Love and Other Thought Experiments

by Sophie Ward

Rachel and Eliza are hoping to have a baby. The couple spend many happy evenings together planning for the future.

One night Rachel wakes up screaming and tells Eliza that an ant has crawled into her eye and is stuck there. She knows it sounds mad - but she also knows it's true. As a scientist, Eliza won't take Rachel's fear seriously and they have a bitter fight. Suddenly their entire relationship is called into question.

Inspired by some of the best-known thought experiments in philosophy, particularly philosophy of mind, Love and Other Thought Experiments is a story of love lost and found across the universe.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, LGBT, Literary Fiction, Queer, Short Stories, Philosophy

272 pages, Hardcover

First published February 6, 2020

About the author

Sophie Ward is the winner of the 2018 RA and Pin Drop short story award with her story 'Sunbed'. Her first book, A Marriage Proposal, was published by the Guardian in 2014. Her debut novel, Love and Other Thought Experiments, was published in February 2020 by Corsair and was longlisted for the Booker Prize in July 2020.

Reviews

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book solely due to its longlisting on the 2020 Booker Prize.

I mention that because I think it showcases what (at least based on first impressions – I have finished 10 and started 2 of the 13 books at this stage) seems to be the most impressive element of this year’s longlist – the judges choice to pick a diverse set of both authors and writing styles, with a heavy focus on debut authors – in this case the TV and film actress Sophie Ward. A choice which I think might have come from them reading blind - PDFs without author bios, blurbs or plot summaries.

Ward has a Open University Degree in Literature and Philosophy and a PhD in the use of narrative in philosophy of the mind. I mention the subject of her degree and PhD as they so closely fit the character and nature of this book and her University (where she now works) as it effectively excludes her from the Goldsmith Prize – which is where I otherwise may have naturally expected this intriguing novel to feature.

The central conceit and structure of the novel is set up from the opening dialogue – between a couple: Rachel and Eliza(beth) where the two discuss thought experiments and Rachel demands to be in one.

From there on we have a series of chapters each named after a famous thought experiment: examples include Pascale’s Wager on the existence of God, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, Thomas Nagel’s Bat, David Chalmers P-Zombies, Frank Jackson’s Super Scientist Mary, John Searle’s Chinese Room, Hilary Putnam’s Twin Earth, Plutarch’s Ship of Thesus, Descartes Demon, Gilbert Harman’s Brain in a Vat. You do not need to have known the thought experiment to follow the book – as each is concisely explained at the start of the chapter.

And the ostensible main narrative tension is then introduced in the first chapter – Rachel becomes upset by some ants in their shared house and it becomes something of a test of her relationship with Eliza, one Eliza meets by buying Rachel a fertility kit - the two having long discussed having a surrogate baby with their gay friend Hal (his partner Greg is a space engineer).

So far so reasonably conventional, but later Rachel asleep becomes convinced that an ant has entered her body via her eye – something the rational scientist Eliza of course refuses to believe and which, in the illogical way many decisions are made in real life to ease relationship tensions, leads Eliza to finally 100% commit to the baby idea.

Evan after the birth of their baby Arthur, Eliza’s refusal to believe in the very small (but still finite) chance of Rachel’s account (mirroring in a way of course Pascale’s Wager) acts as a tension on their relationship, a tension which takes on an extra impetus when Rachel is diagnosed with incurable cancer

And while at first you may read this first chapter as fairly conventional, with the ant simply an oddity, you would be mistaken – the ant (as well as the Pascal code which occasionally enters the flow), are far from oddities; in fact they are equally important to the narrative as Rachel and Eliza and vital to the fate of a far wider group.

From there each chapter continues to be based around the thought experiment which opens it – albeit (like the opening chapter) in a not always linear way. The second Prisoner’s Dilemma chapter is far less about the mathematical/game theory logic of the dilemma itself, and far more about alternative pathways that stem from the co-operate/defect/defeat options, and the chapter explores three storylines about a Cypriot Turkish boy who decides to swim away from shore after his friend’s ball.

And from then on, in line with the other experiments outlined, the book becomes far more non-conventional and an exploration of ideas such as human and non-human as well as individual and collective consciousness; alternative/parallel worlds; online versus offline worlds; artificial intelligence and the singularity; religious belief systems, scientific worldviews and artistic renderings - and so on.

We have a range of narrators in two different senses: some are not human, others are the “same person” but in a different “realization”. We also have a range not only of times but of planets and even realities.

And through all these the book asks: who are we; what does it mean to experience the world; how can we really know other people or even really know ourselves and our own reality.

And yet at the same time all of this philosophical reflection and increasingly science-fiction writing is set against a really moving examination all the strands of a complex family unit – Rachel, Eliza, Hal, Greg, Arthur, Rachel’s mother Elizabeth.

Perhaps the most fundamental questions of all that the book asks are what does it mean to love another person, what does it mean to grieve them.

It is this narrative in parallel with the philosophy which I think really makes the book succeed as a rounded novel. It is a book which is both moving and stimulating.

There is so much more I could say about this both innovative and very enjoyable book – and it is definitely one that will I think repay a re-read.

A great edition to a fascinating longlist.

[Marchpane · Rating 5 out of 5]

BOOKER PRIZE 2020 LONGLISTED

On one level Love and Other Thought Experiments is an understated, contemporary novel about love, loss, unconventional families and the consequences of choice. On another, it’s a sandbox of philosophical ideas ranging from free will and the nature of consciousness, to the limits of human experience.

‘Thought experiments are devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things.’
That’s a lot, thought Rachel. But she liked the sound of it. It tickled her to think of stories being used by scientists. I could be a thought experiment, something Eliza has dreamed up to challenge her hardened reasoning.
‘If I were a thought experiment,’ Rachel asked Eliza as they got into bed that night, ‘What one would I be?’
‘I’m not sure you can be a thought experiment,’ Eliza said, ‘They are supposed to help you think about a problem.’
‘If you can imagine it, then it is possible.’
‘That is one theory.’

The novel flirts with philosophy in a really fun and accessible way. It’s by no means a serious, high-minded deep dive (so anyone looking for that might be disappointed). This is first and foremost a character-driven story. Each chapter begins with a brief description of a famous philosophical argument or thought experiment, and a quotation. These function like epigraphs, giving the reader a little food for thought and priming them for the chapter that follows. This approach guides the narrative but doesn’t overwhelm it.

