The Mystery of Life?

What an amazing first novel! Nine interconnected stories that leave the reader wondering how, when, and why. The characters who populate David Mitchell's novel are both diverse and similar. Each is searching, some up close, some within, one in other bodies. Each character whether young or old or in which century tries to relate to the world around him with respect to the universal longing to belong somewhere and to someone. From the young lovers to an old peasant woman who runs a tea shop to a disembodied soul who inhabits bodies at random, all of them want the same thing. The plot of each story is somehow connected if only marginally in some cases, but the vastness and smallness of the universe is called up in each instance. The nighttime radio show host who invokes outrageous callers and ultimately invokes the one who may--or may not be--calling the shots for infinity.
The only real disappointment is that you expect all the characters to come together somehow in the end and that just does not happen. The end leaves you wondering what the book, and life, is all about which is apparently the theme of the book. Despite a few flaws, this is a thoughtful and interesting book. Many passages call out for underlining and rereading; and the next question is: what will David Mitchell write next??!