This is a type of book that you really wish you could rate in parts, like pages one through one hundred are 3/5, pages one hundred through three hundred and fifty are 2/5, and pages three hundred and fifty to the end minus one are 4/5. End isn’t the great. It’s a book outside my comfort zone (science-fiction and religion) and it’s a book that’s too long. It’s a book where some of the surprises are obvious and where one of the surprises manifested itself in a way I wouldn’t have expected (the Oasans physiology with respect to healing in particular).
So this is a book that goes here and there. A book where I got frustrated and then I got surprised and then frustrated again.
We are focused on Peter, a Christian preacher of indeterminate denomination (I think he says he’s not Baptist or Lutheran and he isn’t Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox) who is sent to another world to minister to the local species of a faraway planet, under the employment of a somewhat sinister, somewhat benign corporation. Peter leaves his wife Bea behind, but gets to communicate with her via a sort of internet contraption, which is seemingly the only nod to modern technology in the novel (that and the space travel, I have to concede). Bea on earth never mentions WiFi, rarely mentions cellphones, there doesn’t appear to be tablets or smart phones or Internet. Is this an alternate past? I mean, first world people freak out when they can’t get twitter for an hour, so one would assume that the first sign of societal collapse would be the collapse of telecommunication infrastructure, but that isn’t even mentioned. Perhaps Faber does what I aspire to do more of: live without all the trappings of constant contact, so this isn’t a concern for him in his books. But it’s the little things like this that make all of The Book of Strange New Things feel off.
Anyway, I started the last paragraph about Peter. We know that Peter is a complex person because he used to be a drug addict. Ooooooooh. Put in the scary Just say no kids music from those eighties drug advertisements. Then he found Jesus through Bea. And now he is definitely in the running for Most Boring Protagonist of 2014. He’s just completely bland. His struggles are, relatively, nonexistent. Bea graciously (at the start) accepts his interplanetary mission, the Oasans readily accept him and a large group are eager to learn about Jesus, he has a beautiful woman on the space base looking out for him and rescuing him from many of his more idiotic endeavors. Peter pretty much gets whatever he wants and chalks it up to his deep-rooted belief in prayer. I don’t understand Faber’s endgame here. Does he mean this book to be an active call to a Christian life? Peter gets what he wants because he truly believes and prays. When other people don’t get what they want, it’s because they aren’t praying hard enough. Then, when they do pray, truly and meaningfully, better things happen (like the impromptu garbage pickup Bea writes about; I know that sounds bizarre, it makes sense in the context of the story). Is it just a story? A Christian allegory? The meaning is muddled. We’re back to being muddled.
The scientists at the colony are cutouts that would be more interesting than Peter, but who aren’t delved into much. There’s a subplot about a linguist who goes missing that sort of peters out. Pages and pages are devoted to how well the vetting process is for the mission, only to have one character have a breakdown that exists, it seems, only to add impetus to Peter’s narrative. And then when Peter gets muddled, he prays (of course) and realizes the answer. Then the book ends, unsatisfactory, although the unresolved ending might be a way of setting up a sequel.
This book is very much like a flatline, slow burn. Much is said about how the terrain of the planet is flat, unchanging, soaking in and not giving back, all descriptors you could apply to this book. It’s interesting conceptually, but in practice, there needs to be more depth. The book needs to be simultaneously longer and shorter. And the book needs some of the characters to have at least a little more pizzazz, not just loner scientists and ministers whose pasts are supposed to make them exciting rather than having anything innately compelling in their own personalities.
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber went on sale October 24, 2014.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.