User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I read this book solely due to its longlisting on the 2020 Booker Prize.
I mention that because I think it showcases what (at least based on first impressions – I have finished 10 and started 2 of the 13 books at this stage) seems to be the most impressive element of this year’s longlist – the judges choice to pick a diverse set of both authors and writing styles, with a heavy focus on debut authors – in this case the TV and film actress Sophie Ward. A choice which I think might have come from them reading blind - PDFs without author bios, blurbs or plot summaries.
Ward has a Open University Degree in Literature and Philosophy and a PhD in the use of narrative in philosophy of the mind. I mention the subject of her degree and PhD as they so closely fit the character and nature of this book and her University (where she now works) as it effectively excludes her from the Goldsmith Prize – which is where I otherwise may have naturally expected this intriguing novel to feature.
The central conceit and structure of the novel is set up from the opening dialogue – between a couple: Rachel and Eliza(beth) where the two discuss thought experiments and Rachel demands to be in one.
From there on we have a series of chapters each named after a famous thought experiment: examples include Pascale’s Wager on the existence of God, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, Thomas Nagel’s Bat, David Chalmers P-Zombies, Frank Jackson’s Super Scientist Mary, John Searle’s Chinese Room, Hilary Putnam’s Twin Earth, Plutarch’s Ship of Thesus, Descartes Demon, Gilbert Harman’s Brain in a Vat. You do not need to have known the thought experiment to follow the book – as each is concisely explained at the start of the chapter.
And the ostensible main narrative tension is then introduced in the first chapter – Rachel becomes upset by some ants in their shared house and it becomes something of a test of her relationship with Eliza, one Eliza meets by buying Rachel a fertility kit - the two having long discussed having a surrogate baby with their gay friend Hal (his partner Greg is a space engineer).
So far so reasonably conventional, but later Rachel asleep becomes convinced that an ant has entered her body via her eye – something the rational scientist Eliza of course refuses to believe and which, in the illogical way many decisions are made in real life to ease relationship tensions, leads Eliza to finally 100% commit to the baby idea.
Evan after the birth of their baby Arthur, Eliza’s refusal to believe in the very small (but still finite) chance of Rachel’s account (mirroring in a way of course Pascale’s Wager) acts as a tension on their relationship, a tension which takes on an extra impetus when Rachel is diagnosed with incurable cancer
And while at first you may read this first chapter as fairly conventional, with the ant simply an oddity, you would be mistaken – the ant (as well as the Pascal code which occasionally enters the flow), are far from oddities; in fact they are equally important to the narrative as Rachel and Eliza and vital to the fate of a far wider group.
From there each chapter continues to be based around the thought experiment which opens it – albeit (like the opening chapter) in a not always linear way. The second Prisoner’s Dilemma chapter is far less about the mathematical/game theory logic of the dilemma itself, and far more about alternative pathways that stem from the co-operate/defect/defeat options, and the chapter explores three storylines about a Cypriot Turkish boy who decides to swim away from shore after his friend’s ball.
And from then on, in line with the other experiments outlined, the book becomes far more non-conventional and an exploration of ideas such as human and non-human as well as individual and collective consciousness; alternative/parallel worlds; online versus offline worlds; artificial intelligence and the singularity; religious belief systems, scientific worldviews and artistic renderings - and so on.
We have a range of narrators in two different senses: some are not human, others are the “same person” but in a different “realization”. We also have a range not only of times but of planets and even realities.
And through all these the book asks: who are we; what does it mean to experience the world; how can we really know other people or even really know ourselves and our own reality.
And yet at the same time all of this philosophical reflection and increasingly science-fiction writing is set against a really moving examination all the strands of a complex family unit – Rachel, Eliza, Hal, Greg, Arthur, Rachel’s mother Elizabeth.
Perhaps the most fundamental questions of all that the book asks are what does it mean to love another person, what does it mean to grieve them.
It is this narrative in parallel with the philosophy which I think really makes the book succeed as a rounded novel. It is a book which is both moving and stimulating.
There is so much more I could say about this both innovative and very enjoyable book – and it is definitely one that will I think repay a re-read.
A great edition to a fascinating longlist.
Rating: really liked it
BOOKER PRIZE 2020 LONGLISTED
On one level
Love and Other Thought Experiments is an understated, contemporary novel about love, loss, unconventional families and the consequences of choice. On another, it’s a sandbox of philosophical ideas ranging from free will and the nature of consciousness, to the limits of human experience.
‘Thought experiments are devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things.’
That’s a lot, thought Rachel. But she liked the sound of it. It tickled her to think of stories being used by scientists. I could be a thought experiment, something Eliza has dreamed up to challenge her hardened reasoning.
‘If I were a thought experiment,’ Rachel asked Eliza as they got into bed that night, ‘What one would I be?’
‘I’m not sure you can be a thought experiment,’ Eliza said, ‘They are supposed to help you think about a problem.’
‘If you can imagine it, then it is possible.’
‘That is one theory.’
The novel flirts with philosophy in a really fun and accessible way. It’s by no means a serious, high-minded deep dive (so anyone looking for that might be disappointed). This is first and foremost a character-driven story. Each chapter begins with a brief description of a famous philosophical argument or thought experiment, and a quotation. These function like epigraphs, giving the reader a little food for thought and priming them for the chapter that follows. This approach guides the narrative but doesn’t overwhelm it.
The story unspools in some really interesting and unexpected directions—I don’t want to give too much away because the surprise is part of the fun. The beauty of this novel is that you can engage with the philosophy side of it as much or as little as you want: get right into the weeds of the novel-as-meta-thought-experiment, or just sit back and enjoy an offbeat, insightful story.
If you are like me and enjoy subtle, sensitive literary fiction AND philosophical thought experiments as entertainment (along the lines of say, Ted Chiang's short stories) AND these two things combined in one novel sounds appealing, this book is for you. 4.5 stars.
[Fun fact: Sophie Ward played Princess Mombi in Return to Oz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcrkU... Readers of
Love and Other Thought Experiments may spot a connection between this role and the book's themes!]
Rating: really liked it
Clever and impressive. Interconnected tales that add up to something bold, daring, ambitious yet also very warm and human.
I was surprised and swept away by this bookAll the possibilities, all the directions a life can takeI was as thrilled as I remember to have been when I first read Ghostwritten from David Mitchell, who turned out becoming my favourite author.
Strong contender for my favourite book of 2020!
The novel starts as a heart wrenching tale of modern parenthood, with themes as intimacy, trust and mortality as subject matter, in the Ant. We meet Rachel and Eliza, and get glimpses in their relationship and their parental wishes. The prose is sharp and confident, in a way that you very soon get a picture of the characters (
She had become the sort of person she approved of but she wasn’t sure she had chosen anything she actually wanted).
Then in the second chapter we find ourselves in Cyprus in the head of a seemingly completely unrelated narrator. While in the third chapter the links with the first story are more clear and daughter mother relations are hilariously painted (
She sees me as a person
You don’t have to look hideous to be seen as a person).
Incredibly, I found almost every chapter to be more ambitious than the preceding one.
The way the philosophical thought experiments, mentioned at the start of all chapters, impressively come back loosely in the tales also add to the experience in my view.
Moving onwards in Love and Other Thought Experiments the cleverness of the connections between the stories start to show more and more. Sophie Ward goes into daring and bold territories, including two non-human narrators and suggestions of alternate realities. To tell too much would be unwise; going in without any background to this novel gave me the best reading experience and left me emotionally touched when reaching the end of Love and Other Thought Experiments.
Rating: really liked it
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020I am very disappointed but not surprised that this one missed out on the shortlist.
This book is original, entertaining and thought provoking, and exactly the kind of welcome surprise I look for on any prize list. I came close to giving it five stars but the last few chapters strayed too far into sci-fi for my taste. It is difficult to review such a book without spoilers, so what follows may not make much sense.
Each of the book's 10 main chapters could almost be a short story in its own right. Each is at least partially an illustration of a philosophical thought experiment which is introduced first, and although there are connections and an overall narrative of sorts, there are numerous inconsistencies and alternative pathways - the reasons for that become clearer towards the end.
The core characters are Eliza and Rachel, a couple planning to have a baby assisted by their gay friend Hal. At the start of the book Rachel says that she believes that an ant has entered her head through her eye. She is diagnosed with cancer, but survives long enough have a child, Arthur, who grows up to become an astronaut. One chapter is narrated by an ant, another by an artificial intelligence program.
The second chapter introduces Ali, a Turkish Cypriot boy, and concerns an incident in which he risks death by swimming out to sea to rescue a friend's football. Ali's story has several conflicting sections, which sets the pattern for the rest of the book. In one version, as a young adult, he meets Elizabeth, an English tourist, who is the subject of the next chapter in which she is Rachel's mother, living in retirement in Brazil.
