How High We Go in the Dark
Ratings269
Average rating3.7
This one started off very promising to me, and kind of fizzled out a bit further into it. I really like the structure of this book, it's a series of short stories told as vignettes from different characters, but all within the same world and timeline. (It's also a pandemic story, although a fantastical one, but that might be off-putting to some).
There are a few stories near the beginning that were incredibly engrossing. I'll try to keep it vague and it will sound silly, but one is about a euthanasia theme park and another is about a talking pig. These are complete stories, well told, and are actually quite heartwrenching.
I think I may try rereading this at some point, I listened to the audiobook and it's possible I just wasn't in the mindset to pay property attention to the latter parts of the book, but they just didn't hold my attention as much and by the end I was a bit unsatisfied. Still worth reading for the high points though.
Only just now adding this though I stopped reading a long while ago. It was driving me up a wall just how frequently the author used “x said” after a piece of dialogue.
Real excerpt:
“Beautiful, isn't it?” Maksim said. “It is,” I said.“And depressing as hell,” Dave said.“It's Siberia,” Maksim said. “We didn't realize Clara had a daughter,” Dave said. “Maybe he doesn't want to talk about this,” Maksim said.”
It happens throughout the book, this is just the most egregious example I caught and it's what ultimately made me put down the book. If it's some sort of stylistic choice that I'm just not hip to, that's fine. Still hate it.
A really nice collection of interconnected short stories. The first few or so strong and powerful I was drawn in enough to hang through several that were quite weak, and I skipped over one almost entirely. And while the interconnection is a bit transparently an effort for the author in some cases, and the callbacks to other characters are lost (unless you’ve been keeping track with pen and paper) I think making it through to the ending is worth the effort.
This book is a thought experiment on grief, dying, and cultural death practices masquerading as a sci fi novel. (It is also a sci fi novel.) It takes a super interesting guess at what life and society would be like in a world where so many people are dying every day that it reshapes how everyone deals with death and grief at a huge scale. It was thought provoking and sad and also kind of weird but I loved it.
This book is incredibly morbid and should come with a trigger warning. Some of the stories were interesting, but the author lost me as soon as we started wandering around in orbs of light and floating into the ether. Perhaps I am partial to stories that are a bit more grounded in reality, but the narrative doesn't really go anywhere or explore any interesting topics. Why this book keeps getting recommended is beyond me, and makes me doubt the credibility of these best seller lists.
Notes:
- feels like the author read a bunch of like “disturbing but cool” internet posts (death roller coasters, body farms) and/or watched too much black mirror, and then basically wrote fanfiction about it (plus covid).
- Ok we get it, if lots of people were dying, the funeral business might hypothetically become hyper commercial and trashy. Every story in this book is just repeating this same cynical concept with different examples.
- Occasionally there is some cool imagery but I'm not sure where everyone is getting the opinion that this is like heartbreaking good writing. Honestly every time there is a really cool concept or idea, the author then moves quickly away from it to some cynical and repetitive satire of how modern society handles death. I.e. some beautiful body horror descriptions of people's skin becoming transparent or glowing stars in their veins - briefly mentioned but not described in any detail.
- I feel like I am being mean about this book, there were some very compelling stories. The first four were actually all quite good. Although even by the end of those four I felt like some of the ideas were starting to be boring. Then the next ten just kinda blend together into a slurry of recycled concepts.
- The most interesting concept in this book (besides the pig) is the mystery of ancient body discovered in the first story with seashells from thousands of kms away. But then the story veers so sharply away from this until the final chapter. And then when this mystery finally is solved it's...pretty dissatisfying.
- All these ~surprise!~ connected characters (like you realize partway through one story that a side character in it is a main character from a previous story, or their child or whatever) seems like an attempt to make things more meaningful (or to be like, Cloud Atlas or something) but that only works if we actually feel deeply connected to any of the characters which I did not.
Basically just
4.25/5
WOWOWOW i would've totally given this 5 stars if it weren't for some of the weird stories towards the middle that kinda put me in a slump (like the robo dog one????) but wow did i love this plot and concept! this will definitely be one i recommend to everyone. so incredible!
3.75 ⭐️
First the pros: this is a book of artfully woven anthologies. Nagamatsu created a world that is endlessly imaginative. The lives of people separated by tragedy are still hopeful, and the connections they find are heartwarming and tender. I wished some of the vignettes were books of their own, and I only found a few to be bland.
The cons: this one was on me for not reading the blurb thoroughly, but I don't think I needed to read a pandemic book. A 2022 “what if” exploration into the death of millions of humans by plague felt gratuitous. Maybe I'm not finished grieving the past few years though?
The plague is also a metaphor and not just a plot device. I do like this about the book. It is mostly explored in the final chapter, but I'm not sure it works. The plague is the mutation of the genes of Earth's creator. It comes about when she imbeds herself into creation (i.e., having a child with a Neanderthal). As the creator, she represents the innate nature of humankind to dream and create. But, manifested in her dead daughter, this potential also wreaks havoc (it must be noted that the virus lays dormant in the Siberian tundra and only becomes an issue through global warming). To be honest, I'm not sure what the author is getting at with this one. Humans have the possibility to create and destroy? Yeah, I guess. That point just feels a little flat.
Some of the stories I found more interesting than others. One of my favorites was from the perspective of Cliff's wife, who goes on a 6000 year space exploration to find a new world to colonize. To go from that back to 2039 on earth felt disappointing. Again, maybe I was just wishing I was reading a different book?
