Piąty wymiar

by Martin Vopěnka, Elżbieta Zimna (translator)

Bohater powieści – Jakub – to zbankrutowany biznesmen, który zapisuje się do tajemniczego eksperymentu. Za udział w nim amerykańska firma Free Year oferuje duże pieniądze. Ale uczestnik ryzykuje – nie może poznać celu przedsięwzięcia. Musi wyjechać w argentyńskie góry, gdzie przez rok będzie odcięty od rodziny i jakiegokolwiek kontaktu ze światem. W eksperymencie dopuszcza się zabranie ze sobą jednej książki. Czy ma wziąć Biblię, czy książkę o fizyce kwantowej? Wysoko w Andach, w specjalnie wybudowanym bunkrze, Jakub będzie musiał skonfrontować się z nowym doświadczeniem. Zło i seks, które spokojny biznesmen znał przecież ze swojego życia, tu będą dla niego wstrząsającym wyzwaniem.

Genres: Novels

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Spisovatel, cestovatel a táta čtyř dětí.

Spisovatelem jsem chtěl být vlastně už od chvíle, kdy jsem se naučil psát. Psal jsem nejprve básničky, později, na střední škole, povídky. Dokonce jsem tehdy vyhrál dvě literární soutěže, přestože mé povídky daleko překračovaly to, co bylo za komunistického režimu povolené. Od socialistické přítomnosti, neoblíbené školy (studoval jsem Fakultu jadernou a fyzikálně inženýrskou na ČVUT) a autoritativní tatínkovy výchovy jsem začal „utíkat“ do hor.

Reviews

[Nikki "The Crazie Betty" V. · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were so many things in this book that should've made it be right up my alley. Instead I feel disappointed and like I wasted my time reading it. Still have no idea what the point of the story of was. This book was classified as science fiction but I would have to disagree with that genre tag. This was fantasy, magical realism, philosophy, or just plain contemporary, but not sci-fi. I'm going to do my best to give a decent review but I'm still upset by how much I didn't enjoy this so I'm hoping my review doesn't come off too jumbled or ranty.

Jakub has volunteered for a secret science project in which he will be all alone in an unknown place for a year's amount of time, while his wife and two young children stay behind. But with $200,000 as the payout for completing the experiment, it doesn't seem like too much of sacrifice for the family.

I honestly couldn't even remotely get into this story until about 38%, once Jakub is completely on his own and things start happening. I'm not using the word "things" to be secretive or anything, I'm using as in finally something, ANYTHING, happened besides the MC thinking about sex and preparing for his trip. Jakub was allowed to bring one book with him to his solitude and so he chooses a tomb of physics as he used to be a physicist until he decided to open his own business. I actually really enjoyed the sections that delved really deep into the physics aspect and the discussion of black holes. That was basically the entire highlight of the book for me. I didn't find it emotionally engaging, and the mystery/murder was just a blip on the radar as far as I'm concerned. It didn't really do anything for the story at all, in my opinion.

Here are my basic reactions to the story overall:

* The whole point of Jakub going on this experiment is that he has been out of physics too long, therefore doesn't feel like he can do that job again, and that his business went down the hole. He can't find it in himself to work a "normal" job or to be his own boss again, so this seems like the best option so that he doesn't have to work at all for 10 years. I really really hate this entire character view as it shows Jakub to be an immature irresponsible parent and husband, IMO. Whah Whah Whah, I don't want to work for myself or have to get a job so I'm just going to leave my family for a year because I'm selfish and only care about money.

* The ending just made me feel like I didn't know what was real or wasn't real for the entire duration for the read, which just left me feeling like I wasted my time and that there truly was no point to reading the book. Again, this is not sci-fi, it's magical realism. The fact that it's marketed as sci-fi leaves you to believe that for all intents and purposes, there should be actual explanations for things that are happening, not just philosophical mumbo jumbo (I don't have anything against philosophy or theology, except when it's marketed as something it's not).

* The Fifth Dimension- I'm pretty sure a lot of my complaints above were done to try and push across this idea of the fifth dimension but it just didn't translate to me at all. There's a lot of talk about it but after all of the MC's experiences, there's really nothing to show how the fifth dimension actually affected anything. It just seemed like a lot of talk to fill the pages.

