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The Revelations
An edgy and ambitious debut by a powerful new voice in contemporary literary fiction
Monday, Kierk wakes up. Once a rising star in neuroscience, Kierk Suren is now homeless, broken by his all-consuming quest to find a scientific theory of consciousness. But when he’s offered a spot in a prestigious postdoctoral program, he decides to rejoin society and vows not to self-destruct again. Instead of focusing on his work, however, Kierk becomes obsessed with another project—investigating the sudden and suspicious death of a colleague. As his search for truth brings him closer to Carmen Green, another postdoc, their list of suspects grows, along with the sense that something sinister may be happening all around them.
The Revelations, not unlike its main character, is ambitious and abrasive, challenging and disarming. Bursting with ideas, ranging from Greek mythology to the dark realities of animal testing, to some of the biggest unanswered questions facing scientists today, The Revelations is written in muscular, hypnotic prose, and its cyclically dreamlike structure pushes the boundaries of literary fiction. Erik Hoel has crafted a stunning debut of rare power—an intense look at cutting-edge science, consciousness, and human connection.
Monday, Kierk wakes up. Once a rising star in neuroscience, Kierk Suren is now homeless, broken by his all-consuming quest to find a scientific theory of consciousness. But when he’s offered a spot in a prestigious postdoctoral program, he decides to rejoin society and vows not to self-destruct again. Instead of focusing on his work, however, Kierk becomes obsessed with another project—investigating the sudden and suspicious death of a colleague. As his search for truth brings him closer to Carmen Green, another postdoc, their list of suspects grows, along with the sense that something sinister may be happening all around them.
The Revelations, not unlike its main character, is ambitious and abrasive, challenging and disarming. Bursting with ideas, ranging from Greek mythology to the dark realities of animal testing, to some of the biggest unanswered questions facing scientists today, The Revelations is written in muscular, hypnotic prose, and its cyclically dreamlike structure pushes the boundaries of literary fiction. Erik Hoel has crafted a stunning debut of rare power—an intense look at cutting-edge science, consciousness, and human connection.
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First published April 6, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
March 23, 2021
The Revelations will be one of the most complicated yet intriguing books you read this year. An academic group studying the science of consciousness written in a literary style with a murder mystery? There's a lot going on but also a lot to take away from this reading experience.
I suggest instead of going over the description of this under Goodreads I'd search up the author and read a little bit about his background. While The Revelations is also a whodunit, it has a lot of information regarding the characters' study on theories of consciousness and animal testing and is a pretty integral part of the story. Take the science bits from Dark Matter and make them even more sophisticated.
While all of that might sound daunting, you luckily don't need to be a science genius to get full enjoyment out of The Revelations. What's important is getting a general idea of the concepts, and the specifics aren't essential to understanding.
As much science as there is in this book there is even more character development. Kierk and Carmen are obvious highlights along with other scientists like Max, Karen, and Alex. We get to explore how they all ended up in this field and possible suspicious motives. I especially liked some of Carmen's backstory and how balancing different identities can be difficult when something isn't your true passion.
I always try to recommend authentic reading experiences, and I've had a lot of them this year. The Revelations is no exception, and a lot of things that I would've never thought of reading about ended up capturing my attention.
I suggest instead of going over the description of this under Goodreads I'd search up the author and read a little bit about his background. While The Revelations is also a whodunit, it has a lot of information regarding the characters' study on theories of consciousness and animal testing and is a pretty integral part of the story. Take the science bits from Dark Matter and make them even more sophisticated.
While all of that might sound daunting, you luckily don't need to be a science genius to get full enjoyment out of The Revelations. What's important is getting a general idea of the concepts, and the specifics aren't essential to understanding.
As much science as there is in this book there is even more character development. Kierk and Carmen are obvious highlights along with other scientists like Max, Karen, and Alex. We get to explore how they all ended up in this field and possible suspicious motives. I especially liked some of Carmen's backstory and how balancing different identities can be difficult when something isn't your true passion.
I always try to recommend authentic reading experiences, and I've had a lot of them this year. The Revelations is no exception, and a lot of things that I would've never thought of reading about ended up capturing my attention.
November 25, 2024
Somewhere within The Revelations there is a clever, taut literary thriller buried under 400 pages of breathless, cringeworthy prose about the interior life of a pretentious douche who thinks he's a fascinating genius.
