Equilateral: A Novel

by Ken Kalfus

It’s the late nineteenth century, and British astronomer Sanford Thayer has won international funding for his scheme to excavate an equilateral triangle, three hundred miles to a side, from the remote wastes of Egypt’s Western Desert. Nine hundred thousand Arab fellahin have been put to work on the project, even though they can’t understand Thayer’s obsessive purpose. They don't believe him when he says his perfect triangle will be visible to the highly evolved beings who inhabit the planet Mars, signaling the existence of civilization on Earth. Political and religious dissent rumbles through the camps. There's also a triangle of another sort—a romantic one, involving Thayer’s secretary, who’s committed to the man and his vision, and the mysterious servant girl he covets without sharing a common language. In the wind-blasted, lonely, fever-dream outpost known only as Point A, we plumb the depths of self-delusion and folly that comprise Thayer’s characteristically human enterprise.

Illustrated throughout with black-and-white astronomical diagrams, Equilateral is an elegant intellectual comedy that’s extravagant in its conception and intimately focused on the implications of empire, colonization, and what we expect from contact with “the other.”

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Historical, Humor

224 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2013

About the author

He was born in the Bronx, NY and grew up in Plainview, Long Island.

Kalfus started college at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, but dropped out after the first year. He attended various other universities including the New School for Social Research in Manhattan and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Kalfus started writing at an early age.

Reviews

[Lee Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine Fitzcarraldo in the Sahara: instead of Klaus Kinski trying to pull a steamboat over a hill, hellbent on establishing a world-class opera house in the Peruvian jungle, in this ingenious short novel, renowned astronomer Sanford Thayer plans to communicate with the apparently canal-happy inhabitants of Mars. Earthlings were all about canals at the time (1894) — the Suez Canal opened in 1869 and work on the Panama Canal began in 1881 — so Martian irrigation on a planet as arid as any desert on Earth suggests a technologically and most likely morally advanced race. It makes sense, therefore, to think that an alliance with our next-planet neighbors might help humanity.

Thinking along these lines, Thayer, his engineer Ballard, and their assistant Miss Keaton oversee the superimposition across the desert of an enormous equilateral triangle (each of its sides will be 306.928 miles long, “precisely 1/73rd of the Earth’s circumference” and five miles wide), which will be covered in oil and set aflame on the precise day the elegant burning symbol of terrestrial intelligence will be best viewed across 40 million miles. All it’ll take for our great white trio of intrepid potential communicators to initiate interplanetary talks is an engineering feat never before seen on Earth, bankrolled by royalty, with all the hot, heavy labor falling on the uncomprehending shoulders of approximately 900,000 racial inferiors (requiring 787,500 gallons of water a day). The drawback of temporary human suffering among a non-white underclass can’t outweigh the benefit of establishing far-flung yet possibly influential friends among superior aliens (no matter their “long flexible appendages”).

Idealism über alles drives both “Fitzcarraldo” and Equilateral, compelling viewers/readers to root for these refined/freaked protagonists. In Kalfus’s novel, initiation of interplanetary communication via the elaborately arduous Equilateral method is such a beautiful idea, based on scientific observation and rational speculation, that I wished it were non-fiction. At best, historical novels achieve a documentarian effect. Readers suspend disbelief, perform a few google searches, and hope citations yield descriptions of a similar project long-buried by time. It’s fiction, alas, of course, but it suggests so many currently relevant non-fictional issues — about the environment, international politics, gender equality, race, technology/know-how, and the cost of progress when so many are suffering — that it seems more real than not.

“The construction of the water transport system on which life on the Red Planet depends would have required fierce determination. It would not have been put off by bourgeois mortality. Rebellions would have been subdued, perhaps with force. Vast wars would have roiled the globe’s surface. They would have included the mechanized butchery that has accompanied our own military strife, augmented by more advanced and more gruesome weaponry. So Mars will not judge us harshly. The planet’s history will show that conflict was ended only through the application of the universal laws of evolution and natural selection, when the superior and inferior specimens of the Martian race diverged into separate species, as is inevitable on Earth. A race of savants and a race of slaves, with breakable necks or not.”