The story unspools in some really interesting and unexpected directions—I don’t want to give too much away because the surprise is part of the fun. The beauty of this novel is that you can engage with the philosophy side of it as much or as little as you want: get right into the weeds of the novel-as-meta-thought-experiment, or just sit back and enjoy an offbeat, insightful story.

If you are like me and enjoy subtle, sensitive literary fiction AND philosophical thought experiments as entertainment (along the lines of say, Ted Chiang's short stories) AND these two things combined in one novel sounds appealing, this book is for you. 4.5 stars.

[Fun fact: Sophie Ward played Princess Mombi in Return to Oz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcrkU... Readers of Love and Other Thought Experiments may spot a connection between this role and the book's themes!]

[Henk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clever and impressive. Interconnected tales that add up to something bold, daring, ambitious yet also very warm and human.
I was surprised and swept away by this book
All the possibilities, all the directions a life can take

I was as thrilled as I remember to have been when I first read Ghostwritten from David Mitchell, who turned out becoming my favourite author.
This is my favourite book of 2020!

The novel starts as a heart wrenching tale of modern parenthood, with themes as intimacy, trust and mortality as subject matter, in the Ant. We meet Rachel and Eliza, and get glimpses in their relationship and their parental wishes. The prose is sharp and confident, in a way that you very soon get a picture of the characters (She had become the sort of person she approved of but she wasn’t sure she had chosen anything she actually wanted).
Then in the second chapter we find ourselves in Cyprus in the head of a seemingly completely unrelated narrator. While in the third chapter the links with the first story are more clear and daughter mother relations are hilariously painted (She sees me as a person
You don’t have to look hideous to be seen as a person).

Incredibly, I found almost every chapter to be more ambitious than the preceding one.
The way the philosophical thought experiments, mentioned at the start of all chapters, impressively come back loosely in the tales also add to the experience in my view.

Moving onwards in Love and Other Thought Experiments the cleverness of the connections between the stories start to show more and more. Sophie Ward goes into daring and bold territories, including two non-human narrators and suggestions of alternate realities. To tell too much would be unwise; going in without any background to this novel gave me the best reading experience and left me emotionally touched when reaching the end of Love and Other Thought Experiments.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
I am very disappointed but not surprised that this one missed out on the shortlist.

This book is original, entertaining and thought provoking, and exactly the kind of welcome surprise I look for on any prize list. I came close to giving it five stars but the last few chapters strayed too far into sci-fi for my taste. It is difficult to review such a book without spoilers, so what follows may not make much sense.

Each of the book's 10 main chapters could almost be a short story in its own right. Each is at least partially an illustration of a philosophical thought experiment which is introduced first, and although there are connections and an overall narrative of sorts, there are numerous inconsistencies and alternative pathways - the reasons for that become clearer towards the end.

The core characters are Eliza and Rachel, a couple planning to have a baby assisted by their gay friend Hal. At the start of the book Rachel says that she believes that an ant has entered her head through her eye. She is diagnosed with cancer, but survives long enough have a child, Arthur, who grows up to become an astronaut. One chapter is narrated by an ant, another by an artificial intelligence program.

The second chapter introduces Ali, a Turkish Cypriot boy, and concerns an incident in which he risks death by swimming out to sea to rescue a friend's football. Ali's story has several conflicting sections, which sets the pattern for the rest of the book. In one version, as a young adult, he meets Elizabeth, an English tourist, who is the subject of the next chapter in which she is Rachel's mother, living in retirement in Brazil.

Unusually for a novel, each chapter has a bibliography - in addition to the philosophical and scientific underpinnings, these include novels, children's books and other literary works all of which are mentioned in or influence the stories.

The nature of consciousness is another key theme.

This description probably doesn't convey what an enjoyable experience reading the book is - the science and philosophy never distracts too much from the human stories.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the consequences of the nadir of the Booker Prize, the 2011 ‘Zipalongability’ list, was the creation of the Goldsmiths Prize, by Goldsmiths University, “established in 2013, to celebrate the qualities of creative daring associated with the College and to reward fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form.”

(The other was the Folio Prize which indirectly led to the unfortunate world-wide extension of the geographical eligibility of the Booker, unfortunate as the extension only applies to those who write in English)

Love and Other Experiments is precisely the type of novel associated with the College but is unfortunately ineligible for the Goldsmiths Prize due to the (rather unnecessary) rule that disqualifies any books by current, and even former, members of staff and students, the same rule that, for example last year, ruled out, among others, This Brutal House, Mothlight, Patience and Girl, Woman, Other.

Indeed. this novel was key to Ward's PhD thesis at Goldsmiths, a thesis provisionally titled 'Imagine I Am, The Use of Narrative in Philosophical Thought Experiments' (https://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=7991 - I haven’t been able to confirm the final version).

The novel consists of a series of connected short episodes, each based around a philosophical thought experiments which is explicitly explained at the start of each chapter. In some cases these are also spelled out, dare one say Sophie’s World style, in the narrative itself, whereas in others the association is rather looser.

The first arises from Pascal’s wager, although not with an explicit reference to religion, but more to ask the question of when it may be rational to believe in the irrational, here whether Eliza should believe her wife, Rachel, that an ant has crawled into her eye and stayed there (wonderfully based on an incident where the author herself had ants living in her computer, to the disbelief of her son).

The second uses the Prison’s Dilemma, although more to establish a forking paths type of narrative as to different outcomes of a young Turkish Cypriot lad struggling in the sea after he has swum too far in pursuit of a football. The forking paths reminded me of Borges’ El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan, and the novel as a whole has some similarities. Borges, as the author has acknowledged (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9YB_... around 11 minutes) is a clear and explicit influence and, indeed, Pierre Menard actually is the autor del Quijote in one reality in the novel.

There is a comprehensive source list at the end of the novel, but some of the influences are more opaque to me, for example Olivia Manning’s The Balkan Trilogy, which seems to be key but I’m unclear why.

