alexm14's reviews
167 reviews

"Ghosts" centers around a private detective named Blue, who is hired by a man named White to follow another man, Black.
Blue’s task is simple: observe Black and report his activities. However, as Blue immerses himself in this surveillance, he finds that Black’s life is monotonous and uneventful.

Auster’s use of color-coded names for his characters—Blue, White, Black, and even Brown, Blue’s mentor—serves to strip them of individuality, reducing them to mere symbols. This abstraction reflects the novel’s themes of identity and the loss of self. Blue’s growing obsession with Black leads him to a state of existential crisis, as he begins to see himself in the man he is watching. This doppelgänger effect underscores the novel’s exploration of the self and the other, and the thin line that separates them.
Black spends his days reading, writing, and taking occasional walks, leading Blue to question the purpose of his assignment and, ultimately, his own existence.

The narrative style is minimalist and detached, mirroring the emotional distance that Blue feels from his own life. Auster’s prose is sparse, yet it effectively conveys the psychological depth of Blue’s internal struggle. The novel’s structure, with its lack of a traditional plot and its focus on the mundane details of Black’s life, challenges the conventions of the detective genre.
Through its minimalist prose and abstract characters, the book challenges readers to reflect on the nature of existence and the ways in which we construct our own realities.