The SETI page on Wikipedia reveals that scientists have been trying to contact extraterrestrial intelligence ever since Tesla tried in 1896. These days, an estimated $20 million are spent on SETI-related endeavors worldwide. Just a few days ago NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover announced evidence of sediment on Mars indicating the former presence of rivers and streams. So far, the project that made this discovery has cost approximately $2.5 billion -- nearly as much as the GNP of a dozen African nations. Noncommittal dramatization of the long-suffering conflict between the higher callings of science and the necessity of altruism is one of this novel’s strengths, since the author, generally, seems absent as subject or judge. He’s paring his fingernails somewhere beyond the text, allowing his characters to live without authorial possession or interference.

Characters live in part because Equilateral relies on Freytag’s pyramid, with rising drama/narrative drive created by the ever-nearing June 17 deadline for the project’s completion. We look forward to savoring ecstatic descriptions the moment the enormous triangle across the surface of the desert is set aflame. As the day approaches, obstacles are encountered as expected in a novel, and for the most part they’re inspired: discovery of an estimated 400-foot pyramid buried beneath the sand along the route of one of the Equilateral’s sides, a riveting assassination attempt while drifting above the desert in a hot-air balloon, and an uprising worthy of an epic staring Charlton Heston. Although this is more of a novel of ideas, interspersed with equal parts light character-based love story and diagram-addled, scientific-sounding talk, the novel’s more active scenes occur on such a dramatic scale that they seem to demand cinematic representation.

But even if eventually adapted by Herzog himself, it’d be a shame that viewers wouldn’t be able to appreciate carefully composed sentences demonstrating ingenuity and restraint throughout. A scan of any given page reveals precise vocabulary and phrasing evocative of the era: “A productive race’s industry and respect for legitimate authority can be engendered no less than its good dentition.” Luckily, Kalfus never strays from this tone to wink at the 21st century reader. Despite this steadiness, there is a shifty quality at times thanks to a point of view that slips into the heads of more than a few characters. When closest to Thayer the tone seems like the most natural fit, since its semi-convoluted yet pleasurably flowing pomposities seem to match his psyche.

Some readers may find it disorientating that this faux-historical record can access the thoughts of the three major characters, as well as minor players who appear for only a page or two, especially in a 207-page novel aerated with section/chapter breaks aplenty and geometric/astronomical diagrams. Associated generously, such shifting corresponds to the desert’s sands, the triangulated relationships among the primary players (including Bint, the “dusky” love interest/Arab servant girl), and the ambiguous patterns observed across the surface of Mars.

Although set in the desert a quick 510-mile caravan ride from Alexandria, the novel’s world often felt like it could have emerged from the head of Donald Barthelme, that is, if his sometimes semi-cloying metafictional whimsies were exchanged for Kalfus’s clever suggestion of sociopolitical, existential, and planetary significance.

Further, the novel’s world announces a contemporary American author’s successful colonization of Mars. From now on whenever the Red Planet crosses my radar, Equilateral will also come to mind. I’ll think about what lies beyond vast clear skies; grand ambitions carefully planned; imperfect if not entirely thwarted glories; unspoken and unreturned longing; and everything else related to the urge to connect with others, extraterrestrial or not.

Equilateral is ultimately a glowing display of terrestrial intelligence, the sort of thing Kafka may have had in mind when he wrote that a book must be an ax to cleave the frozen sea within us. In this case, the overriding and gorgeously open symbol of an equilateral triangle (“the basis for all human art and construction”) etched across the desert is the ax Kalfus wields on ambition, longing, exploitation, astronomical wonder, and distances between those closest at hand sometimes so difficult to bridge with moving, meaningful words.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Equilateral is a special work of vivid imagination.

