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2012 Book Review #29: Mr g
Title: Mr g: A Novel About the Creation
Author: Alan Lightman
Genre: Extended physics allegory
Thingummies: 2
Synopsis: A careless god makes the universe, using what we currently know about physics and biology, while dealing with his inexplicable aunt, uncle, and assorted demons.
Thoughts: I'd previously read Lightman's Einstein's Dreams, an elegant little set of thought experiments-cum-vignettes about life in universes with physical constants other than those of our own. It's an intelligent, whimsical, thought-provoking little book.
Mr g attempts to repeat the formula, and fails.
This is a walk through Genesis using the most modern scientific explanations of the origins of the universe. Where it merely describes the origins of galaxies or cells, there's a certain elegance involved. Lightman has a gift for making scientific explanations poetic.
But the framing story, featuring a rather bumbling God, tries so hard at whimsy that it becomes unbearably twee. There's the aunt and uncle of God who are there to do a stereotypical Yiddish couple impression, complete with venial misunderstandings, boastings that make no sense in the context, and complaints about snoring. (Why these are his aunt and uncle and no other relatives appear, I cannot explain.) The devil has two sidekicks whose roles appear solely to be annoying. (If there is a deep symbolism here, it's too symbolic for me to puzzle out.) Most of the interactions between the characters are mostly either repetitive or pointless. I still cannot figure out the point of the devil's appearance at an opera house, other than to point out that he likes to ruin things because they aren't for him. What lesson we're supposed to take from this, I don't know.
There are a lot of big ideas that could be grappled with here--the nature of the soul, the meaning of creation, free will in a universe with physical constraints. But most interesting points are not fully developed, and those points that are developed are hammered home so exhaustively that their exploration is mere repetition rather than unfolding of complex concepts. The science is interesting--the theology is not.
Merely choosing large, grand subjects does not guarantee profundity. In this case, Lightman manages to simultaneously reveal the glories of the universe and still makes them trite.
Author: Alan Lightman
Genre: Extended physics allegory
Thingummies: 2
Synopsis: A careless god makes the universe, using what we currently know about physics and biology, while dealing with his inexplicable aunt, uncle, and assorted demons.
Thoughts: I'd previously read Lightman's Einstein's Dreams, an elegant little set of thought experiments-cum-vignettes about life in universes with physical constants other than those of our own. It's an intelligent, whimsical, thought-provoking little book.
Mr g attempts to repeat the formula, and fails.
This is a walk through Genesis using the most modern scientific explanations of the origins of the universe. Where it merely describes the origins of galaxies or cells, there's a certain elegance involved. Lightman has a gift for making scientific explanations poetic.
But the framing story, featuring a rather bumbling God, tries so hard at whimsy that it becomes unbearably twee. There's the aunt and uncle of God who are there to do a stereotypical Yiddish couple impression, complete with venial misunderstandings, boastings that make no sense in the context, and complaints about snoring. (Why these are his aunt and uncle and no other relatives appear, I cannot explain.) The devil has two sidekicks whose roles appear solely to be annoying. (If there is a deep symbolism here, it's too symbolic for me to puzzle out.) Most of the interactions between the characters are mostly either repetitive or pointless. I still cannot figure out the point of the devil's appearance at an opera house, other than to point out that he likes to ruin things because they aren't for him. What lesson we're supposed to take from this, I don't know.
There are a lot of big ideas that could be grappled with here--the nature of the soul, the meaning of creation, free will in a universe with physical constraints. But most interesting points are not fully developed, and those points that are developed are hammered home so exhaustively that their exploration is mere repetition rather than unfolding of complex concepts. The science is interesting--the theology is not.
Merely choosing large, grand subjects does not guarantee profundity. In this case, Lightman manages to simultaneously reveal the glories of the universe and still makes them trite.