on one of the 3 characters. One paragraph I was reading present day events and the next it was something that happened years ago. It was rather like reading someone's diary out of order. I am still a fan of Susan Johnson's work just dont expect any exciting material like her other books provide!"
My notes:
A novel about the friendship between two women. While on the surface it seems as if it’ll be simply a new twist on an old theme ~ two women friends torn apart by having the same love interest ~ in hindsight, that theme is minor. While there is certainly the uncomfortable fact that both women fall for the same man, the message is more than that.
The two women are artists struggling for their craft. The bravado that comes with youth who know everything and the manic moments practically smack the reader in the face with the characters underlying instabilities.
The writing style is fluid. Intentionally mixed chronologically and with constant shifting points of view, it does take concentration to stay on track. One moment Rachel is married and living in Hong Kong, the next moment she’s still in London lamenting over Anne-Louise.
Rachel
“ I was dreaming my life and felt as if I were waiting for my real life to arise. I was growing restless to begin, to feel that keen unhesitating propulsion toward my fate. This is how we come to collude in our own destruction, this is how we come to long for the invading army to appear.”
Anne-Louise
“ She walked the streets admiring bursting trees, smelling the rich crack of opening flowers. [...] She walked and walked, daring to be happy, risking the wrath of the Gods. She raised her large smiling face to the sun and when she was not struck down, dared to hope for herself again.”
Wikipedia article about the term ‘hungry ghosts’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost
