If The Book of Strange New
Things is Michel Faber’s last book, and I really hope it is not, he went out on
top, because it is thoroughly enjoyable, eye opening, and is the best Sci-Fi/
Literary novels to come out since David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks. Over the
course of 500 pages exactly, Faber constructs a story about faraway worlds and
vastly different alien cultures, but does so with an emotional core that a lot
of science fiction (at least what I have come across) sorely lacks. I’ve gone
on about how sci-fi is not my favorite genre, and the reason is that the
stories all try too hard to be cool and cynical, leaving very little room for
character development or any kind of human vulnerability; it’s focused more on
hard ideas than anything else. But I love a good sci-fi novel like this, as
snobby as it may be to praise it, because the feelings this book triggers in
the reader lasts much longer after you have finished, and occupies a more
positive space in the readers mind. Another thing Faber succeeds at here is his
treatment of religion and faith. Again, in any other tale like this, religion
would be criticized at best and mocked at worst, but here, it is dissected with
care, and its qualities and faults are both given equal, fair treatments with
understanding and warmth. The novel tells the story of Peter, a pastor with a
volatile past who is selected by a mysterious company known as the USIC to
become a missionary on the planet Oasis, located light years from Earth. This
would mean having to leave his loving wife Beatrice for an indeterminate amount
of time. He agrees to go, seeing this as the ultimate opportunity given to him
by God, and once he gets there, a strange yet not uncomfortable new environment
awaits him, with a race of aliens (whose physical attributes are brilliantly
left ambiguous) who are eager to learn the teachings of Jesus Christ with no
resistance. He forms a possibly romantic bound with a pharmacist named Grainger
and, through the Oasan’s total devotion to Peter’s preaching (shown through a
heartfelt eulogy he gives for one of his fallen co-workers) really strengthens
his faith as well. But back home on Earth, things begin to fall apart, abroad
and with Bea and their cat Joshua. Besides highlighting the good things religion
can accomplish, such as bringing people together and giving someone purpose,
what really struck me was how Peter’s conflicting lives on Oasis and Earth
really acts as a metaphor for the pains of change we all go through, and how it
is impossible, in the end, not to hurt someone as we try to grow as people. And
through the community of Oasis, Faber might have created the most positive utopian
society I’ve read before: a group of people, who lack any kind of individuality
or autonomy, but are helpful in ways humans can never be. This book is a real
treat, filled with interesting ideas you haven’t come across, from a writer
who, I hope, continues such thought provoking work.
Rating: 5/5
No comments:
Post a Comment