Written as a documentary rooted in history, it chronicles an event that never happened but so easily could have. The time is the 1890s, when exploration and conquest excite the public conscience.

Factual history: In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli discovers through his telescope a network of lines crossing the planet Mars. These are closely studied by scientists of the day who speculate they are canals constructed to move water across the planet’s surface—a sign of intelligent life. Over the next twenty years, newspapers are filed with stories of life on the red planet.

The Equilateral: Astronomer Sanford Thayer, the fictional central figure of the book, concludes that Mars must be highly evolved technically:

As the construction of its planet-girdling canals demonstrate, Mars has progressed far beyond mankind in science and technology. If men have operated steam engines for two hundred years, the engineers of Mars have operated them for two thousand, continuously making refinements. They may have raised towers that reach the edges of the planet’s attenuated atmosphere; they may have perfected airships and other vehicles, railed or not, that cross the ruddy globe in hours.

And (applying Darwin) ethically:

Mars (must be) home to a race in which the forces of nature selection have enjoyed a further millennia to secure positive social traits. To judge from the planetary cooperation that must have been required to build the canal network, selflessness is imbued deeply within the Martian character. We may imagine then that Martian ethics, the product of many centuries’ further wisdom, reflection, and natural selection, far exceeded out own…

He sells this vision to world, convincing the public, businesses and governments to fund a means of contact. Lacking technology to leave the planet, he suggests a symbol that observers from Mars will readily interpret as a sign of intelligent life on Earth: a massive equilateral triangle, hundred of miles long on each side, to be dug from the Western Desert of Egypt and set alight with oil on THE DAY that the position of Earth relative to the Sun and Mars also forms an equilateral triangle.

The cover blurbs capture my reaction to the book perfectly. From Daily Beast: Equilateral is “a powerful, mesmerizing story about ambition— and its limitations." From Gary Shteyngart: “Left me thinking and wondering well past my bedtime.” At its core, it asks the reader, in the context of a vividly imagined event, to contemplate how vision, delusion, ambition and folly shape mankind’s (noblest) endeavors.

Exquisite. I will certainly read it again. Highly recommended.

Coda

When was the last time you looked to the stars and pondered what’s out there? Or looked to our oceans and asked what’s below. Or at minimum looked beyond the familiar and asked what haven’t I discovered? It feels like we as a society have lost interest in exploration. We think we know the earth because we have mapped it via satellite. Our children learn about space from Star Wars. The ocean holds no interest beyond Sponge Bob.

Growing up in the 1970s and 80s (showing my age) I remember newspapers and television news full of stories of space flights and astronauts. We were explorers.

In 1961, US President John F Kennedy proposed landing a man to the moon. Eight years later in 1969, Neal Armstrong touched the surface. Mankind last walked the moon in 1972, an incredible 46 years ago. Man has not been within 240,000 miles (the distance from the ISS to the Moon) since.

Mars? NASA’s Mars mission successfully orbited the planet in 1971. It took another 25 years to land (Mars Pathfinder in 1996); a further twenty years for the marvelous Curiosity rovers to begin to exploring.

And the distant planets? Pioneers 10 and 11 were launched in 1972 and 73. Voyager’s 1 and 2 launched in 1977. There has been (roughly) only one exo-planet launch every decade since.

Scientists are still studying the heavens, and making wondrous discoveries—about our solar system as well as distant stars and exoplanets. But from here not there. I want us to again go there. I want the theatrics of launch, the sights and sounds of there, explorers in special suits communicating their tactile experiences of other worlds. I miss the vision, ambition, and heros of my youth.

Exploration and discovery are I believe crucial to growth. Only when we look beyond the familiar are we challenged to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. When we stop questioning, we stagnate, or worse begin letting others dictate truth. We risk becoming what Thayer feared: “barbarous, atavistic and idle.”