But key texts are only included in the source list if named in the text. As an example of the cleverness, my GR friend Doug pointed out (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) that the title of the chapter told from the perspective of an ant is 'ameising', a neologism coined by James Joyce (whose Ulysses also features in another chapter title) in The Ondt and The Gracehoper section of Finnegans Wake. This in turn leads to another neat Borges link as in his review of Finnegans Wake he picked up on this particular neologism as an example of, in his view, unsatisfactory wordplay. From an English translation of the review:

Finnegans Wake is a concatenation of puns committed in a dreamlike English that is difficult not to categorize as frustrated and incompetent. I don’t think that I am exaggerating. Ameise, in German, means “ant.” Joyce, in Work in Progress, combines it with the English amazing to coin the adjective ameising, meaning wonder inspired by an ant.

And in contrast many sources are, I think, simply listed for completeness, for example a (I think) straightforward remark in all the stories he was told, the fairy tales and Roald Dahls, the Lemony Snickets and J.K. Rowlings, the parents were either dead or gone, with very poor provision made for their absence is enough for several books to be listed in the references.

However, this quote does highlight one aspect of the novel, a very human story of a non-traditional extended family and of childhood bereavement (Rachel has a child Arthur via IUI with one of her and Eliza’s friend, himself in a same-sex relationship, leaving Arthur, whose quote this was, with one mother and two fathers after Rachel’s death), and indeed in the early chapters it appears a well-written but relatively normal story in this vein.

But many of the philosophical thought experiments are around consciousness and the nature of reality, and the novel, while retaining this very human element, heads into very different stylistic territory by the end, rather Matrix like, although the author has also acknowledged the inspiration of The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas.

Overall, an excellent addition to the Booker longlist and one I will regard as an honorary Goldsmiths shortlistee.

4.5 stars

[Eric Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve sometimes dipped into reading science and philosophy out of a curiosity to better understand the world and the nature of being, but I often find these texts too formal and dry to engage with for very long. So it’s enlivening to read Sophie Ward’s conceptual novel which is a series of interlinked stories each exploring a different thought experiment. These are imaginative devices to contemplate a different hypothesis or unsolvable riddle which provokes questions about the meaning of consciousness, the shape of reality and the limits of perception. Each section dramatizes a classic experiment devised by scientists and intellectuals such as Blaise Pascal, Hilary Putnam and Rene Descartes. The novel literally brings these questions to life while telling a moving tale about a family which spans many decades and imaginatively dips into a variety of perspectives. At the heart of the book is a couple named Rachel and Eliza whose desire to have a child results in a multitude of unforeseen consequences. This is certainly one of the most original pieces of fiction I’ve read in some time. It innovatively manages to be poignant as well as thought provoking.

Read my full review of Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward on LonesomeReader

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
Ward's debut is an experimental novel that cleverly merges philosophical investigations into the nature of love and reality with literature or, to be more exact, with narrative games on how our decisions and random destiny plot the storylines of our lives. Each of the ten chapters is themed after a famous thought experiment like the prisoner's dilemma, the philosophical zombie or the ship of Theseus. The characters, much like test persons in a trial, act under the conditions of the experiment - the reader takes on the role of a scientist studying human behavior.

But there is also an overarching plot: Rachel and Eliza are a lesbian couple, and Rachel is firmly convinced that an ant has entered her body through her eye - which leads to contention in their relationship because Eliza, the scientist, has trouble believing her. Nevertheless (or maybe to overcome their problems), they decide to have a child with their gay friend Hal. From this basic premise, Ward extrapolates: She changes narrators, dives deeper into different characters (not all of them human), and seemingly alters plotlines that have already been established in other chapters. What is love? What is real? What does it mean to be human? The more the story of the little family progresses, shifts and morphs, the more the topic of artificial intelligence takes center stage, questioning the nature of the future a.k.a. utopia/dystopia we are all approaching.

Ward holds degrees in philosophy and literature and is currently studying for her PhD on the use of narrative in philosophy of mind- and in her book, she puts these qualifications to work. She wrote a novel for readers who enjoy pondering philosophical questions and like authors who turn stories into puzzles - in the Booker context, "Love and Other Thought Experiments" reads like the antidote to the chick lit entry Such a Fun Age, as Ward's novel would also be bona fide material for the Goldsmiths Prize for fiction that breaks the mould. There will be readers who complain about the complexity of this (although the wording will be more like "I don't understand what's going on" or "The characters are not likeable and I couldn't connect with them"), but readers who came for the postmodern extravaganza will rejoice: This is wild, daring, ambitious writing.

A fascinating debut that shows why reading the Booker longlist is fun if the judges do their job right: The Booker has the potential to shine a light on new, fresh, challenging authors. Sophie Ward is one of them.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, rounded down

This is probably the most innovative and imaginative of the Booker longlist this year (or should I say, of the 8 I have read so far), and it certainly requires one's brain cells to be firing on all cylinders in order to catch all the subtle interplay of ideas. Although I am fairly confident I got the gist of the book and figured out many of the philosophical underpinnings ... there is also the nagging feeling that some (a lot?!) of the book went right over my head, without me even being aware of that fact. [In this regard, it somewhat reminds me of 2013 Booker winner 'The Luminaries', in which the astrological connotations were completely beyond my comprehension, but didn't particularly impede my enjoyment of the story itself].

Here, each of the ten chapters begins with a 'thought experiment', and while about half of the time I could make out how the following narrative exemplified some aspect of such, in the other half it left me scratching my head on how they interfaced. I did enjoy how each chapter initially disorients the reader, and more or less 'pulls the rug out', and how one had to figure out exactly how the pieces are fitting. This becomes a bit more difficult in the final 2 or 3 chapters, which dragged a mite and veered a little bit too much into sci-fi and AI territory for my taste. Oddly, although the author copiously cites various other authors and literary works that impacted her own writing, she never mentions Lem's Solaris, which would seem to have been an obvious influence there.

And that brings me to my other minor quibble - I don't like it when a book makes me feel stupid, or like I am seriously deficient in my own reading history. Ward's book constantly makes reference - both explicitly and obliquely - to other works, and if one HASNT read those, one feels rather out of the loop. For example, the 4th chapter is entitled 'Ameising' and though the word does crop up within the storyline, it wasn't till I Googled that I discovered the word was coined by Joyce in 'Finnegans Wake', and how it's ant-related origins is appropriate for THIS book. Chapter 5 is called Clementinum and it isn't till one again Googles, that you are led to its prominence in Borges' 'The Secret Library', and thus its meaning here. The concluding chapter also makes reference to Borges' 'Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote', which I ALSO had not read, but since it's very short, dispatched quickly after reading this, which gave me an added level of insight.

