First published:-
2004
Read in:-
April, 2014
Star rating:-
There's the sound of a deeply contented sigh emanating from the lips of someone clutching this book to herself like a long-lost friend, a bead of tear perched precariously atop disorderly eyelashes. And there's the barely audible sound of her turning the pages ricocheting off the pliant walls of time and space, sculpting a minuscule dent on the surface of a collective fate and this perplexing cosmic interconnection.
She cannot properly articulate her awe or even fathom her own bewilderment at being rendered so tearfully sentimental by another case of 'old wine in new bottle'. Now she longs to believe that any or all of her trivial actions will lift her out of her predestined prison and place her somewhere on the crisscrossing grid of timelines and geographical boundaries, enable others to hear the distinct echo of her shout into the void. She just by herself is insignificant, not even a mere drop in the pool of time and she fears this looming threat of obscurity above all. But then David Mitchell gently reminds her that mute resignation to the 'natural order of things' is cowardice and billions and billions of droplets like her coalesce to form the ocean itself. She can will herself to shape the world any way she can.
American notary, Adam Ewing sails reluctantly across the Pacific aboard The Prophetess, unaware of the events that will set into motion a change of heart which will contribute toward the making of history.
A disinherited, arrogant and musically gifted Robert Frobisher chronicles the making of his avant garde 'Cloud Atlas' sextet in a series of letters addressed to his dear friend from distant Zedelghem.
Dauntless Luisa Rey doggedly pursues the truth and exposes the nexus between the Nixon administration and corporate corruption, emerging victorious against the tide of adverse circumstances.
Ageing, pedantic and self-important vanity publisher Timothy Cavendish endures a 'ghastly ordeal' partly as comeuppance for his lifelong selfishness but manages to emerge from his own predicament with a reformed worldview.
Fabricant Sonmi~451 rises above the 'catechisms' of institutionalized servitude to 'corpocratic' masters in futuristic Korea to light the spark of revolution.
In a post-apocalyptic Hawaii, valleysman Zachry witnesses mankind on the brink of a choice between complete annihilation and survival through self-reform.
And master puppeteer David Mitchell pulls all their strings from the background.
As she delights in her newfound admiration for the sweeping scope of this masterpiece and Mitchell's ambitious foray into the Matryoshka-doll structured story-telling, she doesn't fail to notice the accusations of gimmickry and pretensions, of self-indulgent writing, of 'trying too hard', of 'contrivances' and acknowledges the legitimacy of these opinions.
But then she remembers Robert Frobisher answering Mitchell's detractors on his behalf.
"Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan't know until it's finished, and by then it'll be too late..."
Do you blame her for chuckling at the man's foresight and wit?
Enthralled, she notices the parallels drawn between the rabid consumerism of our times and a 'predatory society' based on principles of the empowered devouring the disenfranchised and the voiceless, the invisibility of the aged in the eyes of the young and unwrinkled, carefully inserted allusions to virulent sexism, racism and xenophobia through the ages, the enthusiastic nod given to cross-cultural harmony and freedom of sexuality and she wonders if Mitchell has left any of the issues haunting mankind since times immemorial unexplored.
Thus as Mitchell tips his hat to the likes of Melville and Calvino, to prose stylists like Joyce and Nabokov, to the traditions of intertextual witticisms and metafictional references, to all the disparate voices and genres that help enrich the body of literature today, she tips her hat to Mitchell's genius and the sheer audacity of his vision.
Unhappily she then takes cognizance of the fact that never again will she read 'Cloud Atlas' for the first time.
But then again, she might.
First published:-
1980
Star rating:-
I wonder what Carl Sagan may have thought of 9/11 and the world in the new millennium, a strife-torn place which is being shaken up and shaken out every moment. I imagine the civil but slightly horrified and slightly bemused tone he may have employed while talking about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the antics of the Bush administration which have become such excellent fodder for stand up comedians the world over. And I can almost detect the note of boyish enthusiasm in his voice while he may have spoken of the Higgs Boson and explained the reasons behind the incorrect observation readings of the 'neutrinos being speedier than light particles' experiment that had made the headlines a few years ago.
I can only imagine because he wasn't there to witness these watershed events and he isn't here to offer comment, criticism or share his inexhaustible repository of knowledge with us any longer. His time in the Cosmos had run out within two decades of the publication of this work - a testament to his own belief in the staggering inferiority of our evanescent lifetimes in the scheme of the universe(s).
"Our familiar universe of galaxies and stars, planets and people, would be a single elementary particle in the next universe up, the first step of another infinite regress."