Kierk Suren (a reference to "Søren Kierkegaard," get it?) is a disgraced former grad student living out of his car in LA when he gets word of being accepted into a neuroscience fellowship at NYU investigating a theory of consciousness.
The fellowship provides Kierk with some fantastic perks like a paid apartment in Greenwich Village and a cushy stipend, allowing him to explore New York's bars night after night with his fellow Crick Scholars, who all seem to view the city from a tourist's perspective.
When his lab partner gets hit by a subway train after one of these drunken outings, Kierk and his love interest Carmen suspect foul play. Carmen happens to also be a runway model and the second smartest neuroscientist in the group (after Kierk, of course). To investigate, they infiltrate local political groups opposed to primate research and the notion of a theory of consciousness.
There are some fascinating ideas explored here, such as a neuroscientist trying to understand consciousness while investigating a mystery. But it's hard to root for one-note characters and harder to slog through reams of awkward, pretentious prose.
Kierk Suren (a reference to "Søren Kierkegaard," get it?) is a disgraced former grad student living out of his car in LA when he gets word of being accepted into a neuroscience fellowship at NYU investigating a theory of consciousness.
The fellowship provides Kierk with some fantastic perks like a paid apartment in Greenwich Village and a cushy stipend, allowing him to explore New York's bars night after night with his fellow Crick Scholars, who all seem to view the city from a tourist's perspective.
When his lab partner gets hit by a subway train after one of these drunken outings, Kierk and his love interest Carmen suspect foul play. Carmen happens to also be a runway model and the second smartest neuroscientist in the group (after Kierk, of course). To investigate, they infiltrate local political groups opposed to primate research and the notion of a theory of consciousness.
There are some fascinating ideas explored here, such as a neuroscientist trying to understand consciousness while investigating a mystery. But it's hard to root for one-note characters and harder to slog through reams of awkward, pretentious prose.
April 30, 2021
I have never read anything quite so pompous and bloated. I have stuck with the book on the assumption that the author was perhaps being ironic about the book’s main character, Kierk, but I concluded at the end that actually Kierk was made out to be a sad, misunderstood genius. As in, he was actually seriously presented and expected to be relatable by the reader.
I stopped when I got to the part with the dramatic dialogue between two representations of Kierk’s mind. I just could not go on any longer. I could not stand it.
I don’t know if the purpose of the book was really to make the reader feel stupid, or it was just a side effect of the author being so completely wrapped up in his research up on that ivory tower, that he did not stop to think that a general audience reader would not be familiar with Bolzmann, or automatons, or quantum physics, or a variety of other far-fetched, arcane philosophical implications of the mind-body problem, and a bunch of other random and unrelated philosophical musings in many unrelated fields of study. I myself could only understand some things in the book because I have a graduate degree in a related field. I cannot imagine someone who did not have the good fortune to be educated in prestigious universities in the United States, to be able to understand the majority of the rants and musings in this book without extended reading of a number of textbooks and dictionaries. The elitism of this is absurd.
Here is a fine example that pretty much sums up the book. At some point there is a description of some sort of an apparition smelling like “ambergris.” I happen to know what ambergris is: it’s whale shit. If the author cannot stoop down to us mere mortals and use something like, perhaps, “feces” or “excrement”, instead of this unnecessarily rare and arcane word in a just a momentary simple description; if he cannot hold himself back by showing how intelligent he is even in most mundane sentences, and how superior his character (and himself?) are to everybody else, then my verdict of the book is that sadly, it’s a whole load of ambergris.
I stopped when I got to the part with the dramatic dialogue between two representations of Kierk’s mind. I just could not go on any longer. I could not stand it.
I don’t know if the purpose of the book was really to make the reader feel stupid, or it was just a side effect of the author being so completely wrapped up in his research up on that ivory tower, that he did not stop to think that a general audience reader would not be familiar with Bolzmann, or automatons, or quantum physics, or a variety of other far-fetched, arcane philosophical implications of the mind-body problem, and a bunch of other random and unrelated philosophical musings in many unrelated fields of study. I myself could only understand some things in the book because I have a graduate degree in a related field. I cannot imagine someone who did not have the good fortune to be educated in prestigious universities in the United States, to be able to understand the majority of the rants and musings in this book without extended reading of a number of textbooks and dictionaries. The elitism of this is absurd.