Regardless, this was a challenging and highly entertaining read, and no doubt would warrant a second, more careful, re-reading - which I might grant it should it make the shortlist - or indeed, win the Booker. It now sits at #3 in my rankings.

[Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Thought experiments are devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things."

Books, in their own way, are a sort of thought experiment. For a little while you inhabit the life of someone else. You imagine things from their perspective. Perhaps you gain clarity into something confounding about the world at large, or maybe you experience a small epiphany about your own life. Regardless, the ripple of a book's effect on your life can be strong; whether the change is immediate or revealed much later varies from book to book.

Sophie Ward's debut (!!!) novel Love and Other Thought Experiments is a confounding and compelling read that I think will have lasting effects on my reading life; exactly how that will play out is still to be discovered.

I've only just finished reading this and don't feel I can adequately explain my feelings about this book. If you're looking for a plot summary—firstly, I do think this book is best gone into with very little context besides a sentence or two (a woman claims an ant has crawled into her eye and from there the universe of these characters' lives unravels and intertwines simultaneously to create a thought-provoking narrative that will leave you questioning your own existence). And secondly, others have written far better review than me, so go check out some of those.

What I can say is that I see why this book might not work for some people, and at times even I was so perplexed that I couldn't pin down my own feelings. But I never felt unmoored; Ward may have a very strong agenda with this book but she also allows the reader to focus on what they want to within the pages of this story, whether fantastical or philosophical. There's plenty to grasp on to—in fact for a 260ish page book there is a LOT to unpack. It's quite impressive how it can be so deceptively simple and yet exceedingly complex in terms of narrative structure and themes. The best I can compare it to is something a la David Mitchell.

The 10 chapters tell a story of love and loss through different characters' perspectives. Each chapter is preceded by an explanation of a short thought experiment that informs the contents of that character's story. It's simultaneously heady and accessible. I don't know how else to describe it.

If you're looking for a read that may challenge you at times, but also enthrall, confound, delight and inspire you, this is an excellent read. I may not understand everything about this book (a re-read would be illuminating!), but that's life: a little bizarre, hopefully adventurous, and full of heartbreak and love. If you can enjoy the ride for what it is, you may come out of it with new experiences that inform and transform what comes next.

[Anita Pomerantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The structure of this book really interested me. It told the story in a very unexpected way, and I definitely liked that aspect of it. It was not really a twist, but more of a perspective shift.

Each chapter starts off with a thought experiment or philosophical tidbit, and I presume the chapter is supposed to reflect it in some way. I tried hard to tie the lead-in to the chapter with the chapter content, and most of the time, I really didn't "see" it. Not sure if that's a failing of my intellect or a failure of the author. Nonetheless, I thought the concept was very creative, and I enjoyed trying to make the connections.

This book felt like literary fiction, but it had a science fiction overlay, and that bending of genre was very thought provoking. Normally, I'm not a fan of magic being injected into my fiction reads, but this felt more philosophical to me than fantastical.

Personally, I wish I had read this book in a classroom setting or with a book club because it feels like a detailed analysis would be worthwhile. All in all, this type of book is what I expect from one nominated for the Booker . . .intellectually challenging, innovative, yet still insightful into the human condition.

[Trudie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

I had an inkling this book would not be for me.

Books based in philosophy are not my thing.

The Ant annoyed me and once we got to 2001 : A Space Odyssey I knew I was lost.

(Came back to write a more thoughtful review but find I am rather devoid of feelings about this book at the moment)

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
This short novel sounded very much like something I'd enjoy a great deal, unfortunately, it didn't quite meet my expectations.
I found it a bit of a hodgepodge of styles and themes, the last quarter confused the hell out of me. That's not to say that the premise wasn't good, but the delivery didn't quite impress me. Paradoxically, the parts I understood and sailed through were the ones written with a lot of dialogue and less literary. The prose that was of a higher calibre was in the last half of the book, where we hear from an ant and there's a big, unexpected switch to sci-fi. By the end, I had no understanding of what was happening, which made me question my intelligence.

So, we'll chalk this down to "it's not you it's me".

[John Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

This 2020 Booker Prize longlisted novel is rather brilliant. Weaving in a series of philosophical thought experiments (many of which concentrate on the nature of consciousness), Love and Other Thought Experiments tackles with empathy and feeling themes of consciousness, identity, love and loss.

The beautiful marriage relationship between central characters (Rachel and Eliza), and indeed the different versions of their selves, is so sensitively rendered. Including some stunning passages in which it is mediated by an Ant. Yes, an Ant! I shall say no more about the Ant so as to avoid spoliers, but this nonhuman consciousness is fascinating and in terms of imagery and metaphor creates a very deep and sophisticated meditation on the nature of life and our connection with that which is other to humanity (and asks is it indeed other to humanity). On this I concur with the Guardian review by Stevie Davies that notes: "Reading Love and Other Thought Experiments, not least the virtuoso chapter in which the narrator impersonates the ant’s thought processes, I couldn’t help recalling George Eliot’s squirrel in Middlemarch. “If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing ... the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.” I also immediately thought of Eliot's famous squirrel passage when reading Ward's "Ant chapter".
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

The book is throughly infused with empathy, especially for its characters that eventually extend to an unusual and somwhat mysterious, unsettling, future AI consciousness. In fact, the novel asks us to consider how far can we extend our empathy if humanity is to survive and is on the whole rather positive on our loving capacity to achieve this. Ward beautifully conveys this deep and at times mysterous empathy through the relationships among her characters and the heartwork they do to matintain them: in marriage partnerships and between parents and children especially.

This is a special novel that reminds me that the form of the novel can still surprise and take us to unexpected places, to feel unexpected things and perhaps even to expand our capacity for feeling and understanding.

Here's a link to a fascinating interview between Sophie Ward and booktuber Eric Karl Anderson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9YB_...

[Prerna · Rating 4 out of 5]

We can’t understand death because we haven’t died.

This collection of scattered but interconnected short stories across which its various characters interact and intersect in their various paths, seem to all revolve around the same central questions: what is life? What is consciousness? And under what conditions are the two created and sustained? Sometimes philosophy and fiction meet in strange alleys of literature to produce a piece worth spending a long while pondering upon and this is one such work.

