Characters: C-
Writing: B
Plot: C
Pacing: B
Poignancy: B-
Every now and then a book comes along that seemingly every Big Name in the literary world decided — possibly through a show of hands after poetry readings at KGB Bar — to just jump on and overhype. It's a great thing for an up-and-coming author, and I guess I can understand the appeal for an industry type, hoping to toss in their hat before everyone else does, so later they can be all "Hey I called it!" So every year, a few books come out that seem to receive all the buzz. (Side note: this happens in music too, obviously.) Late last year, How to Live Safely In a Science Fictional Universe was one of those books. I first heard its praises sung at my local bookstore. Then, seemingly everywhere. It has a glowing review featured prominently on its Amazon page from an author whose novel I quite enjoyed. Lots of people thought this book was a poignant masterpiece from a new literary hotshot. But still, the literary world was restless. "What did Derek Dellinger think of it?" they asked. A free copy of the book was quickly ushered along to me, all for me to read and ponder and review, before it's due back at the library. Well, ever the contrarian, I'm not quite so impressed as everyone else. There are some interesting ideas here. It's reasonably well written. It's a bit of a third-rate Vonnegut knock-off, which I'm surprised no one else mentioned. "It was okay." - Derek Dellinger.
How to Live Safely In a Science Fictional Universe is about Charles Yu (hey! that's the name of the author AND the main character!), who repairs time machines for a living. The novel means this in a quote unquote kind of way, because mostly Charles just floats along in between dimensions hiding in his time machine with his dog and his sexy interactive software personality, TAMMY. There is very little repairing. Or interacting. Mostly, Charles reminisces about his dad and his own life and how he sucks. Then a thing happens and he thinks he's trapped in a time loop, doomed to repeat the same events over and over, and the only way to fix things is to reminisce about his dad and his own life and how he sucks. (Could it be possible that time travel and recursive loops are metaphors? I'll give you a hint, it's TOTALLY possible!) And that's pretty much it. I won't spoil anything. Not that there's much to spoil.
How to Live Safely In a Science Fictional Universe is a slim book, in every way. My main problem was that there just isn't enough to it. Charles Yu is essentially the only character in the entire book, and as a narrator, he's never particularly interesting. He's not funny or clever enough, he doesn't inspire much tension or drama; he barely manages to push the plot forward. The only "person" Charles actually interacts with in the course of the narrative is his on-ship software, TAMMY, who isn't any more interesting than Charles is. (She's an operating system that's become depressed and doesn't think she's any good, like the beginning of an idea Douglas Adams might have had and then forgot to run with.) There's a dog with hardly any role in the story, and then Charles' absent father, who he spends the majority of the novel thinking and moping over, essentially just an emotional MacGuffin.
I mean, okay. It's a story about time travel. I'm not complaining that essentially everything that happens, happens in the "past." But even then, nothing much happens. I suppose a large part of my problem is that I'm entirely fed up with Daddy Issues in entertainment. I have never and will never find Daddy Issues remotely interesting. Sorry. I don't care that your dad didn't love you enough. Being a teenager sucks, I know. Family dynamics are hard and most people felt mistreated by their parents and whatever, yeah, okay. I just really was hoping we could move this whole Daddy Issue business now, in our post-Lost world. But I guess the entertainment industry is never going to give it up.
Too bad this book didn't have any more on its mind, because Yu seems like he has the potential to be a clever writer. There are some good ideas here, some decent writing, even if everything is overly-satured in an air of Literary Poignancy. There are some attempts at humor, and some of them land. But mostly they blend into the whole post-modern air of Too Clever For Its Own Good. In a way, this really does remind me of a third-rate Vonnegut book. Obviously, I love Vonnegut, but the man wrote a ton of books in his career, and sometimes his ideas just got regurgitated, spread too thin. That's what it feels like here — moments of cleverness and insight, but drowned out by the overwhelming assumption throughout that it's all a grand statement on the nature of life and regret and memory and humanity. Really, there are only a short-story's worth of memorable ideas here. I read this book very casually, never more than a few pages at a time, and I found that pace to be indicative of my opinion of it. I never disliked it, I was never bored, but otherwise, it seemed a whole lot more interesting before I actually started reading it.
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