Here is a fine example that pretty much sums up the book. At some point there is a description of some sort of an apparition smelling like “ambergris.” I happen to know what ambergris is: it’s whale shit. If the author cannot stoop down to us mere mortals and use something like, perhaps, “feces” or “excrement”, instead of this unnecessarily rare and arcane word in a just a momentary simple description; if he cannot hold himself back by showing how intelligent he is even in most mundane sentences, and how superior his character (and himself?) are to everybody else, then my verdict of the book is that sadly, it’s a whole load of ambergris.
September 4, 2020
I received an ARC & I read this book twice and counting!
THE REVELATIONS is a literary murder mystery and a treatise on the pursuit of knowledge wrapped seamlessly into one book. With prose reminiscent of the best of Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace, Hoel's distinctive style dances through the novel. It's a rare book that can fuse the minutiae of academia with romanticism and paranoia, and the rich internal worlds of the intelligent characters offer readers not just a novel, but a series of explorations across the history of art and science itself.
We follow the journey of Kierk Suren, who dropped out of his PhD program in Wisconsin but is given a second chance at the prestigious Francis Crick Scholarship Program in New York University. Self-assured and insecure at the same time, Kierk's conflict always comes back to discovering a theory of consciousness. When one of the other students falls in front of a subway train (or is pushed?), Kierk and Carmen, another accomplished neuroscientist in the program, decide to investigate.
The haunting scenes where Carmen and Kierk attempt to track down the potential murderer play nicely with their own research into consciousness, with plenty of twists and turns to keep readers guessing right up until the end. The book’s theme is ambiguity and how people deal with ambiguity. This is reflected in its chromatic nature: the book is essentially every genre at different points, from murder mystery to romance to character study to bildungsroman to campus novel to magical realism to science fiction, but it shifts genre in a way that’s not even noticeable unless you’re looking for it.
Many monologues result in beautiful passages where Hoel takes the reader through time and space in a single paragraph. For example, as Kierk contemplates consciousness, we end up in Lithuania in 1941:
“He's reminded of Adolf Lindenabaum's work, who showed that Boolean operators could make a lattice out of the infinite set of all possible theories, all possible models, every thinkable thought of the world – the vast majority of which are wildly incorrect. Lindenabum showed how to order (but not to search) this vast library, which holds all truths... Would any such theory gives tool necessary to describe exactly the inner life of the same Adolf Lindenabum on that beautiful summer day in Lithuania, 1941, as he was rounded up by Nazis along with hundreds of other Jewish intelligentsia, all marched under that cheerful summer sun to a place of deep ashy pits and tall trees and faraway bird calls. Stand around the pit. Line up. Don't look behind you at the deformed faces amid the ashes. Pray. Know that the idea of God is a member of your ordered set of infinite theories, but hope now that He is a member of the by-definition true theories, the set of tautologies, the theories that must necessarily exist.”
There's also Carmen, a brilliant scientist, who is really in a sense the more action-based protagonist as she’s the driving force in the investigation. As Kierk helps her pursue clues regarding the murder, strangers and strange incidents follow them. When she finds a lobotomized dummy outside her apartment as a threat from an unknown assailant, Carmen reflects on the history of the procedure herself:
“She remembers a photograph she'd once seen in class. A 1950s housewife directly facing the camera. The only sign she'd had the operation were the dark bruises under both eyes. Back then a lobotomy was an outpatient procedure performed in fifteen minutes, often on depressed women. Some doctors performed dozens a day and patients would ride home in cabs after.”
Or take Kierk's thoughts about the hierarchy of science itself, represented in his mind as the great world-tree Yggdrasil:
“Philosophy and mathematics at its base and then physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics, and sociology (these branches seem flimsy and enervated at the very top). I linger over Leibniz and race past Rutherford, then have to backtrack until I find Galen standing next to a cot where a diseased man clutches something – a cross? Galen is whispering soothingly in ancient Latin. After a few more figures I come to William Harvey, who stands next to the ghoulish vivisected body of a horse strung up between two thin offshoots of the tree that form an X, a Roman crucifixion, with the valved and chambered great equine heart struggling to contract in the dim light of the candles, and he says to himself - “It's a pump that circulates. A pump! And the body is a complete circuit.”'
It is in these passages where Hoel masterfully combines art and science in a way I think is totally unique.
THE REVELATIONS is a book to have and to cherish. I found it possible to linger on a few pages for a very long time, given the depth of the prose. It feels immensely complex and rich, like it was assembled under hydraulic forces. Hoel's background as a neuroscientist himself plays a big role here, but really it’s his ability as a fiction writer that’s on show, resulting in a murder mystery that is as much about the murder as it is about the mystery of mystery.