It would be nice if I could summarize each one of the 13 chapters of 'Cosmos' and give readers the lowdown on our painstakingly slow but rewarding crawl through the fabric of space and time, the civilizational hurdle race towards a finish line which we can neither begin to envision nor fully comprehend yet.
I could write a review in the conventional format, leaving you with a gentle nudge to read this book as soon as you can.
Or, instead, I could simply write about how, despite being more than 30 years outdated, Carl Sagan's voice of reason rings truer than ever, cutting through the heart of all the din and chaos of our troubled times. I could just tell you how Sagan's deep and abiding love for nature and humanity reverberates in every page of this work and how our scientific endeavours across timelines and geographical boundaries, across the unending void which surrounds us on all sides, symbolize our collective pursuit of knowledge.
"There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised."
The Cold War is a now defunct appendage of our history, the Soviet Union is no more, America has achieved a milestone in its race relations by welcoming its first Black President. But turmoil in the world order persists - the nuclear arms race between the Americans and the Soviets has been replaced by a newer dance of dominance in the Asia Pacific region. The world is as much embroiled in a mesh of steadily growing list of challenges as it was in the past, if not more. Preposterous decrees issued by fanatical outfits, blatant human rights violations, infringement on freedom of speech and expression, diplomatic arm-wrestling, the ever-enthusiastic decriers of science, 'War on Women', the shouts of the global-warming deniers reign supreme still. The players may have changed faces but the game of petty one-upmanship in the arena of global politics still continues unabated.
Which is why Sagan's rousing call for all of mankind to unite under the identity of citizens of the Cosmos and not as citizens of a nation moves me to the core of my being. His recapitulation of our scientific advancements achieved against the tide of adverse circumstances, of the victories won in the face of persecution by religious authority, impresses upon us a sense of urgency - that with the exponential increase in the defense budgets of the global powers, the incentive given to the greatest minds of our times to devote time and energy to unraveling the mysteries of the Cosmos is reduced. As the concept of 'nuclear deterrence' receives a pat on the back, the global arms sales numbers continuing to soar despite hollow promises of arms control, more and more scientists are being engaged in improving weapons technology rather than validating the fact of our existence against the intimidating presence of the stars, galaxies and universes. The NASA budget cuts of recent times are proof of this ignominy.
Is it to this end that the ancient advanced cities like Alexandria, the destroyed civilizations of Ionia and the Aztecs and pioneers such as Eratosthenes, Democritus, Aristarchus, Hypatia, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, Galileo, Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, Christiaan Huygens, Issac Newton and Albert Einstein worked tirelessly for? To further intensify mutual national antagonism and increase our probability of complete self-annihilation?
Sagan thinks not.
"Our loyalties are to the species and the planet.We speak for the Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring."
This is why I can't help but agree quite heartily with someone who says 'If I had a religion, I would be a Carl Saganian.'
"If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another."
If there is only one worldly diktat we must abide by with unquestioning faith, let it be this one.
(Original review posted on Goodreads:- April 30th, 2013)
Neither does a war bring glory nor does a win in one ensure the moral infallibility of one
ideology over a conflicting one. Because essentially, war justifies countering genocide with more genocide. We all know that, right?
But nope, we don't. We only think we do. And that is what Kurt Vonnegut wishes to tell his reader, in a calm, detached and emotionless voice in Slaughterhouse Five.
He informs us, quite matter-of-factly that we don't know the first thing about a war and proceeds to explain to us what it really is, by fashioning a narrative as abstruse, disjointed and meaningless as war itself.
I must make a confession despite how morbid this may sound. I have a thing for war books because it's endlessly fascinating to read about the two World Wars which helped define our identity as a civilization in the last century. And despite the horrendous nature of crimes against humanity that were committed in both, these two wars held up a mirror in front of us where we could recognize our own failings as human beings and rectify our mistakes.
Which is why I agree with Tan Twan Eng's views on World War II:-,
"Moments in time when the world is changing, bring out the best and the worst in people."
But Vonnegut neither eulogizes war nor seeks to make our hearts bleed for the unimaginable loss and suffering it brings. Instead, he gives the traditional perspective on war a new twist by giving us a prolonged glimpse into the mind of a war veteran who neither considered himself a hero nor a coward.
Billy Pilgrim's life or the way he viewed his own life in retrospect, was as chaotic and nonsensical as the war he fought in. It is the sheer absurdity of the concept of war that takes center stage in this highly experimental novel - how we carry on with our broken lives with a perverse sense of humor in the face of mindless cruelty and utter madness.
5 out of 5 stars.
