by Britt, Laura, and Vicky
Once again our book club book divided readers. Some, (a largish majority - much to Chloe's delight) were fascinated by the idea of time travel, impressed with how deftly the author dealt with so many themes and stories in such an intelligent and cohesive way, were seduced by the beauty of the writing and found it a compelling novel that they couldn’t put down. Many readers did not expect to enjoy a novel about time travel, and were surprised by how easily they were drawn in to the future Mandel had imagined. However, others, despite conceding that the book was beautifully written and very clever in parts could not make sense of the story lines or the time changes, did not find the characters relatable and didn’t get the point of the book.
For those in the latter category the changes from era to era were a big impediment. They couldn’t keep track of whether we were in 2200 or 2400 and what moon colony we were on. They thought there was just too much back and forth and they didn’t understand the significance of the anomaly in the space time continuum that was the narrative spine of the story. Not many readers truly understood what happened in the last chapter even after reading it twice.
However, despite the confusion at the end of the novel, most readers were happy to let go, suspend belief, and just trust that things worked out as they should. As Mandel herself said in an interview, she does not focus on mechanics and science, and trusts her readers intelligence to fill in the gaps.
Most readers agreed that the very first sentence - “Edwin St.John St.Andrew, eighteen years old, hauling the weight of his double-sainted name across the Atlantic by steamship” - beautifully showcased Mandel's writing style from the outset. It was Edwin's story that led us in to the narrative, and for many readers his was their favourite thread in the novel.
Being a novel of speculative fiction, Sea of Tranquility raised a number of hypothetical questions which we posed to our readers this week. Would we be able to go back in time and not mess with the past? Could we look someone in the eye and not tell them they were fated to die imminently unless they changed course? The response was a unanimous "no". The question did raise an interesting point with one reader, who felt the simple answer would be for the Time Institute to change its policies. Why did the Time Institute simply not tell its agents what would befall the people they were visiting? Had Gaspery been unaware that Olive would die in three days, he would not have had to try (and fail) to resist telling Olive to leave the book tour, thus breaking the rules and ending up as a 'prisoner' lost to time.
What would happen if we suddenly realised we were in a simulation? The answer, for the most part, was nothing much. Readers felt incredulous as to who would want to simulate our human lives with all the tedium of our day to day ritual - and what kind of sadistic overlords would create a simulation which subjected us to flood, fire, famine and war? Some readers felt the realisation that our free will was an illusion would result in bouts of depression, and others felt perhaps there would be a period of chaos, and then we would just get on with it. As Gaspery says, “So What? A life lived in a simulation is still a life.”
We spoke about the simulation hypothesis and observed the similarities between this theory and organised religion (an all-powerful God creating and controlling us from on high), movies we have seen (The Truman Show, The Matrix), other more eastern ideas of spirituality and psychology (that the world as we know it is not real but a mere projection that we create in our own minds), and also video games from our past (Sims). Most readers were pretty sure we do not live in a simulation, and figured we should leave that hypothesis to Elon Musk.
Despite our regrets most readers did not wish for a world where time travel was available since the idea that we only have one go at our lives is what makes them so precious, and learning to live with our mistakes rather than go back and correct them is how we evolve as human beings.
Thank you all, once again, for another week of great discussions!