THE REVELATIONS is a literary murder mystery and a treatise on the pursuit of knowledge wrapped seamlessly into one book. With prose reminiscent of the best of Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace, Hoel's distinctive style dances through the novel. It's a rare book that can fuse the minutiae of academia with romanticism and paranoia, and the rich internal worlds of the intelligent characters offer readers not just a novel, but a series of explorations across the history of art and science itself.
We follow the journey of Kierk Suren, who dropped out of his PhD program in Wisconsin but is given a second chance at the prestigious Francis Crick Scholarship Program in New York University. Self-assured and insecure at the same time, Kierk's conflict always comes back to discovering a theory of consciousness. When one of the other students falls in front of a subway train (or is pushed?), Kierk and Carmen, another accomplished neuroscientist in the program, decide to investigate.
The haunting scenes where Carmen and Kierk attempt to track down the potential murderer play nicely with their own research into consciousness, with plenty of twists and turns to keep readers guessing right up until the end. The book’s theme is ambiguity and how people deal with ambiguity. This is reflected in its chromatic nature: the book is essentially every genre at different points, from murder mystery to romance to character study to bildungsroman to campus novel to magical realism to science fiction, but it shifts genre in a way that’s not even noticeable unless you’re looking for it.
Many monologues result in beautiful passages where Hoel takes the reader through time and space in a single paragraph. For example, as Kierk contemplates consciousness, we end up in Lithuania in 1941:
“He's reminded of Adolf Lindenabaum's work, who showed that Boolean operators could make a lattice out of the infinite set of all possible theories, all possible models, every thinkable thought of the world – the vast majority of which are wildly incorrect. Lindenabum showed how to order (but not to search) this vast library, which holds all truths... Would any such theory gives tool necessary to describe exactly the inner life of the same Adolf Lindenabum on that beautiful summer day in Lithuania, 1941, as he was rounded up by Nazis along with hundreds of other Jewish intelligentsia, all marched under that cheerful summer sun to a place of deep ashy pits and tall trees and faraway bird calls. Stand around the pit. Line up. Don't look behind you at the deformed faces amid the ashes. Pray. Know that the idea of God is a member of your ordered set of infinite theories, but hope now that He is a member of the by-definition true theories, the set of tautologies, the theories that must necessarily exist.”
There's also Carmen, a brilliant scientist, who is really in a sense the more action-based protagonist as she’s the driving force in the investigation. As Kierk helps her pursue clues regarding the murder, strangers and strange incidents follow them. When she finds a lobotomized dummy outside her apartment as a threat from an unknown assailant, Carmen reflects on the history of the procedure herself:
“She remembers a photograph she'd once seen in class. A 1950s housewife directly facing the camera. The only sign she'd had the operation were the dark bruises under both eyes. Back then a lobotomy was an outpatient procedure performed in fifteen minutes, often on depressed women. Some doctors performed dozens a day and patients would ride home in cabs after.”
Or take Kierk's thoughts about the hierarchy of science itself, represented in his mind as the great world-tree Yggdrasil:
“Philosophy and mathematics at its base and then physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics, and sociology (these branches seem flimsy and enervated at the very top). I linger over Leibniz and race past Rutherford, then have to backtrack until I find Galen standing next to a cot where a diseased man clutches something – a cross? Galen is whispering soothingly in ancient Latin. After a few more figures I come to William Harvey, who stands next to the ghoulish vivisected body of a horse strung up between two thin offshoots of the tree that form an X, a Roman crucifixion, with the valved and chambered great equine heart struggling to contract in the dim light of the candles, and he says to himself - “It's a pump that circulates. A pump! And the body is a complete circuit.”'
It is in these passages where Hoel masterfully combines art and science in a way I think is totally unique.
THE REVELATIONS is a book to have and to cherish. I found it possible to linger on a few pages for a very long time, given the depth of the prose. It feels immensely complex and rich, like it was assembled under hydraulic forces. Hoel's background as a neuroscientist himself plays a big role here, but really it’s his ability as a fiction writer that’s on show, resulting in a murder mystery that is as much about the murder as it is about the mystery of mystery.
March 30, 2021
Thank you, Goodreads, I won this book through your giveaway program.
A dnf, though I got far enough in to rate it.