I don't believe that my complaints above had anything to do with this being a translated work as it wasn't the translations that left me feeling upset. It was the story itself and how it was misrepresented as being a genre is obviously wasn't. Just because you talk about black holes and time/space in your book does not automatically make it sci-fi.

This book totaled in at just under 300 pages but I truly felt, by the time I was done with it, that I had read a 700 page purpley prose of a monster.

I received a copy of this book free from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Translated from the Czech by Hana Sklekova, The Fifth Dimension is a mind-bending exploration of physics, spirituality, humanity, sexuality and the effect of isolation and separation on one’s psyche. It’s not a light read at all, but it is compelling.

Read my full review on Literogo.

[Steven Shaviro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, translated from the Czech, has the *feel* of science fiction, even though it is set in the present, and all the technology in the novel is stuff that actually exists today. The reason for this science-fictional feel is that the narrative is an alienating one, and it involves metaphysical speculation. A Czech man agrees to leave his family and spend a year entirely alone, in the high Andes, at the behest of a mysterious corporation whose rationale is never explained, but which offers him and his family a large sum of money (which they desperately need) if he sticks out the year. The man is cut off from all communication with the outside world, and he only can only take one book with him to read (it is a pop-science book about black holes). What we get is the man's own narration, in nearly 100 short chapters, of his experiences. He gets bored; he conceives projects to pass the time; he responds to the sublimity of the landscape at 16,000 feet above sea level; he imagines what is going on with his family in his absence; he does come to have a few encounters with other human beings despite his distance from civilization -- he meets an Indian hunter, he observes and later talks with a group of hikers from his home country the Czech Republic, he has several strange visits from people from the corporation that sent him there. From these slender materials, he concocts ever-more-florid narratives that may or may not correspond to reality (he is convinced, for instance, that the hikers have murdered one of their number through an Inca ritual conducted on the peak of nearby mountain); and the combination of the stark landscape and his reading about black holes leads him to develop a whole metaphysics of the "fifth dimension," which is supposedly the realm of spirit, beyond the 4 dimensions of spacetime in physics (these meditations actually follow very traditional mystical themes, but the narrator is unaware of all this, and convinced he has made an entirely new discovery). The whole novel is really about how the narrator is radically changed by his experience of isolation, how he both grows (in a way) and totally falls apart. The reader is led to simultaneously empathize with the narrator and distrust him; the novel has an obsessive power despite its minimalism of expression.

[Jan Klat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Začátek zajímavý, ale postupně se zamotává a přestává dávat smysl. Mix teorií obecné relativity a kvantové mechaniky s "něčím mystickým". Nejsem puritán, ale autorova posedlost sexem mi přišla přehnaná.

[companion_book · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Czy nie lepiej jest stać pewnie na nogach w świecie, który jest dla nas oczywisty, niezależnie od tego, czy go stworzył, czy nie stworzył Bóg? Czy nie lepiej jest patrzeć na rozgwieżdżone niebo jak na piękny obraz? Czy nie lepiej nie porzucać tego, co jest możliwe do poznania w naturalny dla nas sposób, i tylko tego się trzymać? Zostać osobą solidnie przywiązaną do swoich zmysłów?

Moja relacja z tą lekturą jest bardzo niejednoznaczna. Z jednej strony, mocno odczuwałam "ową specyficzność" i nie mogę nie przyznać, że w niektórych momentach czułam się tą pozycją zmęczona. Z drugiej zaś strony, nie mogę jej nie docenić. Zachęca do refleksji i budzi to niejasne, ale dość fascynujące i nowe dla mnie uczucie: niepewności, podejrzliwości co do opisywanych zdarzeń, co do samego bohatera i jego wyobrażeń.

Określenie tej książki "esejem filozoficznym", jest trafne i warto potraktować je całkiem poważnie, by się nie rozczarować, by nie stawiać tej pozycji obok opowieści przygodowych czy sensacyjnych. Sam koncept może sugerować tego typu historię, ale w rzeczywistości to jest coś zupełnie innego.
Nastawcie się na sporą dawkę rozważań o ludzkiej kondycji, o miejscu człowieka we wszechświecie. I niech was nie zdziwi, że obok wielkich wynurzeń o naukowym charakterze, pojawi się zaraz scena seksu, opisana "bez ogródek", w najbardziej przyziemny, dosadny sposób jak tylko to możliwe. Takie kontrasty, to w "Piątym wymiarze" nic zaskakującego i dziwnego.