To end with a bit of levity:

Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the streetwise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
...I need a hero

Holding out for a Hero, Dean Pitchford and Jim Steinman; sung by Bonnie Tyler, introduced in the incomparable ;) movie Footloose, 1984.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greater than the sum of its parts…
“…red like a pomegranate seed, red like a blood spot on an egg, red like a ladybug, red like a ruby or more specifically a red beryl, red like coral, red like an unripe cherry, red like a Hindu lady’s bindi, red like the eye of a nocturnal predator, red like a fire on a distant shore, the subject of his every dream and his every scientific pursuit.
“Mars,” he says.”

It’s 1894, Mars is about to come into its closest alignment to Earth and Professor Sanford Thayer intends to attract the attention of the Martians. With the support of 900,000 fellahin and financing from the entire Western world, he is excavating a massive equilateral triangle in the desert sands of Egypt and on June 17th, he will turn it into a burning signpost…

This shortish novel took me completely by surprise with its scope and deceptive simplicity, and left me breathless. Not a word is wasted or misplaced as Kalfus plays with early science fiction, empire and colonialism, and the arrogance of science. Sly and subtle humour runs through the book as Kalfus’ present tense narration makes us complicit in the attitudes of the time: the unquestioned superiority of the white man, particularly the Brits, and hence the moral and intellectual inferiority, degeneracy even, of other races; the ascendancy of scientific thought and the belief that scientific advancement equates to moral superiority; the status of women, both ‘white’ and ‘native’. There is another triangle at play here too as Thayer’s emotional entanglements with his secretary and serving maid are played out.

There���s all of that in this book, but most of all there’s a rollicking good sci-fi story in the best tradition of Wells or Wyndham. The scientists have the unshakeable belief that the Martians’ advanced scientific skills (as evidenced by their canal-building) prove that they will be more highly evolved in every way than us and will therefore be a peaceful and civilised race. But we, dear readers, have read the books, seen the films, watched as science gets it wrong sometimes…as the climax approaches, the tension rockets…

Superbly written, the prose is pared back to the bone with every word precisely placed to create an atmospheric, sometimes poetic, and entirely absorbing narrative. Even the geometry becomes magical in this author’s gifted hands as the red planet reprises its eternal sci-fi role as a place of mystery and wonder. An unexpected delight.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Marc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ken Kalfus is an original thinker. The concept for this book is absolutely brilliant. It’s execution is masterful.

David Foster Wallace wrote about an earlier book by Kalfus...“A book to give to people who piss and moan about the uncompromising future of American literature.”

He could have said the same for Equilateral.

It does not get any better.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

This guy took an interesting concept and made it into the biggest sleeping pill ever. He is probably one of the most pedantic authors I have every come across. How about telling a story instead of trying to fit in as many pretty words in a paragraph as possible? Having an impressive vocabulary can be a wonderful thing, but if it gets in the way of telling the story, it then becomes a hindrance.

This author is very clever and he likes to show us just how clever he is. He is so CLEVER in fact that a lot of his writing is convoluted and doesn't make any sense. For example:

"The hyenas that prowl the middens fall into speechless meditation."

Seriously, I have no idea what that means.

I would definitely not recommend this book. It's pretty impressive to make a battle scene, an assassination attempt, and a hanging into a complete snorefest.

[Anmiryam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cerebral and audacious. A book to think about, chew on and contemplate. Like its characters, it is a book of ideas that denies easy access to its emotional content.

