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rmalfi's picture

A dark story about light

I have to say, off the bat, that I kind of love this book.  I can't put it down!  When I'm reading it, it actually gives me the same sensation that gothic novels, like Wuthering Heights do... I think it has something to do with the at times intense imagery (about people's appearance, the landscape, and idiosyncracies that people possess) as well as the multi-dimensionality of the characters... None of them are perfect, even the (sometimes) narrator, Justin Childs... sometimes the characters can be downright hateful, and I like that a lot about this book.... It really is just like a gothic novel in that way...

 Like some others have said, the physics imagery, analogies and metaphors trip me up a little bit sometimes.  I think the authors does a good job explaining concepts sometimes, but not at others... I usually have to read those sections or lines a little more carefully, but I don't mind, and I don't think it takes away from the story.

 What I really like about the book is the achronological way it is told (if that's a word).  Justin mentions earlier on in the book that, according to Einstein, there is no time, and I like that the story is told out of order, and from different points of view... The format of the book is a commentary in and of itself.  We disussed in class after reading Traweek's anthropological study on high-energy physics how physicists are obsessed with the notion of time.  I think this book captures that idea very well - when the book reflects on Justin's life, whether from his perspective or the "perspective from nowhere," we see moments, glimpses from his life... it's truly as if one were nostalgically recollecting times past... your mind just wanders and brings you to these different memories that are stored in your brain somewhere. 

I like and am simultaneously confused by the notion that one can feel physics but still believe that there is some objective truth.  Justin uses the contained system of mathematics as a foundation for his beliefs, but the Mallachs feel physics inside and have faith in this equation that Samuel produced... I have a little farther to read yet, so I'm interested to see how this pans out... I may know by the end of tonight!

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