[Sunastrom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zaczynasz czytać tę książkę, i już opis Mariusza Szczygła ci nie do końca pasuje - ale czekasz;
Zauważasz pierwsze oznaki i podstawy do obaw o głównego bohatera, rozumiesz go, ale czekając na rozwój fabularny przechodzisz przez kolejne piętra wieżowca, jesteś wykończony przez tę niezmienną, powolną, choć dobrze opisaną i wplecioną w myśli bohatera fizykę;
Stajesz się znużony, ale widzisz, że to wszystko jest po coś, wypatrujesz horyzontu;
Plot twist, który niektórzy mogliby uznać za mało moralny w literaturze;
o cholera yoo, teorie w twojej głowie zaczynają się przeplatać;
im dalej czytasz, tym bardziej rozumiesz majstersztyk tej książki, ale czekasz na rozwiązanie;
Na ostatnich 5 stronach już rozumiesz, że ta ciężka przeprawa była tego warta.
A rozwiązanie... powoduje u ciebie mdłości.
Rozumiesz opis Mariusza Szczygła.

[Ewelina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nie, nie i jeszcze raz nie. Pomijając końską dawkę fizyki, która wcale nie została przedstawiona w sposób jasny dla laika i opóźniała akcję, po lekturze mam więcej pytań niż odpowiedzi. Nie poznałam odpowiedzi na pytanie, dla której męczyłam tę książkę. Od bardzo dawna nie byłam tak bardzo rozczarowana książką. Mam poczucie, że pomysł był fajny, przemyślenia egzystencjalne ok, ale zabrakło inwencji do rozwinięcia fabuły. Rozpoczęte wątki zostały porzucone dla mglistych i niejasnych tłumaczeń. A ja zostałam sfrustrowana z poczuciem bycia oszukaną.

[czikitajło · Rating 1 out of 5]

Szczerze, to nawet nie zrozumiałam, o co chodziło w tym całym eksperymencie. Czytanie tego było bardzo żmudną czynnością, główny bohater myśli jedynie o ruchaniu, o swoich wizjach jak go żona zdrarza (które w sumie nie są wizjami, bo ma jakieś dar telepatii z dupy), dodatkowo czyta sobie jakąś książkę o fizyce i w sumie to jedyny ciekawy element tej książki. Najpierw sobie myślałam, że autor tworzy płytki obraz płytkich bohaterów, żeby później wszystko się jakoś magicznie przemieniło i olaboga oświecenie duchowe, ale koniec końców nic się w tym zakresie zbytnio nie zmieniło.

[Rob P · Rating 1 out of 5]

NOTHING IS RESOLVED
Sure it's cute to keep things up in the air, but considering so much of this novel is driven by mystery, to end with absolutely nothing clarified is an extreme waste of time. Not as bad as the pseudo-intellectual ramblings about the nature of the universe, but close. It's like 'Sophie's World' except the only thing that goes anywhere is his imagination.

[Karolina W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Książka z początku może faktycznie inna. Sposób prowadzenia narracji, jakieś powtórzenia. Nawiązania do fizyki niczym Cixin Liu. Porwała mnie. Przez cały czas poddawałam ją refleksji. Zastanawiałam się co jest realne a co nie. Na czym polega eksperyment. Chętnie sięgnę po „Podróżowanie z Beniaminem”. Autor godny zapamiętania.

[Agata · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high(er) expectations. The story did not grasp my full attention, and chapter-long divagations on dark matter and black holes lost me entirely. No, thank you.

[Viking Jam · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://koeur.wordpress.com/2015/08/1...

Publisher: Barbican

Publishing Date: August 2015

ISBN: 9781909954090

Genre: SciFi

Rating: 2.8/5

Publisher Description: Your business is dead. It seems like a deal – leave your family behind in Prague for a year, isolate yourself in a research station in the Andes, and come home with a fortune. With a treatise on black holes for company, Jakob settles in at altitude. The air is thin. Strangers pass by on dangerous pilgrimage while his young wife and kids take life in his mind. In mountain starkness, the big questions take shape – like what happens to love inside a black hole?

