Customer Reviews

Our Tragic Universe

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

With a tongue-in-cheek title such as "Our Tragic Universe," you know you're in for something off the beaten path. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, which is a first-person episodic, mainstream novel. Or is it? Perhaps there's more going on here than meets the eye. For instance, think about this: the protagonist of the story, Meg, sounds an AWFUL lot like the book's author, Scarlett Thomas. They're both writers, teachers, British, mid-thirties, have academic chums...and the book is written in first person. So you keep thinking, hmm, is she talking about herself here? Is this autobiographical? And then there's the conversations throughout about philosophies of writing, about books, about writing a "storyless story" (which makes you think, Hey! This book itself seems to qualify for that. What's going on here?) Normally, I don't enjoy metafictions. But what makes this different from, say, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (Everyman's Library (Cloth)), is that you don't feel the author is playing headgames at your expense. She seems to be inviting you to play along with her (perhaps a hint is that early on, Meg tells how she loves solving crossword puzzles--the British kind, of course). Suddenly you realize that you are reading--and enjoying--a non-standard, "storyless" novel. Well, it's episodic. So is Deep in the Shade of Paradise: A Novel, which I highly recommend, but wouldn't categorize as breaking the rules, really. It's just a story about a period in these people's lives, told by one of the people, named Meg. If you don't like Meg or her friends, the lack of plot is going to be a problem for you. And if you aren't well-versed in narrative theory, the whole pseudo-metafictional thing may just be a bore for you. But for me, as it happens, I'm reading up on how to write a novel, so I found these conversations very enjoyable. I've read Frank Tippler, and Rupert Sheldrake. I know about the Omega Point (it's the end of the universe), and morphic resonance (it's your dog knowing when you're about to walk in the door, though I have to say my dog doesn't do that.)

I was puzzled by Meg's relationship with Christopher. She's living for seven years with this loser who treats her with no respect. Abuse, is more like it. And we have no clue until near the end of the book as to why Meg ever took up with this schlmiel (he's angular and sexy, whatever that means). But why does she stay with him? She's a very "together" person, she's making a living as a writer, she's quite an admirable person in some ways. She certainly has a good relationship with her dog. So why does it take her SO LONG to deal with it? Another thing that puzzled me was why everyone in the book was having an affair. Is everyone in Britain morally bankrupt? Or is this just some chicklit convention I'm not aware of? Of relationships and such, Meg is mostly mum. We don't really know, often, what her reaction is to an event, such as her boyfriend saying something abusive. She'll just carry on by taking the dog for a walk, and never mentioning the conversation again, or until later. She withholds her thoughts and feelings at odd times, and tells us the backstories of the other characters in a seemingly haphazard way. But she's such a good writer that I'm sure all of this was done on purpose, and I'm not smart enough to get it. I would've enjoyed the book more had it explored the pseudo-science bits more. It seems to be more than psuedo in the book, and yet in the end, we have a "Zeb Ross" ending, where all is explained rationally away (you'll know what I mean when you read the book) at the end by the scientists.

Thomas makes us think about fiction, and how we wish there were meaning in our lives. That things happen for a reason, and that if you work hard and heroically, you will get the girl and vanquish the dragon. We like to think that the Universe is not just some tragic joke. That all can be fixed and have a happy ending in 22 minutes plus commercials. That there are secret powers we know nothing about, and we're all immortal. That we aren't living the lives we see on television, so we jump from bed to bed looking for the right sitcom to live in. Thomas makes you question the assumptions your life is built upon. There's a lot to think about and enjoy here. I'm glad I got a chance to read this, thanks to the Vine program. Thanks, Amazon!

This was a quirky novel about a woman in a bad relationship writing genre novels when she really wants to write a literary masterpiece. There's a bit of a soap opera with who likes who and who's cheating on who going on with her and her friends, which is kind of fun. I found this novel well-written but didn't really like the way it kept drifting off into philosophical discussions. I'd end up zoning out and then would get back into the book when the actual story continued. I guess I prefer books that keep to story . . . but I liked the writing and characters well enough that I finished the book and found it enjoyable. I think those into philosophy will probably enjoy this book.

After reading The End of Mr. Y, I thought this was going to have some science fiction elements and be very plot driven, but it turned out to be something completely different. Odd circumstances were set up, but the story never went where I thought it would.

