Anabel

I had never given a book less than three starts but this is a book so sickening it made me want to leave a warning for those considering reading it. There's not a single spark of joy in it, the protagonist is a miserable, unappreciative, and blind to anything beautiful in life man. I find people of this self-pitying kind weak and seriously annoying. There's so much more to life than a constant grieving about the made up in the head problems. I don't recommend it to anyone and especially those struggling through the dark periods of their life. The strength is within you, it's all about the perspective you choose to take on things. Don't be like the author sinking in the apathetic gloom.

I'm so blown away by this. So many profound themes packed in a 10 something page story from 1956 - central AI system, a pocket sized AI companion, even an indication of the AI that can be evoked by voice commands! And then, the themes of immortality, a single origin of all things, the cyclical nature of the world, and all the meaningless speculations about the future for which there's simply never sufficient data to give a bulletproof answer.

A brilliant capture of the humankind's relentless wonder. We're perfectly aware that many minds before us have pondered the same question and never got the answer. Yet we keep wondering, keep on seeking the truth, and somehow have the audacity to assume we'll be the one who will unravel it. And so will think the one who comes yet after us.

It's sad but kind of liberating too, isn't it?

The observer must seize to exist for the truth to reveal itself at the point of which it won't matter for that's nothing left to consume the truth and act upon it, and at that point it all shall be reset and restarted.

I think the book keeps us filled with hope of finding answers even though both the narration and events repeatedly imply there inherently aren't any.

Just like the main character, who is constantly revived by her eagerness to make a discovery, so are we. Her and us become oneness.

The book is unlike anything I've read before. Rarely do I not lose interest in a book halfway through it, but with this one, I couldn't stop until I reached the end. Like her, we desire to get to the bottom of this enigmatic world but arrive at nothing. I think people who are pissed about the book offering no answers and leading nowhere completely miss the point: life is in walking and not in arriving, for no matter how much you carry, the only thing awaiting at the end of the journey is the departure into the nothingness or the “somethingness” we will always know nothing about.

And that's the beauty of the book - contemplative yet obvious, deeply emotional yet deprived of any emotion, hopeful and hopeless at the same time.