It reminded me of some of Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo. With a side helping of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange and interesting little novel, Equilateral presents itself as a historical narrative about the construction of an immense equilateral triangle in the sands of North Africa in the late nineteenth century for the purpose of demonstrating to the (undoubtedly more advanced) inhabitants of Mars that intelligent life exists on Earth. The unfortunate mistranslation of Giovanni Schiaparelli's Italian canali ("channels"), which he had used to describe some features he thought he saw on the Martian surface during the Great Opposition of 1877, into English by the word "canals" led to rampant speculation that there might be an advanced civilization on the Red Planet. Although by 1916, scientists had reached a consensus that there were no artificial canals on the Martian surface, it was another Italian astronomer, Vincenzo Cerulli, who later proposed that Schiparelli's canali were, in fact, optical illusions. Space probes sent to Mars in the 1960s proved Cerulli's hypothesis correct. The novel is about how we delude ourselves with great regularity about what we think we see and think we know and how we are blind to those things that really matter. As I read, I wondered if perhaps Kalfus had been influenced by reading The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips. Both novels use delusion as a trope and take place in the Egyptian desert. Equilateral is far more ambitious and far more successful as a novel than The Egyptologist, but the similarities are intriguing. The fiery conclusion may owe something to Barry Unsworth's unfortunate attempt at something similar in his historical novel Land of Marvels. Kalfus is masterful in his critique of colonialism and capitalism, but he is at his best in advancing the significance of the Rare Earth hypothesis as an answer to the Fermi paradox and in suggesting that we should take seriously Voltaire's suggestion that we cultivate our gardens -- right here on Planet Earth.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

To communicate with the more advanced civilization he is convinced exists on Mars, astronomer Sanford Thayer puts together the money, and manpower, to build a giant symbol in the Egyptian desert. Tens of thousands of men labor in the sun to build a perfect triangle 300 miles on a side. Each side is 5 miles wide, and will be lined with pitch and set ablaze at a precisely determined moment. (If Teddy Roosevelt had been an astronomer, he would have been a bit like Thayer.)

Will the triangle be completed in time, despite the small-mindedness, laziness and stupidity of most of humanity? Will the Martians understand its meaning, and how will they respond?

This is a sort of intellectual comedy about obsession and self-delusion, very deftly handled and a lot of fun. (Although much lighter in tone, it reminded me of William Golding's scorching The Spire.) It takes a lot of themes - "scientific" hubris, colonialism, intellectual passion, erotic passion - and quite deliberately blends them all without following any to a firm conclusion. But the flip side of this is that the two deeply intriguing women characters, the girl Bint and Thayer's secretary, Miss Keaton, are never more than a rumor in the background. I was aching for Keaton to come into her own at the end, or confront Bint, or for us to understand who Bint really is. This triangle in the desert should have been more completely built.

But I'll be digging out Kalfus's other books for sure. And what a fabulous cover!

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rich and darkly funny short novel, Ken Kalfus' Equilateral considers what would happen if a real scientific proposal of the late Victorian era had actually been attempted: digging a gigantic equilateral triangle in the Sahara desert, 300 miles to a side with trenches five miles across, then filling the whole thing with petroleum and setting it on fire to signal the people of Mars. Following the (fictionalized) originator of the idea as the huge project nears completion, the novel explores the ways in which the seeming solid certainties of science can be anchored in deceptively slippery ground. How much does even the clearest-headed scientist assume about the nature of the universe, and how can those assumptions be undermined?
Though the novel is written with faux-Victorian fulsomeness, I was frequently reminded of a remark made in Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, that humanity's quest for extraterrestrial life is futile because we don't even understand life on earth.

[Karen A. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The concept and premise of this book had me intrigued. However the intellectual weight of the whole enterprise bogged down the actual plot and character development. Still the idea that a British ‘scientist’ of the late 19th century would conjecture that it would be possible to communicate with aliens on Mars by using the planet’s trajectory and employing hundreds of locals in the Egyptian desert to dig a humongous equilateral triangle to be ignited in order to be seen from space on the night where Earth is closest to Mars – is good enough for something – maybe a indie movie or a BBC television series. Unfortunately the author was not up for the necessary dance between weighty concept and enticing writing.

Would still recommend to readers looking for something different, fans of sci-fi, alternate histories, and even steam punk.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm having trouble thinking of a more intricate or deliberate of a books as this one. Each word choice, and event of the chapters reflecting the obsessive intricacy of Thayer's plans.