I was going to describe Our Tragic Universe as a character driven novel, but that doesn't seem right, either. This is something completely different.

The characters in this novel discuss storycrafting quite a bit, and one thing that comes up often is the idea of the storyless story. This sounds like an oxymoron, but it's the best way to describe Our Tragic Universe.

That doesn't mean that nothing happens, but it doesn't follow a regular plot outline. Things do happen in the lives of the characters, but not in the formulaic way that we are accustomed to. The main character doesn't have anything that drives her to act. It's more like things happen and she adapts. When I describe it that way, it sounds really boring, but I wasn't bored. I enjoyed the writing and my curiosity about what was going to happen kept me reading.

I've never read a story like this before. It's worth reading just for its uniqueness. I think this is a book that will be discussed in writing classes, I'm just not sure if it will be received as an example of what to do, or what not to do. Either way, I liked it and feel as though I should read it again now that I know what to expect from this peculiar novel.

If you've read Scarlett Thomas's work before and are ready to dive into her newest book, I suggest you take a few minuets and think about it. If you loved her previous ability to build up action and suspense while adding conversations about what words really mean, and ideas of NoCO more than the conversations and philosophical discussions, you may not enjoy this book.
Thats not to say that her new book is bad in any way, I enjoyed it a lot, but it takes a certain kind of person to fully enjoy it. Unlike her last books, which though intellectual and extremely thought provoking still had really good and well paced plots, this one doesn't. Its part and parcel with the idea of a non-story, which is constantly talked about within the book itself.
This story without a story though is an interesting one in that it takes a look at relationships, how they grow and crumble, what causes them to start, and then to falter. Whether friendships or love, this book takes a hard look at them, while discussing new age ideas, the afterlife, monsters on the moore, dog psychology, how to write book candy, publishing industry, maritime history, ghosts, "energy", magic, and holidays; all combined with lots of tangerines.
Tangerines in this book take the place of cigarettes in Thomas's past books, and I feel its quiet fitting. The book can be broken up and eaten in parts, and still taste good, it can be consumed all at once, there are even sometimes "little tangerine babies at the top", and millions of ways you can peel a tangerine. I don't think this was on purpose, its probably more likely that the author quit smoking while writing the book and needed something for her protagonist to do while drinking tea, reading books, and pondering the great expanse of the universe.
But like a Tangerine also, this book will not be for everyones taste. Its not a normal story, which will upset many. Its not a "psychological thriller" like the Amazon coding suggests, its not even a novel in the sense that most in the west think of a novel with heros, but it is a way to sneak the authors thoughts into writing, without everyone coming at her with pitchforks and torches. And for those who like the first 20 pages, you'll like it till the end (mostly), but if you dont like the first 20 pages, put down this book and wait for her next one (which I hear she's going back to University to get a degree to write).

It won't be easy to review this book, or even to describe it. Imagine an attractive and horribly depressed young novelist named Meg in a small English coastal town. She has a "jaggedly beautiful" and completely insufferable boyfriend, several interesting friends, an unrequited crush, and a perfect dog named B. The dog is probably the happiest, most well-adjusted and emotionally healthy character. The plot, if there is one, is that Meg stumbles onto a book about the end of the universe, and it jars her into changes.

This book should be unforgivable, since the characters stop for pages and pages of long, breathless, chatty conversations about the nature of the universe, narrative theory, the history of Tarot, Chekhov and Tolstoy's differing views on art and poverty, the hero's journey as a masquerade for the colonial journey, and so on. But there is something so appealing about the tone of these conversations, as they are conducted with the same earnest casualness of discussions elsewhere in the book about weather, seagulls, or knitting.

Meg, the main character, is as interested in her crafts as she is in physics, and worries about her disintegrating wardrobe in the exact same amount and tone that she uses to worry over the disintegration of the universe. But it is all so surprising and convincing that I couldn't stop reading to find out what happened next. The book is clever and intelligent both, in that is pulls off some neat tricks and engages the thinking part of the brain in a hilarious and mildly satirical way. I was completely won over.

At one point Meg says to a friend (I condense and paraphrase), "All realist writers, including me, want to create something with so much emotional truth that none of it seems like a story at all." Perhaps that is part of the reason this novel feels plotless. A plot is, after all, what happens, and I could describe to you exactly what happens to Meg--and plenty does happen to her. But the emotional truth of her life is so perfectly captured in this dizzying, wordy, breakneck novel, that none of it seems like a story.