The future shimmered across the table. A world of possibilities, if only Eliza could believe in them.

The characters journey across the different chapters to tell us their stories, both the possible ones and the fantasies that unexpectedly merge with reality. Rachel, Eliza, Arthur, Greg, Hal, Ali and Zeus are all weaving their ways through a web constructed from repetitions and impossibilities, and it is only through understanding this web that do we, as readers, recognize the new and visionary in the timeline of the story.

In her bag was the postcard from her mother. A child stands at a door and knocks. In one world the door opens. In another, it remains closed. Is the child still the same? All the possibilities, all the directions a life can take.
Where was her son?

The ending is still a bit unclear to me, but there is little doubt in mind that this is a beautiful book full of exquisite, elegant ideas and I will be returning to it again someday in the hopes of understanding it better.

Also, in my opinion, it was really unjust to not include this book in the Booker 2020 shortlist.

4.5 stars.

[But_i_thought_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writing always involves a delicate exchange of information. Too much explanation and the reader feels patronized. Too little and the reader is left stranded. For me, this book oscillated between both extremes – writing that felt very externalized and very expository, examining philosophical ideas that came across as vague and un-crystallized. The result: Something akin to a series of writing exercises, jampacked with interesting ideas that never fully converge.

The story follows a young couple, Rachel and Eliza, who are contemplating the next stage of their relationship. An ant crawls into Rachel’s eye one evening, threatening to unhinge her sense of reality. The story eventually veers into speculative fiction territory, exploring ideas on consciousness, reality, and “the telescopic sensation of giant tiny moments”.

While the plotting was unusual, the writing, by contrast, felt very dry. Not dry in an Ali Smith meets Deborah Levy kind of way. But dry in a numb and detached sort of way. I missed lyricism, rhythm, nuance, artistry. The metaphors, when applied, did not work for me:

“She was fading like a once vivid stain on a sheet that with every wash grows paler until you forget it had ever existed.”

Ultimately, this felt like a novel designed by a civil engineer. Thoughtfully constructed. Functional. Interesting to behold. But missing in beauty and artistry, for me.

Mood: Dry, didactic
Rating: 6/10

[Katia N]

It should be my cup of tea as it attempts to blend philosophy with life (especially questions of conciseness). But alas, it is not my cup of tea. I've read two first chapters (59 pages) and put it aside. I did not like the writing. The sentences like a Turkish man "replied in perfect English" (what else then?) have rubbed me a wrong way. Then it was the following scene: he has kissed the English woman to whom he talked in perfect English. But not simply kissed - he has wounded his lip against the glass of a cracked bottle. So he kissed her with the bloodied lips. Some people like such images I find it overwritten and, quite frankly off putting. Especially considering that it seems to be the thoughts of a nine year old drowning in the sea. I do not think the foreign culture is handled very well. And, I could se where all of this is going as the links between the stories are more or less evident.

In general, I found the situations in the stories only superficially related to the philosophic statements they were supposed to illustrate. Those statements are well known in the popular culture like Pascal wager or Prisoner's dilemma. So instead of profound it comes across as a banal sophistry.

And two cancers in two first chapters seemed to be a bit too much.

Many people like it, but not for me.
No rating as I have no plan to finish it.

[Susie · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a breath of fresh air is Sophie Ward and what an intriguing debut she has written.

It seems like readers are increasingly being asked - by publishers, marketers, and prize committees - to embrace new works that are, frankly, not very good. With cover blurbs by industry giants, expensive pre-publication media blitzes, and Book Club promotions by OprahReeseSarahJessica, many second-rate novels skirt critical assessment on their way to orchestrated popular acclaim. That is not the case here. With its no-nonsense design and quiet release, Love and Other Thought Experiments is the fascinating, magnetic party guest you can't stop thinking about and hope to see again soon.

To provide details would be to give too much away. This one is best approached with minimal foreknowledge. Also, honestly, I don't think I can adequately describe the playful, intelligent, mind-bending journey Ward has created here. If you are an avid reader who enjoys puzzling over experimental (but accessible) fiction - and you are not put off by existential philosophy - this one is definitely worth a look.

4.5 stars

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall Impressions

I rate this book at three star, and that rating is an example of where averages mislead. At times, and in parts I thought this was thrilling, innovative, manageably challenging. By contrast some elements in the book passed me by and I struggled with the last quarter.
The book was written as an extension of a post graduate student project (at Goldsmiths College, London), and I think it reflects that, with its academic and highly formalised creative writing construct.
You get value for money. There are four radically different ways to approach this book, and their overlap is not often obvious to me, and the reader has to work hard to see a coherent whole.

1. A love story. Rachel and Eliza (and Hal and Greg). I think this is beautifully written, and the examination of the effect of tragic death, and parenthood in its wake, is among the most memorable writing I have encountered. There is a whole book here and when her publishers had decided to release a commercial work of fiction I think it would have worked really well if Sophie Ward had scaled back on her overall ambition (less creative writing) and expanded the love story. An ant is used as a medium to connect individual stories and emotions (the same ant is on the cover and inside of the book). Very good.

2. Thought experiments. Eleven historic “thought experiments” preface (as a sort of epilogue) the individually titled chapters. The experiments are renowned studies of the imagination; the stuff of philosophers and psychologists. They are written up extensively in technical journals and while most are from the c.20th the observations go back even further. I was unfamiliar with all of them, thought I had some very general awareness of a couple concepts. I was at turns fascinated and frustrated. I understand and respect the academia of the experiments, but in a number of cases I struggled to get the essence (after looking on line, as I imagine most people who are not philosophers, will need to do). A stand alone fictionalised work centered just on the thought experiments would have been preferable for me.

3. Short Stories. Individual stories “interconnected” feed into the love story and the thought experiments. This is very cleverly done, and at the individual level, a story at bedtime, some of these could be read and enjoyed by pretty well everybody, independently of the overall book.

4. AI (Artifical Intelligence) and space exploration in a future world. My least favourite part of the book and with the exception of Greg’s hypothesis of after death explained to a child (which I thought was a very clever link), the substance of the stories was too much for me to handle (and comprehend).
I admire Sophie Ward is 'on trend'. Her fictionalised commercial space programme (Space Solutions Ltd) mirrors closely the real life news this week (August 2020) as Elon Musk’s commerical space module returned to earth (Space X).