Everything adds to the feeling of having an intense fever dream in 120 degree weather, the emotions, the collapse of the protagonists relationship, and the political situation in North Africa, all add to a feeling of oppression for both the reader and the Africans forced to die to complete the Equilateral.

I loved the hard right turn at the end, the dates lining up with the release of War of the Worlds was a little to perfect of a way to end things.

[Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I met the author by chance yesterday, he wrote in my book that he hoped I'd like it. It's been less than 24 hours since purchase and I've finished it--and indeed, Mr. Kalfus, I did. Wonderful. And that is why I buy books in person.

[Shh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does a book’s cover matter? Oh, yes it does, and in the case of Equilateral by Ken Kalfus it was the reason I wanted to read this book. Cover first, description second! What can I say, I’m a very visual person and I've picked up many a book because of the cover art, but it doesn't mean I liked all of them, however in the case of Equilateral, I loved it!

Equilateral is hard to define, part historical fiction, part science fiction, with just the right amount of weird, and you have an idea of what you are in for with this one. Set in 1894, we meet Sanford Thayer a British astronomer who has spent years working on the construction of a massive equilateral triangle in Egypt, and guess what? Thayer, our brilliant scientist, has come to believe that his triangle possesses the ability to communicate with those folks living on Mars if in fact the triangle is finished on a specific day and set a fire, which will allow the planets to properly align for said communication. Are you still with me? Because as bizarre as this sounds it works. Kalfus expertly weaves his tales like a spider luring his readers into the world of Sanford Thayer. I really mean it when I say it truly was a fascinating read.

If you are a film buff, like I am, this novel was in a sense like the 1902 movie A Trip to the Moon but instead of the camera performing the illusions the written words did all the tricks. If you are a fan of “different” then pick up a copy of Equilateral and sit back for an interesting ride.

Thank you Net Galley and Bloomsbury USA for an advance review copy of Equilateral by Ken Kalfus.

[Jeanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe 2 1/2. This is a very strange book about a fanatical scientist who wants to build an equilateral triangle in the Saharan dessert in 1894 to impress the Martians who built the canals. Building the triangle are the scientist and an engineer. The equilateral triangle is over 300 miles on each side which consists of a trench 5 miles in width that is filled with pitch. The idea is that when Earth is most visible on Mars, the pitch will be lit thus sending a message to the Martians that Earth also has intelligent inhabitants.

There are 2 women on the fringes of the story who are much more interesting but not developed as characters. One is the English secretary who has accompanied the scientist on many journeys throughout the world and who is in love with him. The other is a young native girl - Egyptian? - who sometimes speaks in perfect English but most often doesn't understand a word that is said to her in English. She too is quite taken with the scientist.

So of course things go horribly wrong when a group of Muslim fanatics decide to destroy the blasphemy I their midst accidentally igniting the pitch too early for the flames to be seen on Mars and simultaneously killing many of their brothers trying to finish the last of the trenches.

But never fear, our scientist detects flames on the surface of Mars indicating that the Martians have constructed their own triangle 3 times the size of the Earthlings. He also determines that the Martians have launched a space ship with a trade delegation that will land in 1 year at the site of the Earth triangle.

And then the surprise ending. What????

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. I was intrigued by certain (deliberate) inconsistencies in the narrative voice. Have not seen any reviewer comment on that, so it remains a bit mysterious. I like to be left with questions after finishing a book, and this one indulged that taste.

Otherwise, see my husband's review: What he said. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

"There's only us...Only us. Only the two of us, two minds. We've understood each other from the start. We need each other. It's irrefutable."

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute gem! The writing is sublime; a highly intelligent take on the what ifs of late 19th century science.

[Harry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Please....somewhere between SiFi and alternative history...way too long and slow. Nothing really happens.

[Christine Sears · Rating 4 out of 5]

intriguing way to comment on technology, progress, racism and assumptions people project out; in this case, project onto (possible) Martians. well written.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I clearly missed whatever the ending was trying to say. What is going on with this book?