Recommended? I loved it, but please keep in mind that this writer has been called out for writing "chick lit for nerds." Read an excerpt to see if you love the breathless narrative style. And maybe take a chance... I really loved it.

If I could have one opportunity to meet with the author Scarlett Thomas, I would like to ask her why with all these wonderful ingredients and potentials in "Our Tragic Universe", she has chosen to disintegrate them into what appears to me as a storyless story (by her definition and by my observation). One that makes me feel tragic to even finish reading the book. If I could meet with Douglas Coupland who wrote that wonderful piece of praise at the back of the book, I would like to ask him specifically how "Our Tragic Universe" manages to surprise him in a terrific way, why he finds it addictive and thinks that the author is a genius. If I could meet with the one who wrote the synopses of the book, I would like to ask why he or she thinks that "Our Tragic Universe" is a book about how relationships are created and destroyed, and how a story might just save our lives. I have devoured the book slowly, from page one to page 425, and I have found none of the above.

Scarlett Thomas is not new to me. I have read some of her previous works before. I had this hope that "Our Tragic Universe" would live it up to my expectation. This book is curiously divided into two parts. In part one, the main character Meg - a book reviewer, a ghost writer, an aspired writer, a lady in her late thirties, a character that at one point I thought Scarlett is Meg - has a rather mundane life that is getting slightly worse. In part two, Meg has a relatively more hopeful life that is getting slightly better. If I may deduce what saves her life (as promised by the synopses), it is money. Or rather the time freed up by not needing to think about making ends meet can be used to do something more interesting. If I may second guess on what the synopses writer means by "Our Tragic Universe" is a book about how relationships are created and destroyed, it merely means that if you stuck or think you stuck in a relationship that is going nowhere, break up and start anew. However, I doubt that is what Scarlett Thomas has intended this book to be (and I surely hope not).

"Our Tragic Universe", to me, is an experimental work of writing. A storyless story as defined in page 388 and 389 (and hinted at the very beginning of the story) is as follows.

- [The storyless story] is the subtle rejection of story within its own structure ... It has no moral center. It is not something from which a reader should strive to learn something, but rather a puzzle or a paradox with no `answer' or `solution', except for false ones. The readers are not encouraged to `get into' the storyless story but to stay outside.

To illustrate what a storyless story is like, here is an example (page 389). By and large, I see the similarity of that and to the entire book.

- A story about a hermit making jam could be as interesting as a story about a hero overcoming a dragon, except that it would be likely that the writer would make the hermit overcome the jam in the same way the hero overcomes the dragon. The storyless story shows the hermit making the jam while the hero overcomes the dragon, and then the hermit giving remedies and aid - and jam - to both the hero and the dragon before going to bed with a book.

And so I have subconsciously played along with this storyless story concept while throughout the bulk of the book, I was hoping that "Our Tragic Universe" would be as innovative and engaging as "The End Of Mr. Y". "Our Tragic Universe" has all the great ingredients. A book that Meg needed to review called "The Science of Living Forever" has a great potential to be the metafiction (a story within a story), such as the story by Lumas in "The End Of Mr. Y". "The Science of Living Forever" even has a sequel called "Second World" that would have fitted beautifully with this book in two parts. There is a mysterious wild beast living in town. There is even a ship in a bottle that mysteriously appeared at the shore when Meg was `conversing' with the Universe. The magical healing power, the placebo versus nocebo (the opposite of placebo), the conversation with the dead on an astral plane - tragically, none of these have been converted into something intriguing, something that lives up to the basic expectation established between a reader and a writer, something that is remotely close to "The End Of Mr. Y". This book may wish to break away from the standard structure of (1) having a central issue or the `ordinary world' of the problem, (2) the problem itself, (3) the way to set out and resolve the issue, (4) a previously unseen element in the central conflict that could make the problem seems insurmountable, (5) a climax or turning point, and (6) the resolution - as implied using Tarot reading on page 322. In fact, "Our Tragic Universe" has done it so well that it does not have any of the above. The fallacy of a storyless story, to me, is in the absence of a climax or a convincing turning point, it is not a very inspiring story. Having said that, with an open mind and if reading an experiment piece is what you are after, "Our Tragic Universe" is certainly unique. It is still an easy read with lively conversations filled with truncated ideas and well known stories. Be prepared that this book has nothing to with tragedy, certainly nothing to do with the Universe. And neglect the bad and misleading marketing tagline "Could a Story Save Your Life?".