Review: **Some kind of spoilers that trip along the edge of reveal so proceed aware.**

Alone on a mountain top, Martin is either focused on spiritual revelations or creating scenarios where his wife is having sex with him or other men. The corporation that hired him to sit on top of an Andes mountain like a hermit mystic has a manipulative degenerate operative (Denis) whose sexual advances erode the straightness right out of Martin. They eventually have weird gay sex after Denis jacks off in his refrigerator. So what does this have to do with the story line and plot? Absolutely nothing. Why is he being paid to be on a mountain top in the Andes? Who knows.

As Martin comes to grip with being alone (sort of) his understanding of the fabric of our universe and the spiritual element expands to encompass his own personal gestalt. These experiences take him into unexpected places of both the internal and external kind.

This was an unusual read. The writing was very good and the characters well developed. The scenes are rendered to the point where you feel that you are standing there with dumbass on a mountain top. The story line is easy to follow yet gets inserted with these weird instances that seem more like a vehicle for the author to purge his own personal demons/desires. The “spiritual” philosophy created by Martin as the fifth dimension (not the soul/R&B group) is funky but also seems to reflect the authors own personal philosophy as there are pages and pages of dialogue devoted to it.

For the minimal and austere storyline, I was ok. It lost a star due to the ending.

[Ted Mahsun · Rating 2 out of 5]

Martin Vopenka's novel, though given the label of science fiction, reads more like a magical realist escapade through philosophy, sprinkled with liberal doses of space-time theories. The result is a novel that reads more like Milan Kundera rather than something more traditionally placed in the realm of science fiction.

The Fifth Dimension starts out promisingly. A Czech man, Jakub, who built a successful career in construction after the fall of Communism suddenly finds himself broke after his business prospects vanish one by one.

Desperate, he answers a mysterious ad from an equally mysterious organization that promises him US$200,000 if he takes part in an experiment that involves spending a year in solitude out in the mountains of Argentina. He takes with him only one book, Black Holes & Time Warps by Kip Thorne, and so spends his time lost not only in loneliness and paranoia but also in multidimensional physics theories.

Unfortunately, the plot takes too long to build and there were many moments where I found myself flipping through the pages, wondering when something interesting would happen. Something interesting does happen, but by then I noticed I was already more than half way through the book.

Thankfully, the writing (or perhaps the translation offered by Hana Sklenkova) makes it an easy read, and Jakub's often ponderously long monologues about black holes and space and time are actually quite interesting, considering how these are advanced topics which are rarely accessible to a layman.

In the end, I found the reveal of what the fifth dimension of the title actually is to be quite disappointing. The author might have known he'd be questioned for it, and so he has Jakub say this, (probably on his behalf): "I worry that people won't appreciate the simple truthfulness of my basic idea. Precisely because it is that simple."

Simple it may be, but still disappointing. And, like the story, which hinges on a simple concept that doesn't deliver a satisfying payoff, The Fifth Dimension ultimately proves to be a let down.

This review was made possible by an ARC from NetGalley.

[Russell · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first third of the book, the setup for the experiment, was well written and surprisingly engaging for what was essentially an extended prologue. Once Jakub arrives at this bunker in the mountains I was expecting a exploration of his solitary life and the continuation of existential crisis he had been going through in Prague. To certain extent that is what you get and perhaps I would have enjoyed the novel more if it had been limited to that. But life on the mountain never seems as solitary as expected, visits from Denis the stalker, Howard the adulterer, the Czech (really!) pagan mountaineering team, Fabien (the oddly named and motiveless). I admit that there might be weeks between each of these visits but there is little sense of time passing. I missed any narrative of boredom and solitude, of a man vanishing into his own head. His flights of theory regarding the fifth dimension are difficult to follow but, I think, coherent, however I stopped taking them seriously at p222-223 where the arrogance of his theory of the universe only existing for intelligent thought threw me. It is difficult to form an opinion on the central question of whether or not Jakub is actually linked to his family in Prague (and others) via the fifth dimension of if he is just suffering a breakdown, as I never really felt I knew Jakub even though he is the sole narrator. The ending is well conceived, leaving me wondering if he ever physically returned to the bunker or if he was only present via the 5th dimension, and of course who is banging on the door. In a way the ending is betrayed by what came before, it would not surprise me if it was written far earlier than the rest of the novel.

[Katerina · Rating 3 out of 5]

a ten konec bylo jako co?