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always struggle to review books like "Equilateral." This one earns points for the intelligence of its writing. Kalfus has created an utterly believable setting of late 1800s Egypt, where a British astronomer, Thayer, is directing the construction of a giant equilateral triangle to be covered with petroleum and lit on fire when the object can best be seen by Mars. Thayer is convinced, by viewing the canals of Mars, that the planet is inhabited by a superior race. He has enlisted the aid of Ballard, an engineer, to direct the construction of the Equilateral by native labor. Thayer's assistant, Ms. Kennedy, is not-so-secretly in love with him, and it seems they've had a past affair, but Thayer is more interested in his Egyptian serving girl, Bint, whom he eventually impregnates. When Bint is replaced by another server, Thayer learns that "bint" simply means "girl" in Arabic, and this is one of the jokes in "Equilateral." The occupiers, despite seeking communications with an alien race, have no interest in learning about the Egyptians helping them build the triangle. The primary joke, of course, is that modern readers know there are no martians, which makes the ending, where world leaders await the impending aliens, more absurd. But the tone of the novel is too serious for laughs, not to mention that this seems derivative of other novels and films where people attempt to build something ambitious in a foreign landscape they know little about ("Mosquito Coast"). For being such a smart novel about details like water consumption, tribal relations, early telescopes, etc., "Equilateral" indulges in the easy laugh of poking fun at our predecessors for their naiveté. Or maybe the moral of the story is not to believe too fervently in anything, because it will probably be disproven later on. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough development in this short novel to make any of the characters especially interesting, and if the attempted tone of the book was comic, the comedy is absent, the tone more sneering than funny.

[Thomasin Propson · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Everything worth seeing lies at the edge of visibility...The most important truths about the cosmos can hardly be separated from illusion.”


Late 19th century’s humanity (only a few of them, really) reaching out to Martians. And ... it doesn’t go as planned.

The description in Goodreads calls this book comedic. I found it sorrowful. And passionate. And exciting. And also often tedious. Ironic, perhaps, but not comedic.

207 pages of striving to talk with those far, far above us and those standing right next to us, and neither communication going particularly well.

[Charles Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kalfus always brings the big ideas. Here it's science, ambition, hubris, colonialism, sexism, love, and geometry.

But this time, it's just not enough. Literally, this book should be longer. Not that this is the solution, but Pynchon would have tripled this page count, and it (mostly) wouldn't have felt overstuffed because there are so many things to tackle! And for a book called Equilateral, the triangle motif is way underused. I just wanted more...everything.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dull. The main character is an annoying madman who is unlikely to be able to persuade anyone to part with the price of a cup of tea let alone millions of pounds for his rediculous scheme. As for the contrived and totally unconvincing misnderstanding regarding the girl's name - completely unconvincing. I wont be reading anything else by this author.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazingly conceived story of man's folly on scales grand and small. This is one of the most enlightened expressions of ego and hubris and folly I've ever read. It's a modern Jataka or parable - replete with layer upon layer of compassionately rendered humanity and humbly offered wisdom. It never preaches, but instead laughs gently.

[Carlie Zumwalt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kept thinking the story would get interesting. It never did.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biting satire of how science is a product of society, and as much what we wish for as what we observe. Good fun.

[M · Rating 2 out of 5]

The end was far better than the beginning but it was a chore to get through.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a mix of soft sci-fi, philosophy, and colonial critique, Kalfus packs a blast-cap of ideas and implications into a slim 200 page novel.

Set in 1894, the book follows only a few people -- astronomer Sanford Thayer, his secretary Miss Keaton, engineer Ballard and serving girl Bint -- observing their tiny machinations in the shadow of an enormous engineering feat, the creation of a 3,000+ mile long equilateral triangle in the Egyptian desert with the work of thousands of fellahin, working in brutal heat with minimal water and poor wages. The reason? Thayer has spotted life on Mars -- or at least, a set of parallel lines that suggest newly created canals -- and he convinces the world that the best way to communicate with them is to create a sign they, with their presumably advanced telescopes and measuring equipment, can't miss. Thayer plans the Equilateral to be dug out, filled with pitch, soaked with fuel, and set afire on the day of Earth's highest rotation in the Martian sky, a flare of perfect, geometric creation, a sign that this flare has been created by sentient, intelligent beings.

