Picking up The Leftovers because it seemed vaguely tied into my interest this year - post apocalyptica - I discovered a work of unprecedented wonder. It's a show that's depressing because it is about depression. The Departure event where two percent of the population vanished one October 14th didn't just deprive the survivors of loved ones. The show details a very special sort of doomsday: the collapse for all meaning. What seems normal on the surface is already crumbling away beneath.
Having recently finished the last book in Liu Cixin's instant classic "The Remembrance of Earth's Past" series, Death's End, I can only report a feeling of total amazement and awe. There is so much about this novel that blew my mind, that offered different and better ways of viewing the universe. This novel did what I wish more novels would, serve up a new universe entire, evoking beauty and horror, nobility and disgust, in a timeless monument to unfettered speculation. Obviously, in discussing the events of the last of a trilogy books, spoilers are to be expected. I am, however, going to try to avoid discussing much beyond the first 100 pages of the third novel. I read the translation of this novel, as ushered into being by the amazing talent of Ken Liu. Ken has written of a certain prickliness when it comes to translating work. He makes an effort not to anglicize the source material, not smudging away the occasional difficulties in bringing Cixin...
Comments