Unusually for a novel, each chapter has a bibliography - in addition to the philosophical and scientific underpinnings, these include novels, children's books and other literary works all of which are mentioned in or influence the stories.
The nature of consciousness is another key theme.
This description probably doesn't convey what an enjoyable experience reading the book is - the science and philosophy never distracts too much from the human stories.
Rating: really liked it
One of the consequences of the nadir of the Booker Prize, the 2011 ‘Zipalongability’ list, was the creation of the Goldsmiths Prize, by Goldsmiths University, “established in 2013, to celebrate the qualities of creative daring associated with the College and to reward fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form.”
(The other was the Folio Prize which indirectly led to the unfortunate world-wide extension of the geographical eligibility of the Booker, unfortunate as the extension only applies to those who write in English)
Love and Other Experiments is precisely the type of novel associated with the College but is unfortunately ineligible for the Goldsmiths Prize due to the (rather unnecessary) rule that disqualifies any books by current, and even former, members of staff and students, the same rule that, for example last year, ruled out, among others, This Brutal House, Mothlight, Patience and Girl, Woman, Other.
Indeed. this novel was key to Ward's PhD thesis at Goldsmiths, a thesis provisionally titled 'Imagine I Am, The Use of Narrative in Philosophical Thought Experiments' (https://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=7991 - I haven’t been able to confirm the final version).
The novel consists of a series of connected short episodes, each based around a philosophical thought experiments which is explicitly explained at the start of each chapter. In some cases these are also spelled out, dare one say Sophie’s World style, in the narrative itself, whereas in others the association is rather looser.
The first arises from Pascal’s wager, although not with an explicit reference to religion, but more to ask the question of when it may be rational to believe in the irrational, here whether Eliza should believe her wife, Rachel, that an ant has crawled into her eye and stayed there (wonderfully based on an incident where the author herself had ants living in her computer, to the disbelief of her son).
The second uses the Prison’s Dilemma, although more to establish a forking paths type of narrative as to different outcomes of a young Turkish Cypriot lad struggling in the sea after he has swum too far in pursuit of a football. The forking paths reminded me of Borges’ El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan, and the novel as a whole has some similarities. Borges, as the author has acknowledged (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9YB_... around 11 minutes) is a clear and explicit influence and, indeed, Pierre Menard actually is the autor del Quijote in one reality in the novel.
There is a comprehensive source list at the end of the novel, but some of the influences are more opaque to me, for example Olivia Manning’s The Balkan Trilogy, which seems to be key but I’m unclear why.
But key texts are only included in the source list if named in the text. As an example of the cleverness, my GR friend Doug pointed out (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) that the title of the chapter told from the perspective of an ant is 'ameising', a neologism coined by James Joyce (whose Ulysses also features in another chapter title) in The Ondt and The Gracehoper section of Finnegans Wake. This in turn leads to another neat Borges link as in his review of Finnegans Wake he picked up on this particular neologism as an example of, in his view, unsatisfactory wordplay. From an English translation of the review:
Finnegans Wake is a concatenation of puns committed in a dreamlike English that is difficult not to categorize as frustrated and incompetent. I don’t think that I am exaggerating. Ameise, in German, means “ant.” Joyce, in Work in Progress, combines it with the English amazing to coin the adjective ameising, meaning wonder inspired by an ant.
And in contrast many sources are, I think, simply listed for completeness, for example a (I think) straightforward remark
in all the stories he was told, the fairy tales and Roald Dahls, the Lemony Snickets and J.K. Rowlings, the parents were either dead or gone, with very poor provision made for their absence is enough for several books to be listed in the references.
However, this quote does highlight one aspect of the novel, a very human story of a non-traditional extended family and of childhood bereavement (Rachel has a child Arthur via IUI with one of her and Eliza’s friend, himself in a same-sex relationship, leaving Arthur, whose quote this was, with one mother and two fathers after Rachel’s death), and indeed in the early chapters it appears a well-written but relatively normal story in this vein.
But many of the philosophical thought experiments are around consciousness and the nature of reality, and the novel, while retaining this very human element, heads into very different stylistic territory by the end, rather Matrix like, although the author has also acknowledged the inspiration of The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas.
Overall, an excellent addition to the Booker longlist and one I will regard as an honorary Goldsmiths shortlistee.
