Another First Reads review, this time of a much better book

Our Tragic Universe, by Scarlett Thomas

As other folks have said, this is a difficult book to write about. But since I was given an ARC through the FirstReads program, I will take a stab at reviewing it.

First off, this is not a traditional narrative. Much like the movie Adaptation, it is a metafiction - a novel about the process of its own creation. While there is ostensibly a story at the center, most of its four-hundred-plus pages address various philosophical and moral questions through the mouths of the characters. Most of the actual story part consists of the characters being frustratingly passive, or engaging in behaviors of various levels of self-destructiveness. There's little in the way of a development arc for anyone but the main character, and even that could be called "stilted" - for the first half of the book, I wanted to reach in, shake her, and tell her to get out of her head and get her act together.

All that said, I did find a lot to enjoy in this novel. Anyone who's tried to write a story - especially anyone with a strong perfectionist streak, as I have - can identify with the main character's struggle to find something new and groundbreaking to say. The various philosophical discussions are often interesting, and the author does a nice job showing how they affect both the main character's novel and her life in general. And I particularly liked the metaphor of the labyrinth for both life and the process of writing - it often feels like you're taking the mathematically longest possible route to your goal, and even if you reach your goal you're not finished, just ready to stop and rest for a bit before the long process getting back out.

Lots of reviewers have described this novel as "ambitious", and I would agree with that moniker. However, that begs the question - what was the author's ambition? If her goal was to write a "storyless story", a narrative about its own conception and development, she did a very good job. If she wanted to make it an engaging and thematically cohesive read, I'm less certain. If she was trying to create identifiable and sympathetic characters, I think she could have done with a lot more revising - one of my biggest frustrations was the way the characters seemed like they were simply there to provide mouthpieces for the author's thoughts, in which case, why not simply have the whole narrative take place in the main character's head, a la Mrs. Dalloway?

Certainly not a book I'd recommend to everyone, but I'm not sorry I read it. B-

Another First Reads review, this time of a much better book

Our Tragic Universe, by Scarlett Thomas

As other folks have said, this is a difficult book to write about. But since I was given an ARC through the FirstReads program, I will take a stab at reviewing it.

First off, this is not a traditional narrative. Much like the movie Adaptation, it is a metafiction - a novel about the process of its own creation. While there is ostensibly a story at the center, most of its four-hundred-plus pages address various philosophical and moral questions through the mouths of the characters. Most of the actual story part consists of the characters being frustratingly passive, or engaging in behaviors of various levels of self-destructiveness. There's little in the way of a development arc for anyone but the main character, and even that could be called "stilted" - for the first half of the book, I wanted to reach in, shake her, and tell her to get out of her head and get her act together.

All that said, I did find a lot to enjoy in this novel. Anyone who's tried to write a story - especially anyone with a strong perfectionist streak, as I have - can identify with the main character's struggle to find something new and groundbreaking to say. The various philosophical discussions are often interesting, and the author does a nice job showing how they affect both the main character's novel and her life in general. And I particularly liked the metaphor of the labyrinth for both life and the process of writing - it often feels like you're taking the mathematically longest possible route to your goal, and even if you reach your goal you're not finished, just ready to stop and rest for a bit before the long process getting back out.

Lots of reviewers have described this novel as "ambitious", and I would agree with that moniker. However, that begs the question - what was the author's ambition? If her goal was to write a "storyless story", a narrative about its own conception and development, she did a very good job. If she wanted to make it an engaging and thematically cohesive read, I'm less certain. If she was trying to create identifiable and sympathetic characters, I think she could have done with a lot more revising - one of my biggest frustrations was the way the characters seemed like they were simply there to provide mouthpieces for the author's thoughts, in which case, why not simply have the whole narrative take place in the main character's head, a la Mrs. Dalloway?

Certainly not a book I'd recommend to everyone, but I'm not sorry I read it. B-