I’m not a big sci-fi guy. This is well known by all of humankind. When the people in the future look at the cave drawings I’ve made, they will deduce this about my life. My cave markings, like the book written by the narrator, will be left for whoever finds it, if anybody ever does. If they do, they will know that I am not a big sci-fi guy but loved this book.
What a devastating, insightful, and probing novel. Like many of the readers here on Goodreads—each speaking into a void—I have never read anything quite like this. From the title and the first sections, I thought I knew what this book was going for and where it was heading, but it really surprised me. Which is surprising because the narrator warns about exactly what this story is. When you strip away everything you think civilization is, what does it mean to be human? To love, be loved? To live, and to die? Yeesh, heavy, scary stuff to think about. This book put me in my place, for sure. It’s not interested in answering the reader’s questions, just as life itself does not provide easy answers. Like any sci-fi worth a damn, it uses its premise as a metaphor and a tool to guide the reader to greater truths and mysteries that we may never solve.
If and when a future civilization sees this review or my cave drawings, please know that part of my life was that I liked this book and, with the rest, I tried my best!
4/5