4.5 stars
Rating: really liked it
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020Ward's debut is an experimental novel that cleverly merges philosophical investigations into the nature of love and reality with literature or, to be more exact, with narrative games on how our decisions and random destiny plot the storylines of our lives. Each of the ten chapters is themed after a famous thought experiment like the prisoner's dilemma, the philosophical zombie or the ship of Theseus. The characters, much like test persons in a trial, act under the conditions of the experiment - the reader takes on the role of a scientist studying human behavior.
But there is also an overarching plot: Rachel and Eliza are a lesbian couple, and Rachel is firmly convinced that an ant has entered her body through her eye - which leads to contention in their relationship because Eliza, the scientist, has trouble believing her. Nevertheless (or maybe to overcome their problems), they decide to have a child with their gay friend Hal. From this basic premise, Ward extrapolates: She changes narrators, dives deeper into different characters (not all of them human), and seemingly alters plotlines that have already been established in other chapters. What is love? What is real? What does it mean to be human? The more the story of the little family progresses, shifts and morphs, the more the topic of artificial intelligence takes center stage, questioning the nature of the future a.k.a. utopia/dystopia we are all approaching.
Ward holds degrees in philosophy and literature and is currently studying for her PhD on the use of narrative in philosophy of mind- and in her book, she puts these qualifications to work. She wrote a novel for readers who enjoy pondering philosophical questions and like authors who turn stories into puzzles - in the Booker context, "Love and Other Thought Experiments" reads like the antidote to the chick lit entry Such a Fun Age, as Ward's novel would also be bona fide material for the Goldsmiths Prize for fiction that breaks the mould. There will be readers who complain about the complexity of this (although the wording will be more like "I don't understand what's going on" or "The characters are not likeable and I couldn't connect with them"), but readers who came for the postmodern extravaganza will rejoice: This is wild, daring, ambitious writing.
A fascinating debut that shows why reading the Booker longlist is fun if the judges do their job right: The Booker has the potential to shine a light on new, fresh, challenging authors. Sophie Ward is one of them.
Rating: really liked it
I’ve sometimes dipped into reading science and philosophy out of a curiosity to better understand the world and the nature of being, but I often find these texts too formal and dry to engage with for very long. So it’s enlivening to read Sophie Ward’s conceptual novel which is a series of interlinked stories each exploring a different thought experiment. These are imaginative devices to contemplate a different hypothesis or unsolvable riddle which provokes questions about the meaning of consciousness, the shape of reality and the limits of perception. Each section dramatizes a classic experiment devised by scientists and intellectuals such as Blaise Pascal, Hilary Putnam and Rene Descartes. The novel literally brings these questions to life while telling a moving tale about a family which spans many decades and imaginatively dips into a variety of perspectives. At the heart of the book is a couple named Rachel and Eliza whose desire to have a child results in a multitude of unforeseen consequences. This is certainly one of the most original pieces of fiction I’ve read in some time. It innovatively manages to be poignant as well as thought provoking.
Read my full review of Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward on LonesomeReader
Rating: really liked it
4.5, rounded down
This is probably the most innovative and imaginative of the Booker longlist this year (or should I say, of the 8 I have read so far), and it certainly requires one's brain cells to be firing on all cylinders in order to catch all the subtle interplay of ideas. Although I am fairly confident I got the gist of the book and figured out many of the philosophical underpinnings ... there is also the nagging feeling that some (a lot?!) of the book went right over my head, without me even being aware of that fact. [In this regard, it somewhat reminds me of 2013 Booker winner 'The Luminaries', in which the astrological connotations were completely beyond my comprehension, but didn't particularly impede my enjoyment of the story itself].
Here, each of the ten chapters begins with a 'thought experiment', and while about half of the time I could make out how the following narrative exemplified some aspect of such, in the other half it left me scratching my head on how they interfaced. I did enjoy how each chapter initially disorients the reader, and more or less 'pulls the rug out', and how one had to figure out exactly how the pieces are fitting. This becomes a bit more difficult in the final 2 or 3 chapters, which dragged a mite and veered a little bit too much into sci-fi and AI territory for my taste. Oddly, although the author copiously cites various other authors and literary works that impacted her own writing, she never mentions Lem's Solaris, which would seem to have been an obvious influence there.