Philosophy References

• David Hume: Missing Shade of Blue
• Blaise Pascal’s Wager (from Pensees)
• The Prisoners Dilemma.+ John von Neumann
• Thomas Nagel: To Be a Bat
• Philosophical Zombies. David Chalmers
• What Mary Knew. Frank Jackson
• The Chinese Room. John Searle
• The Twin Earths Hilary Putnam
• The Ship of Theseus. Plutarch
• Descartes Demon
• Gilbert Harman Brain in a Vat

Literary connections

There is a full and comprehensive “Further Reading” section at the end of the book (re-enforcing the academic context of this book). I like this even if it does seem to be against the spirit of general fiction. There is a wide range literature references and influences in the book. Rachel Cusk ( “A life’s work” a book she alternately snarled at and wept into” (119), Borges, Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens among them. Best of all is Elizabeth’s (Rachel mother) observation “ I am not some insipid Anita Brookner heroine, wilting among the mahogany furniture in Maida Vale”(61)

Author background & Reviews

Sophie Ward has a high profile, as a successful actress. Her personal life has also been the subject of much press interest. She has to be among the nicest, and most generous interviewees, and the online tube blogger Erik Karl Anderson hosts a wonderful interview about this book. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9YB_... I was interested in Sophie Ward’s citing A Visit from the Goon Squad and Elizabeth Strout Olive Kitteridge as influences on her book’s individual story structure.
(This is the first time I’ve ever hyperlinked to a You Tuber)

Recommend

I was drawn to the book as a consequence of its surprise inclusion on the Booker 2020 longlist. That’s some accolade for a debut novelist.
This is not a book I will be giving friends for birthdays and Christmas. It is a book I would give to fellow bibliophiles if they had not already heard of it. It’s a book that will delight and bemuse in equal proportion I think.

[Katie Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eek! I loved this SO much!!

I wish I could provide a more helpful review, but a description could never do the book justice, and I honestly believe it’s the sort of book where the less you know going in, the better. I can’t wait for more of my friends to read this one, I am dying to talk about it!

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is bonkers and not in a good way. Two women fall in love. Cool, got it. One of them really wants a baby. Great. One night she wakes up with an ant in her eye and suddenly the universe as she/we know it unravels before our (ahem) ant riddled eyes.

Unpopular opinion time. Here we go. I found this book so derivative. Not unique or experimental or one of a kind at all. I feel like I have already read this book but much better written by Philip K. Dick. Or Kate Atkinson. Or hell, Maggie Nelson if she decided to go off the rails.

I love an unreliable narrative as much as the next gal, but an ant as super computer as God(?) that’s just not going to work for me.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because of its inclusion on the 2020 Booker long list. It is one of those books that I thank the Booker prize for because I am not sure I would have come across it otherwise. At the same time, it is very different from the kind of book I have come to expect from the Booker (I realised very recently that this is my eighth year of reading the Booker long list, although this year it seems likely I will not read the whole list for the first time in those eight years). This is more the kind of book I would expect to see on The Goldsmiths Prize list, although it is not actually eligible for that prize, so that won’t happen.

This is the story of an untraditional family told in an untraditional way. The family is untraditional because a lesbian married couple (Rachel and Eliza) decide to have a child using sperm donated by one half of another gay married couple (Hal and Greg). This child, with two fathers and two mothers, becomes gradually more and more central to the story and discovering that centrality is both intellectually stimulating and emotional.

The story is untraditional because it is structured, as the book’s title suggests, around a number of famous thought experiments. Don’t worry if you can’t think of any famous thought experiments because all the ones used in this book are briefly explained at the start of their chapter. Also, the chapter doesn’t necessarily explore the thought experiment itself but often uses ideas from that experiment to trigger the next phase of the story. For example, the second chapter is based around The Prisoner’s Dilemma (which gives me a chance to plug a Richard Powers book based on the same thought experiment), but is actually interested in the different outcomes of that experiment as alternative ways a story could develop. However, it is not until the final chapter of the book that the significance of those alternatives will start to fall into place.

I think the main reason I enjoyed reading this book is the way it keeps you on your toes all the way through. Each time you think you know what the author is doing, she pulls the rug from under you and heads in a different direction. Although it’s not actually a different direction, it’s just that you were thinking of the wrong direction. It all makes a kind of sense at the end, but along the way you might find yourself wondering what is happening. It starts off fairly straightforwardly with a little bit of weirdness: the first chapter is based on Pascal’s Wager and questions when it might make sense to believe the irrational and it does this by telling us a fairly ordinary story with just a little bit of strangeness.

But the strangeness gradually ramps up. We get non-human narrators. We get some sci-fi. We get quite a bit of narrative trickery. It becomes a book that explores human and non-human consciousness, parallel worlds, artificial intelligence, religious faith. We have multiple times, but also multiple timelines, multiple realities, even multiple versions of the “same” person. And, mixed in with all this, we get a story about a son, his mother and their extended family.

It feels to me like this is a book that would reward a re-read. Knowing where it is heading would probably reveal some earlier connections that you miss on first reading.

An excellent inclusion on the Booker long list.

[Vesna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written as ten interlinked short stories, the novel starts and ends with love, although it takes a few unexpected turns and alternative storylines in-between the novel's bookends. On one level, it’s a family story about a married couple Rachel and Eliza and their son Arthur conceived IUI with help from their gay friend Hals whose partner Greg is an American space engineer. And there is also the ant (‘character’) that Rachel thinks crawled into her eye (the ant is essential and brilliantly told in first person in chapter 4). Rachel dies of a brain tumor when Arthur is just a toddler (not really a spoiler, this comes very early in the novel). Her motherly love is touchingly imprinted on Arthur who continues to search for his Mommy Rachel trying to make sense of her death through a new form of existence. Greg tells him that she is in space and it’s no surprise that Arthur eventually becomes an astronaut in America.

