last week I took a much needed, much loved ski vacation with the family. the weather was perfect for skiing, (no clouds!) if not a little cold. happily tired at the end of every day, did a little reading, was asleep before 10:00 p.m. i was still able to finish two books and this I feel good about. the first was here comes the sun by nicole denis-benn, a beautiful but heavy novel, so for my next read I wanted something fast and easy. looking through the VRBO I found seven books to choose from. I picked dark matter by blake crouch.
dark matter was a fast and mostly easy read, a sci-fi story hinging on multiple universe theory. It follows a physicists turned college professor (jason dessen), married to the love of his life with a teenage son. an alternate jason (jason2), one that never made a family, instead achieving incredible advances in his field, abducts the first and sends him to his (jason2's) universe. the book then follows the protagonist's journey back to his family, his world. jason holds onto his wife and his kid to do so, traversing many alternate universes more tragic than or just not his.
the whole multiple universe thing is just mind boggling. the idea is that any choice we make creates a new universe in which a different choice was made. this creates exponential universes of people you could have been. people that are you in incredibly diverse ways. honestly, contemplating this idea is the biggest take away from this book for me. it makes me feel utterly small, and unsure of the meaning of my life, but not in a bad way, I promise. more in a how do I take this idea or this feeling and apply it to how I live my life.
as you can imagine, if every decision we makes creates an alternate, every choice jason makes trying to get back to his family creates a new jason with the same goal as the one originally thrust into the predicament. dark matter ends with upwards of 100 displaced jasons trying to resume life with his wife and son. the confusion of who is the real jason, of who to root for, is unsettling and unsatisfying, a trait I'm beginning to realize I like in a book. bringing it full circle, its just about making a choice and moving forward with it.
read this book if you like: fast paced sci-fi, loves of your life, feeling unsettled and unsure of the ground beneath your feet, books that you'd think would be memorable, but for some reason are not.
Comments