And that brings me to my other minor quibble - I don't like it when a book makes me feel stupid, or like I am seriously deficient in my own reading history. Ward's book constantly makes reference - both explicitly and obliquely - to other works, and if one HASNT read those, one feels rather out of the loop. For example, the 4th chapter is entitled 'Ameising' and though the word does crop up within the storyline, it wasn't till I Googled that I discovered the word was coined by Joyce in 'Finnegans Wake', and how it's ant-related origins is appropriate for THIS book. Chapter 5 is called Clementinum and it isn't till one again Googles, that you are led to its prominence in Borges' 'The Secret Library', and thus its meaning here. The concluding chapter also makes reference to Borges' 'Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote', which I ALSO had not read, but since it's very short, dispatched quickly after reading this, which gave me an added level of insight.
Regardless, this was a challenging and highly entertaining read, and no doubt would warrant a second, more careful, re-reading - which I might grant it should it make the shortlist - or indeed, win the Booker. It now sits at #3 in my rankings.
Rating: really liked it
"Thought experiments are devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things."Books, in their own way, are a sort of thought experiment. For a little while you inhabit the life of someone else. You imagine things from their perspective. Perhaps you gain clarity into something confounding about the world at large, or maybe you experience a small epiphany about your own life. Regardless, the ripple of a book's effect on your life can be strong; whether the change is immediate or revealed much later varies from book to book.
Sophie Ward's
debut (!!!) novel Love and Other Thought Experiments is a confounding and compelling read that I think
will have lasting effects on my reading life; exactly how that will play out is still to be discovered.
I've only just finished reading this and don't feel I can adequately explain my feelings about this book. If you're looking for a plot summary—firstly, I do think this book is best gone into with very little context besides a sentence or two (
a woman claims an ant has crawled into her eye and from there the universe of these characters' lives unravels and intertwines simultaneously to create a thought-provoking narrative that will leave you questioning your own existence). And secondly, others have written far better review than me, so go check out some of those.
What I can say is that I see why this book might not work for some people, and at times even I was so perplexed that I couldn't pin down my own feelings. But I never felt unmoored; Ward may have a very strong agenda with this book but she also allows the reader to focus on what they want to within the pages of this story, whether fantastical or philosophical. There's plenty to grasp on to—in fact for a 260ish page book there is a LOT to unpack. It's quite impressive how it can be so deceptively simple and yet exceedingly complex in terms of narrative structure and themes.
The best I can compare it to is something a la David Mitchell.The 10 chapters tell a story of love and loss through different characters' perspectives. Each chapter is preceded by an explanation of a short thought experiment that informs the contents of that character's story. It's simultaneously heady and accessible. I don't know how else to describe it.
If you're looking for a read that may challenge you at times, but also enthrall, confound, delight and inspire you, this is an excellent read. I may not understand everything about this book (a re-read would be illuminating!), but that's life: a little bizarre, hopefully adventurous, and full of heartbreak and love. If you can enjoy the ride for what it is, you may come out of it with new experiences that inform and transform what comes next.
Rating: really liked it
The structure of this book really interested me. It told the story in a very unexpected way, and I definitely liked that aspect of it. It was not really a twist, but more of a perspective shift.
Each chapter starts off with a thought experiment or philosophical tidbit, and I presume the chapter is supposed to reflect it in some way. I tried hard to tie the lead-in to the chapter with the chapter content, and most of the time, I really didn't "see" it. Not sure if that's a failing of my intellect or a failure of the author. Nonetheless, I thought the concept was very creative, and I enjoyed trying to make the connections.
This book felt like literary fiction, but it had a science fiction overlay, and that bending of genre was very thought provoking. Normally, I'm not a fan of magic being injected into my fiction reads, but this felt more philosophical to me than fantastical.
Personally, I wish I had read this book in a classroom setting or with a book club because it feels like a detailed analysis would be worthwhile. All in all, this type of book is what I expect from one nominated for the Booker . . .intellectually challenging, innovative, yet still insightful into the human condition.
Rating: really liked it
4.5
This 2020 Booker Prize longlisted novel is rather brilliant. Weaving in a series of philosophical thought experiments (many of which concentrate on the nature of consciousness), Love and Other Thought Experiments tackles with empathy and feeling themes of consciousness, identity, love and loss.
The beautiful marriage relationship between central characters (Rachel and Eliza), and indeed the different versions of their selves, is so sensitively rendered. Including some stunning passages in which it is mediated by an Ant. Yes, an Ant! I shall say no more about the Ant so as to avoid spoliers, but this nonhuman consciousness is fascinating and in terms of imagery and metaphor creates a very deep and sophisticated meditation on the nature of life and our connection with that which is other to humanity (and asks is it indeed other to humanity). On this I concur with the Guardian review by Stevie Davies that notes: "Reading Love and Other Thought Experiments, not least the virtuoso chapter in which the narrator impersonates the ant’s thought processes, I couldn’t help recalling George Eliot’s squirrel in Middlemarch. “If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing ... the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.” I also immediately thought of Eliot's famous squirrel passage when reading Ward's "Ant chapter".
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
The book is throughly infused with empathy, especially for its characters that eventually extend to an unusual and somwhat mysterious, unsettling, future AI consciousness. In fact, the novel asks us to consider how far can we extend our empathy if humanity is to survive and is on the whole rather positive on our loving capacity to achieve this. Ward beautifully conveys this deep and at times mysterous empathy through the relationships among her characters and the heartwork they do to matintain them: in marriage partnerships and between parents and children especially.
This is a special novel that reminds me that the form of the novel can still surprise and take us to unexpected places, to feel unexpected things and perhaps even to expand our capacity for feeling and understanding.
Here's a link to a fascinating interview between Sophie Ward and booktuber Eric Karl Anderson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9YB_...
Rating: really liked it
We can’t understand death because we haven’t died.This collection of scattered but interconnected short stories across which its various characters interact and intersect in their various paths, seem to all revolve around the same central questions: what is life? What is consciousness? And under what conditions are the two created and sustained? Sometimes philosophy and fiction meet in strange alleys of literature to produce a piece worth spending a long while pondering upon and this is one such work.
The future shimmered across the table. A world of possibilities, if only Eliza could believe in them.The characters journey across the different chapters to tell us their stories, both the possible ones and the fantasies that unexpectedly merge with reality. Rachel, Eliza, Arthur, Greg, Hal, Ali and Zeus are all weaving their ways through a web constructed from repetitions and impossibilities, and it is only through understanding this web that do we, as readers, recognize the new and visionary in the timeline of the story.
In her bag was the postcard from her mother. A child stands at a door and knocks. In one world the door opens. In another, it remains closed. Is the child still the same? All the possibilities, all the directions a life can take.
Where was her son?The ending is still a bit unclear to me, but there is little doubt in mind that this is a beautiful book full of exquisite, elegant ideas and I will be returning to it again someday in the hopes of understanding it better.
Also, in my opinion, it was really unjust to not include this book in the Booker 2020 shortlist.
4.5 stars.
Rating: really liked it
It should be my cup of tea as it attempts to blend philosophy with life (especially questions of conciseness). But alas, it is not my cup of tea. I've read two first chapters (59 pages) and put it aside. I did not like the writing. The sentences like a Turkish man "replied in perfect English" (what else then?) have rubbed me a wrong way. Then it was the following scene: he has kissed the English woman to whom he talked in perfect English. But not simply kissed - he has wounded his lip against the glass of a cracked bottle. So he kissed her with the bloodied lips. Some people like such images I find it overwritten and, quite frankly off putting. Especially considering that it seems to be the thoughts of a nine year old drowning in the sea. I do not think the foreign culture is handled very well. And, I could se where all of this is going as the links between the stories are more or less evident.
In general, I found the situations in the stories only superficially related to the philosophic statements they were supposed to illustrate. Those statements are well known in the popular culture like Pascal wager or Prisoner's dilemma. So instead of profound it comes across as a banal sophistry.
And two cancers in two first chapters seemed to be a bit too much.
Many people like it, but not for me.
No rating as I have no plan to finish it.
Rating: really liked it
3.5
This short novel sounded very much like something I'd enjoy a great deal, unfortunately, it didn't quite meet my expectations.
I found it a bit of a hodgepodge of styles and themes, the last quarter confused the hell out of me. That's not to say that the premise wasn't good, but the delivery didn't quite impress me. Paradoxically, the parts I understood and sailed through were the ones written with a lot of dialogue and less literary. The prose that was of a higher calibre was in the last half of the book, where we hear from an ant and there's a big, unexpected switch to sci-fi. By the end, I had no understanding of what was happening, which made me question my intelligence.
So, we'll chalk this down to "it's not you it's me".
Rating: really liked it
2.5 I had an inkling this book would not be for me.
Books based in philosophy are not my thing.
The Ant annoyed me and once we got to
2001 : A Space Odyssey I knew I was lost.
(Came back to write a more thoughtful review but find I am rather devoid of feelings about this book at the moment)
