Tertulia Moderna: August 2021

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Book Review: "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir

Project Hail Mary (2021)
Andy Weir (1972)
478 pages

Former software engineer turned author Andy Weir caught lightening in a bottle in his debut novel The Martian, creating a character whose resourcefulness captures readers’ imaginations, as he overcomes a series of problems in order to survive after being left behind on Mars. Like children’s movies that have a rich subtext for adults, Weir’s story provides plenty of exciting action and suspense to attract a general audience, while also allowing engineers and scientists geek out as one of their own becomes a hero by doing engineering and science galore. And, with the main character played in the movie version by Matt Damon, so much the better!

Weir has built his new novel, Project Hail Mary, around another highly resourceful main character, scientist Ryland Grace. Grace, however, finds himself on his own much farther from home than Mars, and comes to discover that he faces much greater stakes than his own survival.

Awakening on a spaceship, he finds he has amnesia, and so no idea who or where he is, or why. As his memories begin to return, however, he comes to realize that he is the sole survivor on a last-ditch effort to find a way to save Earth. Though help arrives for him from a most unexpected quarter, will his memories return soon enough to give him a chance to complete his work?

Grace’s amnesia plays a key role in the story, as Weir has him experience sudden flashbacks that reveal, bit by bit, his own background, and the origins and goals of his mission. The technique can feel a bit artificial, as Grace’s flashback are rather surprisingly opportune and detailed, but it has the advantage of leaving readers feeling the same uncertainties and mysteries Grace himself faces; we only learn the details of the situation as Grace himself does.

Perhaps cynically, one could argue that this approach of repeated flashbacks – through to the end of the story – also brings in a whole set of characters that will make for a more interesting film adaptation of the book. Such a conclusion is reinforced by the extent to which the story’s dialogue has the feel of being written with an eventual screenplay in mind; the one-liners and repartee often seem targeted at a theater audience. It’s not a bad thing, per se, but it does have a tendency to distract from the flow of the story, a bit like the breaks for the laugh-track during exchanges in a sit-com.

More critically, Weir’s novel strikes one significant discordant note when, late in the story, the origins of Grace’s amnesia are finally revealed. The explanation seems so out of character for the Grace we’ve come to know that it feels like a purely manufactured plot device, written in to justify constructing the story around the flashbacks that reveal to Grace his mission and its history.

But, such minor quibbles aside, Weir has again created a rip-roaring tale that is hard to put down once you start – I found myself so eager to find out what would happen next that I had to constantly force myself to slow down as I read it. And the discoveries Grace makes in his desperate mission to save Earth will surely fire the imagination of any reader remotely intrigued by what may be out there among the stars.

Bits and pieces:

My review of The Martian linked to at right.

Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf

Thursday, August 5, 2021

Book Review: "Klara and the Sun" by Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara and the Sun (2021)
Kazuo Ishiguro (1954)
303 pages

When imagining future technologies, it can be all too easy to assume that they will function perfectly as they go about improving our lives. The brilliance of Kazuo Ishiguro’s all-too-plausible depiction of our near future in Klara and the Sun, lies in its poignant reminder that, in reality, technological advancements generally have trade-offs – they can bring benefits, yes, but seldom perform as well as expected, and often come with unforeseen consequences.

Ishiguro sets the novel in the United States, some few decades from now. The story opens on a seemingly average block of a nameless city, in a store that sells typical household furnishings – but notably also a line of robots known as Artificial Friends, or AF’s, that have been developed as companions for children of the well-to-do. The title character, Klara, is one such AF; on display in the shop, she awaits being purchased by a family as their child’s special friend.

Given their intended role, the AF’s have been designed with a human form, and with faculties that focus on understanding human emotions and behaviors. Solar-powered, they are also imbued with an almost reverential connection to the sun. Klara, in fact, does not seem to have even the most basic physical understanding of what the sun is, viewing it instead as God-like, a capricious being who can be inadvertently angered, or appealed to for help.

In general, Klara’s a priori programming seems to contain very little physical understanding of the world; what she comes to know is based on her observations and interpretation of happenings within the store, and especially of people and events on the street outside its windows. Though unstated, it appears that this restricted knowledge of the AF’s is linked to their assignment of meeting the psychological needs of children, and so fulfilling their role as companion. It becomes clear, however, that this limitation also leaves them prone to the same magical, mystical thinking that humans often display when confronted with unfamiliar phenomena.

The need for some children to have such AF’s in the first place appears to be a direct consequence of the other major technological innovation of the novel: wealthy parents have the option of having their children undergo an unexplained medical treatment that significantly enhances intellectual capacity. Such children are referred to as lifted, and they receive their K-12 education at home, from virtual tutors, remaining largely isolated from other children until they go to university. For a child of this lifted cohort, their AF becomes an ersatz confidant and friend.

Through both of these marvels, Ishiguro explores the challenges of products designed to meet the insatiable consumer desire for new technology. Klara is the latest generation AF as the story opens; better than what came before, apparently, but also a model that had suffered from a design flaw in early versions, leaving an enduring stain on the entire line. Not surprisingly, when a newer, more advanced model suddenly appears in the shop, parents and children alike gravitate toward it.

And, more disturbingly, it becomes clear that the medical procedure for ‘lifting’ a child is not without risks. The potentially grave side-effects of the treatment leave parents who can afford it with a heart-rending choice between risking their child’s health and providing them the best possible future opportunities. Ishiguro’s imagined procedure makes manifest the present-day negative psychological impacts that can arise for children pressured into all-consuming resume building activities and advanced academic programs.

Along with the direct implications of these technologies on individuals, Ishiguro touches on the revolutionary aspects for society of having a class of medically enhanced elite: they inevitably rise to the top, as businesses naturally prefer such individuals for their talent, and the education system focuses on them to meet the needs of business. The free-market economy doggedly follows its merciless logic.

Ishiguro has, in fact, created a world sliding inexorably toward the kind of dystopia historian Yuval Noah Harari warns of in his 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. As I note in my review of Harari’s book (linked to at right), he foresees that the already underway “biotech” and “infotech” revolutions “could restructure not just economies and societies, but our very bodies and minds.” (7, Harari) Biotech advances will provide wonderous physical and mental enhancement, but remain affordable only to some few. And, when combined with advances in artificial intelligence that could eventually make most jobs “irrelevant,” will inevitably lead to ever more dramatic and irreversible levels of inequality, and so fundamentally undermine our project of civilization.

Such a world, of increasing economic and social pressures on families, is what Klara must navigate when she is eventually purchased to be the companion to a young girl, Josie. Though Klara is revealed to have a particularly powerful inquisitiveness about humankind, and so comes to develop an increasingly profound understanding of human behaviors and motivations, she struggles to make coherent sense of the conflicting needs, desires and compromises that motivate the actions of Josie and those around her. Can she navigate these complicated family dynamics and overcome her limited understanding of the physical world well enough to help Josie on her difficult path to adulthood?

In Ishiguro’s remarkable story Klara and the Sun, he focuses not on the wonders of the technologies he introduces; their potential benefits are easy enough to imagine. Rather, he forces readers to confront the inevitable imperfections and unforeseen consequences of such technologies – for individuals, and society at large. Within the aggressive grasping for more-and-better so deeply embedded into the structure and function of our present-day, consumer-driven, productivity-fetishizing society, can we stop long enough to ask whether the potential benefits are worth the inevitable – if often times studiously ignored – risks?

Other notes and information: