The story is primarily a mystery, one of murder, the other a death precipitated by immortal actions. Taylor offers the reader two sketchy scenes of the deaths before he introduces his main character, John Holdsworth—bookbinder, bookseller and printer by trade. The ghosts of his drowned son and wife plague him. After his business fails, he accepts a commission from a wealthy and influential widow whose son, attending college in Cambridge, has gone mad. Her ancestors founded the college, and her two goals for Holdsworth are to bring her son home restored and sane and to assess the college’s library.
Taylor adds romantic complications, lies, political rivalries, and class structure into his well mixed plot. Because these complications rely on human weakness, the reader has no doubt as to their authenticity. Goodness is measured by conscious self-inspection by characters who try to balance their desires against moral outcomes as they make choices. Holdsworth solves the murder by understanding the characters’ emotion and moral landscape. When he unearths the facts and puts his moral assessments of those involved together, he solves the mysteries.
Readers will identify with The Anatomy of Ghosts because the issues remain unchanged—are we to serve for the greater good or will our selfishness destroy those around us? Human conflict and guilt comprise the anatomy of our internal ghosts. But even though Taylor provides evidence that we haunt ourselves, he never proposes that the concept of external spectral spirits is invalid. Ghosts exist, and we will always be haunted.
It's interesting that the moral question is whether we serve the common good or allow our selfish interests to destroy those around us. Often, once ghosts enter the picture, evil is externalized and even a person possessed who wants to harm others can't be blamed for his/her actions
ReplyDeletePerhaps Pauline. But many of the ghosts are our own moral guides, either internal or external, reminding us of moral boundaries and keeping us safe. Whether or not ghosts can actually possess us is a question Taylor doesn't answer, just that they may exist. I'm not sure all ghosts are evil. Why they remain here is another question.
ReplyDeleteInteresting book! I had an unexplained presence when I was living in a college dorm. My roommate and I saw black whispy shapes, doors opened and closed on their own etc. Later we learned that a previous occupant had committed suicide. So, perhaps our ghost just wanted to be remembered.
ReplyDeleteOMG, Kara. And that didn't freak you out? It wouldn't have made me happy at all.
ReplyDeleteI have the book in my house, which is why I read your review. As soon as I finish the one I'm currently reading, I'll start THE ANATOMY OF GHOSTS.
ReplyDeleteYou'll like it Marilyn. Taylor writes well and it quite subtle. Nothing substitutes for a good plot and this one is well done.
ReplyDeleteNice review of what sounds like a book well worth reading.
ReplyDeleteI admit that it was a scary experience, E.B.! My roommate and I did not want to be alone in our room. I heard that those sorts of things happened to other people who lived in that room until the college remodeled the dorm. Then it stopped. Hmmm
ReplyDeleteIf it isn't the "same" place than maybe the spirit couldn't dwell in it or identify with it or haunt it or...something. Interesting story, though.
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