Sentient, intelligent beings who, it must be said, still have a bit of evolving to do.

Though rooted in a light sci-fi concept, the bulk of the book is taken over by the details of creation and planning, the commandeering of thousands of reluctant workers to work in the most uncompromisingly hot and unrewarding environment imaginable, and the problems that compromise the crucial June 17th ignition of the flare. Without ever being explicit about anything, Kalfus pokes away at 19th century colonialism, mysticism, and ambition with a keen, understated approach. The writing is beautiful, and it never gets too didactic in trying to tell you things. It's just a really good, subtle, well-rendered story. So subtle, in fact, that I have a complete, alternate version of the story in my head in which [ SPOILERS WOULD GO HERE ASK ME IN PERSON SOMETIME ] is what really happened. The last three paragraphs are stunning. The use of maps, charts, and mathematical illustrations are perfect, enhancing rather than overwhelming the story.

The only thing that keeps this from a five star is that it is still kind of slight at 200 pages. Not sure what more could be added, but it does suggest a 'roided out novella or even a long short story rather than an immersive novel. But don't let that stop you.

"Thayer has to remind the engineers of the Equilateral's purpose and fundamental principles. If the figure is forced to conform to the Egyptian landscape, the astronomers of Mars will be placed in the same difficult position as their colleagues on Earth: unable to convince parochial skeptics that the markings on the distant planetary surface are the work of sentient beings. It's the disregard of the natural landscape that proves man's intelligence."

[Rachael Quinn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I heard about this book on the Book Riot podcast and it sounded amusing and like it was going to be funny in that Wes Anderson way that I so love. It was about halfway there. If I could give it a 2.5, I totally would.

It’s the late 1800′s Mars has taken the world by storm since the discovery of what appears to be being-made canals that irrigate crops on the relatively dry planet. Thayer, an astronomer, has not only become obsessed with making contact, he has devised a plan to create a huge equilateral triangle in the desert and set it on fire when Earth will be in perfect view of Mars. Each side is miles and miles long and the engineering that goes into the project is both impressive and costly. After managing to gain support form a number of world leaders and businessmen and managing to raise the funds numerous ways, including sending kids door to door, Thayer’s project is coming to life.

When we enter the story, things are going wrong. Thayer is ill with what may malaria or some desert disease that the doctors from England don’t recognize or know how to cure. He is falling in love with Bint, the girl who is there to care for him and doesn’t speak a word of English. His secretary, the brilliant and determined Miss Keaton who has been on many expeditions with him, is just barely hiding her love for him through a screen of efficiency, managing the works while he is increasingly confined to bed. The project is behind and the men are beginning to mutiny. The water tankers that are so vital to the workers keep going missing and a war may be on the horizon. The investors are growing steadily less at ease. Despite all of this, they are determined to finish on time and contact Mars. In turn, they are positive that the Martians will return the contact.

Let’s talk about the problems I had with this book. When I first began it, I made it about 5 pages in and then set it aside for a night. The language made it hard for me to sink into the story. As it were, I never really actually managed to sink into the story. I found that I would get close and then I would run into a word that my brain just couldn’t grasp on to, something I needed to look up or couldn’t pronounce. If math is the universal language, I may as well be mute. Mind you, this is my own hang up but I did find myself feeling a bit stupid as I read along. It was short and subtle and I felt that I should have enjoyed it more than I did.

That being said, I could see this being a great read for some people. I could even see Hubby getting into it if he found it in a used book store. It wasn’t for me. That doesn’t mean that it won’t be for you.