Cosmicomics!!!I'm sorry I've taken so long on this one. I have a horribly lame excuse: The thing is that I found Cosmicomics so astonishingly original, insightful, and entertaining that I'm not sure I can write a concise description that will do it justice. To get the general idea, have a look at the posts of the other Nonbelieving Literati: from No More Hornets, An Apostate's Chapel, Right to Think, Spanish Inquisitor, Tales of an Ordinary Girl, and The Greenbelt. All I'd like to add is that these tales are fundamentally human yet encourage the reader to contemplate the most fantastic physical possibilities and impossibilities.
My favorite passage from this book is one that describes a relatively mudane insight (relative to some of the stuff in this book), but which is one of my personal favorite topics: comparing a character's self-image with the way s/he is perceived by others. These are the words of a dinosaur living incognito among the "New Ones" who came after the dinosaurs:
The stories were terrifying. The listeners, pale, occasionally bursting out with cries of fear, hung on the lips of the storyteller, whose voice betrayed an equally profound emotion. Soon it was clear to me that all of them already knew those stories (even though the repertory was very plentiful), but when they heard them, their fear was renewed every time. The Dinosaurs were portrayed as so many monsters, described with a wealth of details that would never have helped anyone recognize them, and depicted as intent only on harming the New Ones, as if the New Ones had been from the very beginning the Earth's most important inhabitants and we had nothing better to do than run after them from morning till night. For myself, when I thought about us dinosaurs, I returned in memory to a long series of hardships, death agonies, mourning; the stories that the New Ones told about us were so remote from my experience that they should have left me indifferent, as if they referred to outsiders, strangers. And yet, as I listened, I realized I had never thought about how we appeared to others, and that, among all that nonsense, those tales, here and there, from the narrators' point of view, had hit on the truth. In my mind their stories of terrors we inflicted became confused with my memories of terror undergone: the more I learned how we had made others tremble, the more I trembled myself.
6 comments:
I think that sometimes a book is so ... umm, I hate to say "perfect" or "transcendent," but those are the only words that spring to mind ... let's say, "all-encompassing," that it's essentially impossible to write about it in a way that doesn't sound feeble compared to the book itself.
Cosmicomics is that kind of book to me. Yeah, like you I tried to put into words what it's like, but I'm not sure that either of us -- or any of the others -- were able to get across just how amazing the experience of reading it is.
I'm so glad you liked this book. It's one of my favorites, and I was happy to be able to share it. I hope some of your readers will pick it up to see what we mean.
Re: I think that sometimes a book is so ... umm, I hate to say "perfect" or "transcendent," but those are the only words that spring to mind ... let's say, "all-encompassing," that it's essentially impossible to write about it in a way that doesn't sound feeble compared to the book itself.
Cosmicomics is that kind of book to me. Yeah, like you I tried to put into words what it's like, but I'm not sure that either of us -- or any of the others -- were able to get across just how amazing the experience of reading it is.
Exactly. Perversely I like to read works with a few flaws so that I can have the fun of analyzing them. But this one is so perfect that I don't have anything to add. It's fun and accessible in addition to being brilliant...
Re: I'm so glad you liked this book. It's one of my favorites, and I was happy to be able to share it. I hope some of your readers will pick it up to see what we mean.
I hope so too!!! It's definitely a work to introduce to one's friends!!! Great choice!!! :D
By my tally, this was a good recommendation by Ex. I haven't seen a negative comment yet.
Like you, I like to read imperfect books, or should I say that I don't mind having read a book that turns out to be imperfect (I always hope the book is perfect when I start it). Being able to spot the imperfections actually helps fine tune the analytical process of my brain. An easy read just feels like a good drug, and my mind goes "Ahhhhhhh."
Wouldn't mind getting addicted to that drug, though.
I'm interested to see that you, like a couple of others, picked up on the "last dinosaur" story. Is this perhaps symptomatic of the view of atheists as outsiders, forever doomed to hold their tongues on their true nature? Do we identify more with the dinosaurs than the New Ones?
Just occurred to me whilst reading your post.
Hey S.I.!!!
So true!!!
Hey Yunshui!!!
Personally I liked "The Dinosaurs" because of the themes of contrasting perspectives and how stories can shape perception. However, I think the passage I cited has some pretty obvious atheist interest to it. The New Ones perceive themselves as "from the very beginning the Earth's most important inhabitants" and see the dinosaurs as existing to torment them. This illustrates a little about the psychloogy of religion.
It reminds me of one of my son's science videos where Sir David Attenborough points out that while we tend to think of a flower's beauty as existing to give us (humans) pleasure, in fact the flower's color and perfume serve to attract the insects (or other animals) that it needs for pollination.
Yeah, the dinosaur chapter was probably very personal for a lot of us. I loved it.
Post a Comment