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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
funny
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
“And if we prefer not to speak of it, whether for good or for ill, it is because the only thing we could say is this: poor, frail universe, born of nothing, all we are and do resembles you.”
A very uneven collection of short stories. At its best I loved the book, at its worst I was completely disinterested. The first section, Cosmicomics, is far and away the best and most consistent, but there are some stories sprinkled throughout the other sections that stand out—"World Memory" and "The Count of Monte Cristo," for example. My biggest takeaway from this collection though is that Qfwfq is one of my new favorite narrators in fiction.
adventurous
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
After reading Invisible Cities, I had to read anything offered from the literary capacity of Italo Calvino and this gave the same limitless, expansive feeling that draws you in with its curiosity-vertigo. The outlandish stories show the fringes of IC's imagination and how they are expanding very much like the universe that is the subject of his stories. The 20+ stories in this collection have this appetising flavour of cosmogonic mythicism about the latest scientific theories about space, time, evolution of life on earth, humans and infinities of the universe. Told from the perspective of a human-like but definitely ethereal, omnipresent narrator Qfwfq, it projects human emotions and aspect of our everyday experience into the space-time beyond it and creates this surreal juxtaposition. These imageries, while are meant to assist the readers grasp the otherwise abstract concepts that challenge our conceptions by their microscopic and macroscopic scales, still are expressed in that poetic, subjectively conversational way that claims the stakes in readers' attention and their emotions.
The readers feel teleported to a far-away space-time where these stories that they are reading have propagated to - having replaced their old Gods with the metaphysical feeling of the modern scientific theories. What they commonly carry is this magical after-effect of realising the expanse of universe and its inhabitants beyond their own lives. This is an effective appeal that similarly contributes to the propagation of myths among our societies. And it takes the form that myths do as well - conveying abstract images about our lives (and in this case, the universe's) through concrete images. All of this delivered through this author's imagination that makes you wonder if imagining such things was even possible. This incredibility separates the creator from the creation. Through arguments that close in on themselves infinitely like some fractal kaleidoscope, or contradicting philosophies that extend either way making suspending everything in disbelief - thereby making everything credible - the author feels like a wizard who's probably using some wand to spawn words, casting spells to orchestrate our thoughts. They leave the readers in an after-glow of some inherent, relatable truth peeking from within the fantastical worlds and larger-than-life entities inhabiting them.
We have stories of when the moon was very close to earth and people used to jump across its gravity and the earth's. Or probably the moon was part of Earth and it broke off at some point taking away some part of it, never returning it back. There is another which about falling in love while falling in space in parallel lines hoping that these will meet eventually in infinity. There is other on the Big Bang which makes you crave for the void before it. There is one where you imagine what it was in that nebulous period before stars formed from it and the solar system. How about imagining the beings that live inside of Earth instead on the outside; how Eurydice was stolen from such a world by Orpheus. There are others where Qfwfq was a dinosaur, and one where they were a mollusc. A mind-blowing one was where the universe was a blank space filled with signs left from existences like Qfwfq since the very beginning. What did the first cell undergoing mitosis or meiosis might have felt like - bet you haven't imagined that yet. There is one amazing one where Alexander Dumas is pulled into the story where his character is trying to escape from the prison he's trapped in. t-1, t_0, t+1 - this book has it all!
The readers feel teleported to a far-away space-time where these stories that they are reading have propagated to - having replaced their old Gods with the metaphysical feeling of the modern scientific theories. What they commonly carry is this magical after-effect of realising the expanse of universe and its inhabitants beyond their own lives. This is an effective appeal that similarly contributes to the propagation of myths among our societies. And it takes the form that myths do as well - conveying abstract images about our lives (and in this case, the universe's) through concrete images. All of this delivered through this author's imagination that makes you wonder if imagining such things was even possible. This incredibility separates the creator from the creation. Through arguments that close in on themselves infinitely like some fractal kaleidoscope, or contradicting philosophies that extend either way making suspending everything in disbelief - thereby making everything credible - the author feels like a wizard who's probably using some wand to spawn words, casting spells to orchestrate our thoughts. They leave the readers in an after-glow of some inherent, relatable truth peeking from within the fantastical worlds and larger-than-life entities inhabiting them.
We have stories of when the moon was very close to earth and people used to jump across its gravity and the earth's. Or probably the moon was part of Earth and it broke off at some point taking away some part of it, never returning it back. There is another which about falling in love while falling in space in parallel lines hoping that these will meet eventually in infinity. There is other on the Big Bang which makes you crave for the void before it. There is one where you imagine what it was in that nebulous period before stars formed from it and the solar system. How about imagining the beings that live inside of Earth instead on the outside; how Eurydice was stolen from such a world by Orpheus. There are others where Qfwfq was a dinosaur, and one where they were a mollusc. A mind-blowing one was where the universe was a blank space filled with signs left from existences like Qfwfq since the very beginning. What did the first cell undergoing mitosis or meiosis might have felt like - bet you haven't imagined that yet. There is one amazing one where Alexander Dumas is pulled into the story where his character is trying to escape from the prison he's trapped in. t-1, t_0, t+1 - this book has it all!