I do not think I would subscribe to the notions of fictionless fiction, historyless history, romanceless romance, unproven proof, and uncertain certainty (page 390). I think these are some pointless phases the author has dreamed up with (that anyone could create a dozen more). I do not think that being a realist writer means that he or she has to produce fictionless fiction (page 390). To me, the goal of a realist artist is to produce artworks with the goals of truth and accuracy in mind. That, in the context of writing, is a job belongs to the journalists. A fiction is not a real story, as repeatedly mentioned in a wonderful book called "How To Read Novels Like A Professor". A fiction is simply a work of fiction.

This book reminds me of listening to hour after hour of lecturing from my college philosophy professor, who thought every topic under the sun was profound enough to warrant hours of pretentious rambling.

In short, nothing happens in this book. People talk, think, and recount stories. There is no activity, no passion, no drama, and no character development. Just page after page of useless facts and old wive's tales. By the end, you'll feel like you spent the last six hours at a yard sale where you desperately tried to find something worth buying, but ended up walking away empty-handed.

This was the first suggestion that popped up on my new Kindle when it arrived in the mail. Being able to read the sample of this improbably indescribable book hooked me, and I finished it in 2 days. It ended before I was ready for it, actually, but in retrospect that's appropriate to the book. I've already downloaded another of her books, PopCo, and am similarly hooked. A new favorite author!

I loved this novel while I was reading it and thought that I'd give it five stars for sure, but the ending brought it down to a four for me. The most interesting part of the whole novel was the fact that Meg, the main character, was a novelist and would engage in long discussions about writing with her friends. I also found the different theories about the meaning of life and the universe enjoyable. Meg's life itself wasn't all that interesting but it was entertaining enough. The heart of this novel for me was all the philosophy being discussed. If you're not interested in novel writing or writing a storyless story or whether there's magic in the world or weird physics, you probably won't like this novel much. It's all these things that made it so enjoyable for me. (Writing/fiction and metaphysics are two of my main interests in life.)

Anyway, I loved the journey this novel took me on and the ideas that were discussed. It was all very fun to read and think about. In the end, though, this journey didn't really take me anywhere as interesting or thought-provoking as the journey itself was. I think that's the point of the whole novel, that the destination doesn't really matter, but it was still a bit of a let-down. Another reason why I took away a star was that I didn't really find any of the characters to be three-dimensional. They didn't feel like real people. They felt like mouth-pieces for the philosophies being discussed. I didn't really mind it, though, because the philosophies that were discussed certainly kept my interest.

Overall, Our Tragic Universe was a very enjoyable reading experience for me. I'll certainly check out this author's other works.

What makes this novel difficult to review is exactly what makes it so compelling: it's impossible to put it into a neatly defined box. Scarlett Thomas' "storyless story" has as its protagonist Meg, a 38-year-old struggling writer who does book reviews and writes genre fiction to pay the bills. Meanwhile, she keeps starting and re-starting her "serious novel," tries to help her friend Libby with her relationship problems, and endures the trials of a moody, overly sensitive live-in boyfriend. All this while trying to figure out her feelings for a much older man who has his own entanglements.

As the novel starts out, Meg is sent a copy of a book to review, which has as its central premise that everyone is ultimately immortal. She is both intrigued and repelled by this idea and what it might mean for her own life. Rich philosophical undertones provide the backdrop for Meg's struggle to find, and make, her own meaning in life and to figure out what's worth believing in.

Meg's character is endearing due to her complete human-ness. She is no romantic heroine, but rather a flawed human being trying to find her way, just like the rest of us. Her narration is sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, and always unflinchingly real. It only took a few pages to be completely immersed in her life; she was interesting even when all she did for days on end was walk her dog and knit socks.

This novel contains elements of romance, physics, magic, philosophy, myths,and literary history, but in the end it really defies convention or definition. It truly becomes a "storyless story" and in this way actually becomes more true to life. To make a novel entirely about the journey, rather than the wrap-up of the plot, could have been a risky move. It requires the reader to trust the author in order to keep going when there's no clear "payoff" in sight in terms of a plot resolution. But Thomas writes so well, and her characters are so profoundly human, that the journey is immensely satisfying. Very enjoyable and highly recommended.