Without revealing anything further, it needs to be mentioned is that this is far from a conventional story. Many elements of the basic storyline, as well as additional characters like Rachel’s parents or a Cypriot Turkish boy Ali, are retold in different versions as the author probes a number of “thought experiments” on her characters and their interconnected lives. Sophie Ward chose mostly those that draw from the philosophy of consciousness, its nature, limits, and expanses, the subjectivity of language and perception, the body-mind relations, and ultimately artificial intelligence. The AI chapter takes Ward into the science fiction genre, my least favorite part. I suspect it reflects more my lack of affinity with sci-fi than the quality of the author’s writing. Most emotionally compelling for me were those related to the main family story, the normalcy of what society may see as an unconventional family (two gay couples), dealing with death and grief, and love as a complete acceptance of another person even if it’s seemingly irrational (a variant on Pascal’s wager).

I wish that the author had chosen different ways of integrating Putnam’s Twin Earths (ch. 7) and [Searle’s Chinese Room, my typo] Descartes’ Demon (ch. 9) into the novel, or opting for alternative but related 'thought experiments'. These chapters went too far into the science fiction and AI-type of genre that are in a sharp break from the rest. It felt more as an interruption though I understood their points.

Also, while I am not familiar with most experimental philosophy and it was interesting to learn about many ideas through this novel, there was one thought experiment drawn from game theory that I was familiar with, The Prisoner’s Dilemma (ch. 2), often used in social sciences. It was rather incorrectly “applied”, starting with the conflation between strategies (cooperation or defection) and outcomes (defeat) in presenting 3 scenarios. More egregiously, it focuses only on one person (Ali) while the preferences and motivations of the second person (Damon) were only tangential whereas the very nature of the game is that it is interdependent, i.e., dependent on the choices and motivations of both sides. The scenario of mutual cooperation is also presented as the best scenario when in fact it’s the second best outcome for each person in the Prisoner’s Dilemma (sorry if this sounds too technical: the entire paradox of the PD game is that this is a Pareto optimal outcome but not a Nash equilibrium, that is, there is the tension between collective and individual rationality), etc. That said, the chapter itself was interesting in presenting different consequences of one boy’s dilemmas in general, which will be weaved seamlessly into later chapters.

These reservations aside, I think this is an original and in many ways fascinating novel. I love the author’s idea to use select thought experiments as thematic arcs for individual chapters to tell the story about one family with warmth and immediacy, weaving the threads of their lives nonlinearly, including alternative unfoldings. While each chapter unpacks a different philosophical thought, the writing is not cerebral, in fact, it has a lightness and easy flow. The characters, their conversations and inner thoughts are relatable and believable. A fantastic debut and I hope the author continues to blend philosophy and fiction in her future writings.

[Kate♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5stars

This was fine. It quite honestly just wanted what I was expecting in any sense. I was expecting a speculative or magical realism or maybe even surrealism novel and this one verges much more on Sci-fi. I also didn't realize it was going to be short stories (I realize they all are interconnected and follow the same group of characters but they were short stories nonetheless and y'all know I don't vibe with short stories.) I also did not really mesh with the writing style. But I did really enjoy the first story and a few others that were derived from the first story. But overall this just wasn't really for me though it will definitely be a story that I remember for a long time.

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am all over the place with my thoughts on this book. I really enjoyed it, but like the book my feelings are fragmented and disjointed. I supposed I like a flowing narrative, but bounces around through time and space and reality.
This reaction was probably not helped by a rather fragmented reading history. I began last September and then less than half way through put the book down and started reading other things. If I had read another twenty pages things would have been clearer and I would have finished the first time. I think part of the problem may have been my reading mood and not getting caught-up by the story meant I didn’t read it in a few days; putting it aside made the flow (which is hard to pick up anyway) vanish completely.

On the second attempt things were clearer and I began to understand more. There were connections that I missed the first time and also there were some pieces of wonderful writing that stood out for me.

It is an ambitious book, and its range across genres is a risk that will not appeal to everyone. Ten interlinked stories which have as their starting point a philosophical experiment. A single page begins each section outlining the experiment and naming the person that invented the idea. Just before the first, there is just over a page which is like a prologue but has no title. In this another experiment is mentioned as part of a conversation between Rachel and Eliza. This experiment is Hume’s Missing Shade of Blue, in which the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume put forward the idea that the mind can generate an idea without first being exposed to the relevant sensory experience. In this case that you can conceive of a shade of blue that you have potentially never seen. There is a final page, after the end of the last chapter that seems to continue this conversation from the beginning;
'I’m an unusual shade of blue,’ said Rachel. ‘Warm and dark and I smell of coriander.’
‘Perfect,’ said Eliza.
‘But of all the colours…’
‘Yes?’
‘They’re just in my head. They don’t really exist.’
‘And yet you can see them.’
‘Yes. I can.’
‘And I can see you.’
‘So I’m not missing, after all.’
‘Not any more,’ said Eliza. ‘We found you.’

All that seems to explain a lot about what is going on throughout the book.

We begin the book with Eliza and Rachel, a gay couple who decide to start a family with the help of a friend. Rachel becomes pregnant to Hal, who is in a relationship with Greg. After that Arthur is born. One night in bed, Rachel thinks that an ant crawls into her eye and after the birth of Arthur she is diagnosed with a brain tumour. All of that is pretty straightforward. Everything after that is complicated, as we have one chapter narrated by the ant, which is nibbling away on Rachel’s tumour and we have Arthur who becomes an astronaut flying missions to Mars. We also enter a parallel universe in which the older Arthur returns early from one mission to a future earth where his mother Rachel did not die and he was not raised by Eliza and his surrogate father Hal.
So yes, we have the unusual bedfellows of both philosophy and science fiction. And obviously, because one of the characters is called Hal, we have a clever computer in there somewhere, this one called Zeus.

This review is becoming impossible to write without hundreds of spoilers, and even as I look back at the book with the benefit of the distance of a couple of days, I am still discovering new information and explanations for things in the book.
For example, throughout some of the stories there were words – commands from a computer system in different font; in the initial story of Rachel and Eliza, the ant and the final stories about Zeus and space. In the first story you have no idea why there should be this computer speak there, and so I ignored it, probably didn’t even read it, skipping on to the next line. The consequence of that was that when it re-appeared, I also ignored it and didn’t see the linkage until very late in the book. There are bound to be a million other things I didn’t spot.