To use a somewhat archaic term: purple prose. That's what got me. I did like the insight into brain research, consciousness, what makes a me a me and you a you. The characters, too, were fine, and the story was moving along until I got so tired of reading. (I seldom get tired of reading!) Much too much of long-winded, descriptive passages; sentences and paragraphs far too long; of dream sequences; of endlessly describing the characters' many misgivings and inner angst(s.) I just got tired of it.
So I gave up, but still go back to this phrase: purple prose. Or magenta-rose. Pinkish-mauveish-violet prose. Metaphors to the max. Endlessly dreamy dreaming and descriptions without end. I wanted more story. More dialogue. More movement. I wanted to know MORE about these characters and watch them grow, change, mature, speak. But I will say this: this writer can write, it's just that how he writes became too difficult for me to follow.
And for those who gave this book high praise and high marks, wunderbar. Every writer deserves their fans/readers.
Three stars, mostly for striking ideas, daring concepts, and fulsome originality.
A dnf, though I got far enough in to rate it.
To use a somewhat archaic term: purple prose. That's what got me. I did like the insight into brain research, consciousness, what makes a me a me and you a you. The characters, too, were fine, and the story was moving along until I got so tired of reading. (I seldom get tired of reading!) Much too much of long-winded, descriptive passages; sentences and paragraphs far too long; of dream sequences; of endlessly describing the characters' many misgivings and inner angst(s.) I just got tired of it.
So I gave up, but still go back to this phrase: purple prose. Or magenta-rose. Pinkish-mauveish-violet prose. Metaphors to the max. Endlessly dreamy dreaming and descriptions without end. I wanted more story. More dialogue. More movement. I wanted to know MORE about these characters and watch them grow, change, mature, speak. But I will say this: this writer can write, it's just that how he writes became too difficult for me to follow.
And for those who gave this book high praise and high marks, wunderbar. Every writer deserves their fans/readers.
Three stars, mostly for striking ideas, daring concepts, and fulsome originality.
December 1, 2021
I'm not usually a review writer. I'm also the target audience for this book. I have a Galileo tattoo, read about ontology for fun, and actually found out about this novel from the podcast of a Scientific American contributor. This is exactly the type of esoteric physics-meets-fabric-of-reality weird shit that I'm basically neurologically hardwired to like, and I just totally need to throw my frustration about this novel into the universe.
- You need to have an established understanding of neuroscience, physics, and the humanities to get anything from this book. It's riddled in throwaway references that will likely only make sense if you've done the readings (a multi-page dream sequence comes to mind of becoming a bat that is clearly a thinly veiled reference to 'What is it Like to Be a Bat?' which would make absolutely no sense unless you understood the subtext of an edgy academic paper from the 70's).
- There's a good story buried under all the philosophical musings.... but oh man, does it ever muse.
- It is really hard to connect to a character whose entire personality is believing they're the sole proprietor to the solution for the most elusive human mystery, and acting as such. I think the main character is supposed to come across as complex and burdened by the weight of his genius, but he's just arrogant. The problem with writing a character closer to understanding the mystery of consciousness than any other person is that unless the author himself knows something that the scientific community doesn't, there is no way to make that character convincing while also sharing his theories. Almost every idea felt like a retelling of existing theories of consciousness, spun to sound inventive and groundbreaking.
- The leading female character is a leading neuroscientist by day and model by night who is tormented by being both hot and smart. The agony.
- You need to have an established understanding of neuroscience, physics, and the humanities to get anything from this book. It's riddled in throwaway references that will likely only make sense if you've done the readings (a multi-page dream sequence comes to mind of becoming a bat that is clearly a thinly veiled reference to 'What is it Like to Be a Bat?' which would make absolutely no sense unless you understood the subtext of an edgy academic paper from the 70's).
- There's a good story buried under all the philosophical musings.... but oh man, does it ever muse.
- It is really hard to connect to a character whose entire personality is believing they're the sole proprietor to the solution for the most elusive human mystery, and acting as such. I think the main character is supposed to come across as complex and burdened by the weight of his genius, but he's just arrogant. The problem with writing a character closer to understanding the mystery of consciousness than any other person is that unless the author himself knows something that the scientific community doesn't, there is no way to make that character convincing while also sharing his theories. Almost every idea felt like a retelling of existing theories of consciousness, spun to sound inventive and groundbreaking.
- The leading female character is a leading neuroscientist by day and model by night who is tormented by being both hot and smart. The agony.
December 28, 2020
In short, I LOVED this book!
