'Ghost Stories' is divided into two sections: Part 1:
Man and Part II:
Man. The interplay of these titles reflects the playful manner in which the novel uses two interleaved stories, one set in contemporary
and China, the other in the realm of Chinese myth, to create an exploration of the nature of reality and
, and how they are transformed by
.
In the contemporary story,
(the narrator) is fired from his job as a translator in the Chinese consulate because he cannot actually speak Mandarin proficiently, and has been relying on Google translate to perform his work. He finds himself involved with
, a movie director who offers him employment for unspecified tasks, and provides him a personal translator,
. A movie exploring the director's (self-proclaimed) ancestors is being filmed in the city of Port Man Tou, one of many cities that had been built in China which still lacked a population until it was turned into a film set full of
performing practical jobs in the city when they were not involved in filming. Although, since they are always being filmed, the distinction is not clear.
The chapters set in the present alternate with chapters set several centuries ago, a series of fable-like stories about an emperor who is establishing his regime. They include the creation of a thousand
of the Emperor, a
that becomes sentient and power-hungry, a chess-playing
with deadly intent, and the construction of an immense
to hold
, the Imperial Consort. When the Emperor has all the books in the kingdom destroyed (in a fit of rage because the official biography that was being written displeased him), it is the Imperial Consort who sets about reconstructing them all. The incomplete book 'Death of a
' is the starting point for the film project in the contemporary story.
