The terrorist
The terrorist is a kind of devil in the story. He symbolizes the height of evil, because he is as passionate about murder and evil as humanly possible, but for motives that seem self-explanatory to himself. The terrorist has an insightful name, Quasar, as if to suggest that he is a natural anomaly, just doing what he was designed to do. If this is true, the natural design seems to be programmed into him by the author for thematic purposes.
The religious cult
Through the religious doomsday cult, the novel shows the reader the problem of human belief. This symbolic issue has two sides: on the one side, human belief is a troublesome phenomenon, because it is also belief that makes the terrorist passionate about murder and death, but on the other side, the reader sees a story that is so big that some belief seems warranted. The doomsday cult might be wrong about the specifics, but they are actually correct about their sense of doom.
The spirit in the mountains
The spirit in the mountains troubles the family in the wake of their Grandma's death, so the issue of spirituality is paired with the problem of human death. This symbolizes the true mystery of death, and the way death elevates human attentions to the divine. This happens among Holy Mountains, so the transcendentalism of the scene is quite apparent. This symbolic question is reason for the reader to suspect a mystic or Buddhist argument in the novel's meaning.
The ghostwriter
The story briefly mentions a ghostwriter whose presence in the novel can be seen as symbolic, given the title of the novel: Ghostwritten. His desire is to unite himself to the object of his love, but a bar fight has broken out in their casino. The story involves fortune, strife, and the union of opposites, so the story can be seen as a metaphysic in which the other stories are implied. This is why the title of the story bears this name.
Impending doom
The motif of impending doom is clear from the various doomsday cults in the story, from the presence of death throughout the story, from the violent battle for justice in human law across the planet, in London, where terrorists murder innocent people, in the arrival of Artificial Intelligence on the planet, and in the undeniable doom of the comet, heading straight for the earth. The theme of doom adds a sublime quality to the story, demanding the reader interpret not the story, but the reality of human life, with all its implied doom and apocalypse.