Part murder mystery, part literary fiction, part love story, the author brings us into the world of cutting edge neuroscience, then to the magical realism of greek mythology, then back to the gritty streets of New York City in this intellectually stimulating and beautifully written book. I love learning when I read, and enjoy books with structures which immerse the readers in story - this book does both. The day to day structure gives the book a rhythm and pace that keeps you turning the page as the murder mystery unfolds (but is it a mystery of the investigator's own making?).
It's easy to want to spend more time with the two main characters Kierk and Carmen. Kierk (named for Soren Kierkegaard) is a modern take on the classic 'mad scientist' - he puts his pursuit of the scientific study of consciousness above all else. He's charming, occasionally ridiculous, sometimes abrasive, and has a level of obsession and genius that reminds me of great historical figures. Carmen is our tether to reality - and is really the driving force of the book as she is the one doing the investigating. She's brilliant, logical, independent, curious, and fun. The ending reminded me of 2001: A Space Odyssey - it absolutely blew my mind.
I've read this book twice, and found new layers of connection and meaning the second time around. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is intellectually curious and enjoys books with beautiful writing.
Part murder mystery, part literary fiction, part love story, the author brings us into the world of cutting edge neuroscience, then to the magical realism of greek mythology, then back to the gritty streets of New York City in this intellectually stimulating and beautifully written book. I love learning when I read, and enjoy books with structures which immerse the readers in story - this book does both. The day to day structure gives the book a rhythm and pace that keeps you turning the page as the murder mystery unfolds (but is it a mystery of the investigator's own making?).
It's easy to want to spend more time with the two main characters Kierk and Carmen. Kierk (named for Soren Kierkegaard) is a modern take on the classic 'mad scientist' - he puts his pursuit of the scientific study of consciousness above all else. He's charming, occasionally ridiculous, sometimes abrasive, and has a level of obsession and genius that reminds me of great historical figures. Carmen is our tether to reality - and is really the driving force of the book as she is the one doing the investigating. She's brilliant, logical, independent, curious, and fun. The ending reminded me of 2001: A Space Odyssey - it absolutely blew my mind.
I've read this book twice, and found new layers of connection and meaning the second time around. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is intellectually curious and enjoys books with beautiful writing.
January 3, 2023
The book follows scholars in a fictional NYU research program on consciousness amidst the intrigue of murder, conspiracies, and twenty-something nightlife. The lead protagonist Kierk (Erik?) spent time working on an information theory of consciousness with a professor named Moroni (Tononi?) before giving it up for writing (The Intrinsic Perspective?). I didn’t think it needed to be said, but: it’s probably not a good idea to write a blatantly righteous fan fiction about your own life in which you mic drop as many cool-things-you-know as you can per paragraph, stage a literal shouting match with the stand-in for your real-life past advisor about his intellectual failures, and stage an embarrassingly vivid sex scene with a model-turned-academic (who I sure hope is a stand-in for your wife!), and then call it your best and most important work. The part of the book in which said love interest suspects said professor may take murderous revenge may end up being the least fictional aspect.
I had a suspicion from listening to the author on Sam Harris's podcast that this might be a disappointment. Turns out, where conversations can betray character flaws, novels can be downright character assassinations. The only revelation needed is Erik’s that he should stick with blogs and papers.
Full review: https://derekouyang.medium.com/the-re...
I had a suspicion from listening to the author on Sam Harris's podcast that this might be a disappointment. Turns out, where conversations can betray character flaws, novels can be downright character assassinations. The only revelation needed is Erik’s that he should stick with blogs and papers.
Full review: https://derekouyang.medium.com/the-re...
December 2, 2020
What. Did. I. Just. Read.
I consider myself a very advanced reader but this book was just a little to over my head. A group of neuro-scientists start out on a post-doc to define consciousness and how it affects the human physicality. Kierk who joins them has recently come off a stint of being homeless after having a large mental breakdown and epiphany before finishing his PHD. Utilizing this as a chance to return to society he finds that this was not the true fresh start he thought. Shortly after the program one of the scientists is killed in a horrid subway incident; Kierk bans with a colleague, Carmen, to find out if it was truly an accident or did it have involvement from an activist group that is attempting to stop the scientists testing on animals.
The writing in this book was done very well, character development was great as well. I'm not personally sure if this is how scientists communicate, not being one myself but I had probably 40x in this book where I had to re-read sections, make my own timelines, and I really couldn't tell what was real and what was not. It makes me wonder with the amount of detail if this would be a good movie or TV show instead.