Overall, my personal disappointment isn't enough to say that this is a bad book. It isn't. It's exceptionally beautiful, but it wasn't what I wanted it to be.
This book is fascinating. It's a take on what the world might look like in the future, upon the release of a bizarre plague from beneath melting glacier ice. There are scientific advances, institutionalized processes for helping people die, entire industries revolving around funerals and memorials. It's jarring and at the same time not to imagine a world with a high powered funerary lobby making plays at government funding.
Nagamatsu weaves multiple storylines together in such a heartfelt and moving way. The subtle connections between characters, the through-line of love and family and remembrance, it's gorgeous - if anything, I would consider this novel a paean to human resilience. To love and what keeps people together in difficult times. It's not necessarily a crying emotional narrative, to me the whole book is just voices from an imagined future in which death and dying, regardless of how, have lost any taboo or stigma, allowing people to make their endings with thought and care and support.
I'll definitely be thinking about this one for a long time. Four stars instead of five, though, but I won't explain why to anyone who hasn't read it.
I wish I read this last year when it released and participated in discussions around the book. It was so interesting! A novel told in the form of short stories, giving a glimpse into a dystopian future impacted by climate change. Marvelous storytelling.
This book promise more than it could handle
The one chapter about the rollercoaster was fantastic. The idea of having to decide to euthanize your own child so it doesn't suffer is haunting. Really well done.
The rest of the chapters though, are very lacking, some feel incomplete, the general story never progresses. Really forgetful.
I heard such great things about this book, although I do not remember now where I heard that. I had high hopes and was sadly disappointed.
I had just read The Wrack which was a similar concept of interconnected stories, all with different characters about the same event or happening. That story was also about a pandemic and at first, they were very similar. However, where those stories had lots of emotion and depth I felt these were very superficial. Especially in the beginning, all the stories were very sad but they didn't actually make me feel anything. They were just tragic in the most basic ways.
Some of the stories also felt very out of context and not at all relevant to the whole story. Like the talking pig. It was trying to be too much and the quality between stories varied wildly. A Gallery a Century, a Cry a Millennium, for instance, was great although again with too little depth in my opinion. The timelines were also very different as well. And the last chapter felt like a tack-on to connect all the stories because they weren't connected enough by themselves.
This jumbled collection of disconnected stories is too ambitious for its own good and didn't do the hype justice.
Not that I'm THAT well read, but this may be the most beautiful book i have ever read. I miss being moved like this. I've spent days thinking about this book. Completely moved.
Door middel van een verzameling onderling verbonden korte verhalen leren we over de uitbraak van een verwoestend virus dat menselijk leven op aarde bedreigt. We volgen de mensheid in hoe ze zich aanpassen aan deze nieuwe realiteit, waar we de opkomst van opportunistische bedrijven zien en koortsachtig wetenschappelijk onderzoek volgen.
De gepresenteerde ideeën waren erg interessant en onderzoeken de menselijke aard en hoe verschillende mensen op verschillende manieren met dit trauma omgaan. Ik vond het leuk om de verbanden tussen de verhalen te ontdekken en te zien hoe de wereld evolueerde in de jaren na de infectie.
Ik vond het echter niet echt leuk om te lezen, vond het vooral een beetje saai en langdradig.
Sommige verhalen hadden meer impact dan andere, maar bij de meeste bleef ik me gewoon afvragen welk nieuw inzicht ik eruit moest halen. Eén verhaal heeft me doen wenen, het meest emotionele over het pretpark, maar over het algemeen moest ik mezelf echt dwingen om door verhaal na verhaal te ploeteren.
Ik hoopte dat het tegen het einde zou culmineren in een soort openbaring. De finale onthulling was echt wel cool (deed me echt veel denken aan de conceptalbums van Ayreon) en wierp inderdaad een soort van nieuw licht op sommige verhalen, maar was helaas voor mij niet voldoende om te vergeten dat ik me toch doorheen dit boek heb moeten sleuren om tot die revelatie te komen.
Started out promising. But towards the end the stories gotten a little underwhelming to me. One I straight up disliked a lot.
I loved the writing but the story reads like a series of short stories and they didn't all grab me.
Devastated because my entire review just deleted itself.
In summary. Solid book for the most part. Beautiful writing. Terrible ending, still beyond pissed about it and I finished it a day ago.
The book sets up a world that feels very real and immerses you very quickly, however the ending felt lackluster and a bit of a cop out.
More like 3.5 rounded to 4.
It was a very difficult book to read.
At first - because of all the sadness and being so close to an actual pandemic, the book couldn't but make me think what if this really happened. It was just too close to home.
Then - because the characters and their crossovers between chapters started to accumulate and it was a bit difficult to fully grasp their connections.
Overall the book feels a bit underwhelming. The first chapters felt like a terrifying crescendo and I expected something cathartic should happen by the end of the book. The reading got easier after the chapter with the space ship because it became like a normal sci-fi book with little or no connection to the real world and the stories after that were just not that impactful for me (though still very sad). One of the chapters went absolutely over my head, I couldn't see its connection to the rest of the story beyond the fact that it's one more heartbreaking snapshot of someone's life in the wake of the pandemic.
The last chapter was the greatest surprise and the greatest disappointment. It did not make me feel proud for humanity conquering the virus and standing strong together in the face of unthinkable challenge. And it still left lots of questions unanswered.