Some scenes are beautifully written. In the first chapter Rachel and Eliza go to see a psychiatrist to talk about the real or imagined ant in the eye. Eliza continues to go, and once Rachel is diagnosed to be terminal, the most haunting of discussions takes place in the therapy session:
’How are you doing?’ Dr Marshall settled into her chair.
‘Rachel’s chemo finished on Monday. She’s very quiet. Bus she doesn’t feel sick any more.’
‘And you?’
‘I miss her.’
‘How?’
‘She’s dying.’
Eliza looked towards the window at the far end of the office. She remembered Rachel leaning against it the first time they came to the house. Pressing her head to the glass.
‘And that changes how you feel about her?’
‘Everything we do together is in the past,’ Eliza said.
‘In what way?’
‘She hasn’t got long. A year, maybe. Each day that passes is the last one.’
‘Aren’t all our lives like that?’ Dr Marshall nodded.
‘But we don’t have the luxury of denial.
‘You think it would be better if you didn’t know?’
Eliza shrugged. ‘There isn’t some other Rachel who didn’t get tested or who doesn’t have a tumour.’
…
‘Is that what you want? A different Rachel?’
‘I want none of this to have happened.’
‘Where would you start erasing the past?’
Eliza looked away.”

I thought this was particularly realistic and well written. Also, knowing what you know at the end of the book makes this conversation take on a whole different significance.

We move back in time to consider Elizabeth, Rachel’s mother. I love some of the pieces here:
“Slumped against the mirror in her bedroom, Elizabeth allowed herself a small recollection. The beautiful Turkish boy, or was he Greek, deftly unclasping her bikini top. He had not lacked imagination. She forced the memory back into its proper place; buried beneath a life’s good behaviour. Rachel was never like that boy because she had never met him and did not know about him.”

And Elizabeth’s relationship with her daughter Rachel:
“’Oh, mum, just say I’m a lesbian,’ Rachel told her when Elizabeth asked what she should tell the hairdresser who wanted to know why she hadn’t seen Rachel for so long.
‘What on earth has that got to do with it?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘And why do you want the whole world to know what is personal to you?’
‘Do you worry about telling people you’re straight? Your daughter is a lesbian,’ Rachel said, ‘I realise it’s hard for you to say. Try and say it on your own sometime. Or in your head.’ Her daughter took a deep breath. ‘Try and…imagine saying it.’
Elizabeth paused. Rachel was completely impossible to reason with when she was in this mood. ‘You’re so funny, darling.’
Neither of them laughed.”

This piece is description from the ant inside Rachel’s head:
“Images flood me with colour and sensation. Scenes from her day, memories of child time, dreams of the future. Visions saturated with ideas, thoughts, emotions. They fly through me too fast to catch, only the sediment remains. Sadness, joy, the scent of lemon rind, the pleasure-glide of skin on skin, a taste of hops, of salt, a scattering of dust in sunlight, a sliver of hope. Confused by the fall, the feelings leave their mark, unprocessed. When the moment passes, the husk of me lies stunned upon the caul.”

Towards the end of the book the operating system, Zeus, says: ”You exist because of me and I exist because of you. We need each other, Arthur, and it is this version of you that has the greatest chance of success. I am sorry that I have isolated you from your own remembered timeline, but the calculation was made in order to facilitate this moment, here in the library in Houston, Texas, on the fourteenth of May 2041, human years.” Arthur is sent to the library to find a book by “Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote.” This is actually a fictional character created by Jorge Luis Borges in the book ‘Ficciones’ (1944). The story is in the form of a literary review of this eccentric French writer and his attempt to go beyond a translation of Don Quixote by being able to re-create it line for line. Menard therefore becomes a way to raise questions about authorship, appropriation and interpretation. A perfect symbol to use in the story.

As you discover all these little facts and intricacies about the book, you can become lost in the deeper meanings and the cleverness of the writing. I am sure that many elements have passed well above my head, which is always interesting to know that there are other potential readings and interpretations left to discover.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing set of linked short stories that combine philosophy and science fiction. Rachel and Eliza are preparing to have a baby together when an ant crawls into Rachel’s eye and she falls ill. Eliza wants to believe her partner but, as a scientist, can’t affirm something that doesn’t make sense (“We don’t need to resort to the mystical to describe physical processes,” she says). Other chapters travel to Turkey, Brazil and Texas – and even into space. It takes 60+ pages to figure out, but you can trust all the threads will converge around Rachel and her son, Arthur, who becomes an astronaut. I was particularly taken by a chapter narrated by the ant (yes, really) as it explores Rachel’s brain. Each section is headed by a potted explanation of a thought experiment from philosophy. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the alternative future of the two final chapters. Still, I was impressed with the book’s risk-taking and verve. It’s well worth making a rare dip into sci-fi for this one.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Meggie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book reminds me of the contemporary art you see at Tate Modern. If you have an eye for it, it’s a masterpiece, but if you don’t, it’s just splotches on a canvas and the whole thing is lost on you to the extent that you question whether it’s really ‘art’ at all. Too much Big Brain Energy for my pea head

[Katerina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Николь Краусс грустит в стороне: рассказ о любви от имени муравья она так и не отважилась придумать.

[jrendocrine at least reading is good · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I had known what this book was really about - rather than the handwaving and posturing about what it is supposed to be about - pretty sure I would not have read it. So I'm gonna put it on the line.

The reviews promise philosophical thought experiments to be played out within a cast of intertwined people. It starts that way, with pretty darn clunky writing, the people just barely hanging on to their descriptions. This reader (me, not the other hopeful me) gets annoyed, returning to reviews to figure out why this book was long-listed for the Booker (?). I’m looking for the deep, the promised beauty, the “creative daring” or what all –

I’m thinking, I just don’t get the philosophy?

And then, bang, the book’s science fiction* – or maybe philosophy that has transcended into science? The writing is still clunky but now with parallel universes. Some weird code, some annoying Matrix stylings. An ant for an earwig for a hyper-intelligent AI that controls all of everything.

Well, people loved it a lot. I thought it was boring and overrated -- and I didn’t learn philosophy. But maybe I’m just stubborn.

*I love SF, and have read it all my life.

[Darryl Suite · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a trip!! This book just kept on getting weirder and weirder while maintaining the relatable human story at its core. I don't think I understood it all, and I'm okay with that. More than okay with that. Mind bending, stimulating, and gave me loads to think about. Loved this.

Why can't there be something else to read by Sophie Ward?? I'll be on the lookout for this author.