I urge anyone that is curious about this to read it, it's got so many intricate layers and plot lines going on. Thank you NetGalley, Erik Hoel, and Overlook Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I consider myself a very advanced reader but this book was just a little to over my head. A group of neuro-scientists start out on a post-doc to define consciousness and how it affects the human physicality. Kierk who joins them has recently come off a stint of being homeless after having a large mental breakdown and epiphany before finishing his PHD. Utilizing this as a chance to return to society he finds that this was not the true fresh start he thought. Shortly after the program one of the scientists is killed in a horrid subway incident; Kierk bans with a colleague, Carmen, to find out if it was truly an accident or did it have involvement from an activist group that is attempting to stop the scientists testing on animals.
The writing in this book was done very well, character development was great as well. I'm not personally sure if this is how scientists communicate, not being one myself but I had probably 40x in this book where I had to re-read sections, make my own timelines, and I really couldn't tell what was real and what was not. It makes me wonder with the amount of detail if this would be a good movie or TV show instead.
I urge anyone that is curious about this to read it, it's got so many intricate layers and plot lines going on. Thank you NetGalley, Erik Hoel, and Overlook Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
April 17, 2021
Note: I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley to provide an honest review.
Honestly I was /so/ excited heading into this book because it was offering me a postdoc murder mystery written by an actual neuroscientist... what I got was a pretentious, mostly nonsensical, and jargon-heavy discussion on consciousness with dropped plot threads of a murder mystery and a romance thrown in.
I connected with none of the characters. Carmen was written as the Perfect™️ woman with zero flaws, which is weird in comparison to Keirk who is utterly infuriating and pretentious the entire book (the only plus side is that every character except for Carmen acknowledged this). Like... why does Mrs. Perfect like Mr. Anyone-who-doesn’t-agree-with-me-is-useless? Who knows. Not important.
The book was self-indulgent with long winded philosophical discussions on consciousness. It’s /so/ jargon heavy that even being in an adjacent field to neuroscience, I was struggling to follow Kierk’s internal monologues about 82% of the time and we spend the most time in his mind. So unless you have your PhD in Neuroscience and specialise in consciousness- you may feel very lost with this one.
This book had a lot of potential and there were a few moments I did enjoy, but they were vastly overshadowed by the negatives. The omniscient 3rd person was not used very well and contributed to the chaotic feeling by bouncing back and forth between main and side characters. The mystery is never /really/ solved and there’s this really weird sort of supernatural element that hops in at about the 80% mark and just???? This book is just chaotic and needed to pick a lane. I struggled through this book just to write the review. It took me about 2 months.
The author is a distinguished consciousness researcher... but his fiction debut left a lot to be desired and I feel really bad because I wanted so much to love it. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t really recommend it, especially if you, like me were hoping for a nerdy-science murder mystery out of this book.
Honestly I was /so/ excited heading into this book because it was offering me a postdoc murder mystery written by an actual neuroscientist... what I got was a pretentious, mostly nonsensical, and jargon-heavy discussion on consciousness with dropped plot threads of a murder mystery and a romance thrown in.
I connected with none of the characters. Carmen was written as the Perfect™️ woman with zero flaws, which is weird in comparison to Keirk who is utterly infuriating and pretentious the entire book (the only plus side is that every character except for Carmen acknowledged this). Like... why does Mrs. Perfect like Mr. Anyone-who-doesn’t-agree-with-me-is-useless? Who knows. Not important.
The book was self-indulgent with long winded philosophical discussions on consciousness. It’s /so/ jargon heavy that even being in an adjacent field to neuroscience, I was struggling to follow Kierk’s internal monologues about 82% of the time and we spend the most time in his mind. So unless you have your PhD in Neuroscience and specialise in consciousness- you may feel very lost with this one.
This book had a lot of potential and there were a few moments I did enjoy, but they were vastly overshadowed by the negatives. The omniscient 3rd person was not used very well and contributed to the chaotic feeling by bouncing back and forth between main and side characters. The mystery is never /really/ solved and there’s this really weird sort of supernatural element that hops in at about the 80% mark and just???? This book is just chaotic and needed to pick a lane. I struggled through this book just to write the review. It took me about 2 months.
The author is a distinguished consciousness researcher... but his fiction debut left a lot to be desired and I feel really bad because I wanted so much to love it. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t really recommend it, especially if you, like me were hoping for a nerdy-science murder mystery out of this book.
