As a way to get my own book club juices flowing, I try to write a quick blurb-length review and ten potential discussion questions in anticipation of our conversation. Maybe if you've read the book too (no idea how popular this one is, but the existence of a recent streaming-landfill drama TV series indicates maybe it's not unpopular), then you can follow along from home.
Without giving away any significant plot points, I'll say that there was a character at one point that feared the human race because of their rapid acceleration in progress. Moving to the agriculture age took millennia, moving to the industrial age took centuries, moving to the information age took decades, so who knows how fast progress is going to move after that. And I thought that was interesting for a few reasons, not the least of which because it acted as a handy metaphor for the book itself and how much I enjoyed reading it. The first half of the book was extremely slow, the third quarter of it picked up significantly, and the final quarter was a blur of bonkers genius. It took a long time to pick up, but once it did, there was no stopping this motherfucker.
I'm hit-or-miss on the science fiction. I thought the last sci-fi book we read (Lagoon, exactly one year ago) was just pretty okay. This one was a lot better. I'm not impressed when the science elements are, like, an allegory. It needs to go beyond that. The Three-Body Problem got there, and spoke beautiful of the human condition, while of course at the same time speaking of creatures that are not human at all. There's a way to make that hokey, but this wasn't hokey. Just dense with science and Chinese history, a lower start speed but a higher max speed.
What I can tell you about the plot is that it concerns humanity's search for life on other planets. There are personal dramas occurring on earth, but of course they start to seem petty once the narrative reaches those other lifeforms. I will say that most of the characters were well-drawn, like the angry cop Da Shi and the through line between all timelines, Ye Wenjie. Others, like Wang Miao, who is our audience stand-in for a lot of it, seem more like character sketches to get us through the plot. But it's all good, because when he does finally get us to the endgame, it's sublime.
I wonder if we lost something in translation too. Nothing plot-wise. Like, I got the point of the book, and I appreciated it. But, I don't know, at certain points, the English seemed plain to me. We've read books in this club in which every word sizzles, and every sentence is like a song. This wasn't that, and I tend to blame the fact that I wasn't reading it in its original language. Nothing I can do about that. It's not like I'm going to stop reading translated books after this. I wouldn't want to miss out.
Generally, I'd recommend the book. I think it requires a lot of patience to make it to the halfway mark, though, so my recommendations would be parsed out to those whom I know would have that patience.
GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5
BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
(**SPOILERS!!!!!!)
1. I've probably asked this question before, but do you think that the foreshadowing was handled well? E.g. there was a line in Chapter 2 that was like "historians agree that this was a turning point in human history," and I was like, what? I guess it set the tone. Did it do well when it did this?
2. What did you make of all the science talk? Were you able to hang in there? Did some of it go over your head? Did it matter in the grand scheme of things?
3. Do you think Da Shi's journey from villain to anti-hero was earned? How about Ye's journey from savior to rival to... whatever?
4. There is a LOT of description of the Trisolarian world. Worth it to build this world in the story in addition to ours? I thought so, but I could see an opinion being that it was too much of a distraction.
5. Any thoughts on the differences between Adventists, Redemptionists, and Survivors? How about how it was mostly upper-class intellectuals that we joining this movement, and that the working class were largely uninterested in betraying other humans?
6. What was the most fantastical set piece? The nanofiber across the battleship seemed particular vivid to me.
7. Who wins: Yang or Lei? Or do they both lose for tangling with Ye? But I guess I'm speaking more ideologically.
8. On the one hand, it makes sense that this would be a TV show, since a lot of the chapters seemed episodic to me already. On the other hand: how much does this fucking TV show suck ass?
9. Is it really sunset for humanity? Is it worth reading the other books in the trilogy?
10. What can we say about the fact that there were people so willing to betray humans in favor of alien overlords? In that they just hated humankind, and not because they had faith in aliens or whatever. Is there anything we can do as citizens of the world to make sure that everyone feels wanted in humanity? That sounds corny, but you know what I'm trying to say.
No comments:
Post a Comment