(2007)Genre: Fiction/Sci-fi/Thriller (?)
Synopsis: When Ariel Manto uncovers a copy of The End of Mr. Y in a second-hand bookshop, she can't believe her eyes. She knows enough about its author, the outlandish Victorian scientist Thomas Lumas, to know that copies are exceedingly rare. And, some say, cursed.With Mr. Y under her arm, Ariel finds herself thrust into a thrilling adventure of love, sex, death and time-travel.
(SPOILERS!)
***
Note: There are no explicit spoilers, but there are references to occasional small events and certain plot structures.
Review: Ariel's character seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it sort, which personally I loved. She's the eptiome of raw honesty. It may take a while to decide which side you're on, but ultimately her view of her self as worthless and her issues will drive you to sympathy or feeling uncomfortable. The book on the whole presents very real personal issues in a very blunt and shockingly honest manner - some might say gratuitiously so. I don't think it's ever gratituitious, but I do think that perhaps the author tries a little too hard. All the same, whether she's trying too hard or not, the point clearly gets across and the point itself is what will divide people. Her life may seem bleak to those who love solidarity and aimless to those who need an external imposed structure on their own, but I see Ariel as being free.
The novel locks you into Ariel's perspective so you simultaneously feel you are completely cut off, even blinkered, from the real world, the sane world, the neurotypical world - it's wholly inaccessible. I felt curtailed in it - in a good way, I was in Ariel's head and saw the world through only one eccentric person's eyes. At the same time as it made me feel cut off from normalcy, there's a whole sense of knowing more than any ordinary people could ever know, being open to possibilites (and worlds?) beyond the imagings of anybody in software code - it's like stepping outside of the inherently subjective human frame of mind and getting a glimpse of Kant's things-in-themselves. In a way, it's almost like being in the Troposphere yourself - you're sitting inside the mind of a person and travelling with them on their adventure. In fact, most of the revelatory moments in the book occur within the Troposphere, rather than in the confinement of the real world. It's difficult to move around in the Troposphere, but the human mind is still at it's most free within it.
It is the mystery clouding the true nature of the Troposphere that pulls the reader through Ariel along the path of discovery. This nature is eventually explained through the very thought experiments Ariel has dedicated her life to exploring - the very kind that this book in itself essentially is. These thought experiments are based in the quantum physics accepted today, which is part of what perhaps makes them so appealing. Thomas makes the complex nature of these theories simple in her explanations to a point where most readers should grasp at least the basic idea of what she's talking about. For those with an awareness of the fundamentals of quantum physics already, it does not disappoint. So while these theories don't pop up constantly - but rather tsome short discussions and eventually a riddle that solves the climactic problem in the plot - it's clear they're quite fundamental, and for me were at the epicentre of the whole novel.
For the most part, the plot plods along nicely and is constituted mostly as I said by the ongoing attempt to discover what the Troposphere actually is. It's fairly fast paced, theres little unnecessary content and still amazingly, the characters are sufficently developed. Without much detail Adam and Heather tend to give off certain vibes, attraction and replusion respectively, and it's difficult to decide whether these are merely Ariel's feelings, or whether they've been genuinely inspired in the reader by given facts. Then again, being in the Troposphere does tend to muddle your thoughts with your host.
There are plenty of laugh-out-loud lines inspired by Ariel's quirky view of life and all in all it's an impossible book to put down. Unfortunately, towards the end, the plot starts to fizzle. It's clear post-discovery-of-Troposphere-nature that something epic should happen - and given the way the novel has progressed anybody would be forgiven for expecting a mindblowing finale. Especially when a character turns up with a bag of sweets and two rocket launchers from God. Unfortunately, we just don't get it. It's as if Thomas gets swept up in her own excitement and ploughs through all the standard checkpoints for 'good plot development' without checking to see had she met the standard. She hasn't - because she's just moving too quickly. That's not to talk down the actual events, just the way in which they are portrayed. There are two 'climactic' trips towards the end, both are short - the secondary one involving the mice (mice seem to be a recurring theme) isn't very satisfying although it is FANTASTICALLY described. The speed at which Thomas suddenly starts moving works well here to portray the sheer speed of travelling through time at the speed of thought. Unfortunately, the end of the trip is a let down and the immediate jump into what should be the ultimate climax of the book makes you almost miss it. After all the difficulty in discovery throughout the previous 400 pages, suddenly everything is too easy. I personally am willing to let that go, however, because everything else is just too awesome.A few final notes about the general content and the epilogue. I know it's a first person narrative, so it's not easy to go into detailed histories of other events and lives. I still however would have liked to find out more about the actual events at Project Starlight, perhaps through someone involved? And I would have liked to see the conversation where Adam gets his rocket launchers. I would have liked to see an expansion on the two final trips. The epilogue is a source of disettlement among readers, it seems. Thomas herself says that it was a risk to include it. I think she could have gone about it better - there is a point earlier in the novel where the fundamental journey in the epilogue IS implied - somebody could then have summarised the journey to put it into the readers mind, so Thomas could later IMPLY but never directly STATE the final character involvement in it. All the same, I think people who don't like the epilogue need to bear in mind the relevance of language and metaphor throughout the novel - I don't think the idea could have been portrayed in a better way, and it IS only a metaphor. I thought the actual idea, like the overall novel, was fantastic.
Rating: 5/5