March 13, 2021
dnf
My story with this book is complicated. I've had it for a long while, have been re-downloading the arc constantly, and at first, I had plans on reading this. Then, after I stopped requesting books by white cis male authors after having too many issues with what I read, I began to dread the day I'd be picking this up.
Keep in mind that I'm a firm believer in that your mindset plays a big part in how you like a book.
Yesterday I had a migraine day and might have been a little bit high on pain meds as I decided this is the day, and I picked it up. I didn't last long, but can't tell you how far I got because I was not in the mood to bother with such tiny details.
Our protagonist is pretentious. A white guy, who dropped out of his phd sort of directly before graduation which alone shows how privileged he is, because that shit costs money. He supposedly is very intelligent, but all we see is a guy who sleeps in his car and drinks himself in a stupor every single day. His most urgent concerns are where to park his car for the night. But he is so intelligent and talented! Believe it!
Sure, I know how mental illness can mess with you. But I am not sure the author does.
From the writing and the depiction of the characters alone I know we won't become friends, and instead of suffering through this one, I decided to quit.
I am sorry but that's how it is.
The arc was provided by the publisher.
My story with this book is complicated. I've had it for a long while, have been re-downloading the arc constantly, and at first, I had plans on reading this. Then, after I stopped requesting books by white cis male authors after having too many issues with what I read, I began to dread the day I'd be picking this up.
Keep in mind that I'm a firm believer in that your mindset plays a big part in how you like a book.
Yesterday I had a migraine day and might have been a little bit high on pain meds as I decided this is the day, and I picked it up. I didn't last long, but can't tell you how far I got because I was not in the mood to bother with such tiny details.
Our protagonist is pretentious. A white guy, who dropped out of his phd sort of directly before graduation which alone shows how privileged he is, because that shit costs money. He supposedly is very intelligent, but all we see is a guy who sleeps in his car and drinks himself in a stupor every single day. His most urgent concerns are where to park his car for the night. But he is so intelligent and talented! Believe it!
Sure, I know how mental illness can mess with you. But I am not sure the author does.
From the writing and the depiction of the characters alone I know we won't become friends, and instead of suffering through this one, I decided to quit.
I am sorry but that's how it is.
The arc was provided by the publisher.
September 1, 2020
This book was a challenging read! I consider myself a strong reader, but it was complicated! I liked the main character and his personality twists- he was a man written with much depth- however the plot seemed as if it would never reach its conclusion.
The search for “consciousness” was quite “meta” for me. Perhaps it just wasn’t my favorite genre and I’m not a science buff either. I enjoyed the romantic relationship between the two main characters but found several of the sub-plots confusing or disturbing even.
The details of the scientific testing on apes was sickening to me- well written in that I could truly visualize the brains with the clear half- circled - tops crusted on to their scalps so scientists could view their thinking - so visual it left me nauseating.
I felt a sense of tension every time the apes were described.
I would not recommend this tome as it was too long and I then found its ending abrupt. I’m glad the main characters escaped the scientific lab and the dark city - but felt I waited for too long for it to happen.
The search for “consciousness” was quite “meta” for me. Perhaps it just wasn’t my favorite genre and I’m not a science buff either. I enjoyed the romantic relationship between the two main characters but found several of the sub-plots confusing or disturbing even.
The details of the scientific testing on apes was sickening to me- well written in that I could truly visualize the brains with the clear half- circled - tops crusted on to their scalps so scientists could view their thinking - so visual it left me nauseating.
I felt a sense of tension every time the apes were described.
I would not recommend this tome as it was too long and I then found its ending abrupt. I’m glad the main characters escaped the scientific lab and the dark city - but felt I waited for too long for it to happen.
February 19, 2021
THE REVELATIONS by Erik Hoel is a smart and witty debut novel! The main character Kierk, a consciousness scholar, begins a new program in New York and then one of his fellow scholars dies suddenly. He begins to investigate while also dealing with a budding relationship and the quest to solve his scientific pursuits. A lot of the writing is technical in the neuroscience field and went right over my head but I loved the blend of murder mystery and surrealist elements. It was always a question in this book of what is reality. I liked the unique chapter structure as each chapter is a day in the week which parallels Kierk’s constant journal writing. Overall this is a terrific work of contemporary library fiction and I’d definitely be interested to read more from this author!
.
Thank you The Overlook Press and Abrams Books via NetGalley for my advance review copy!
.
Thank you The Overlook Press and Abrams Books via NetGalley for my advance review copy!
April 26, 2022
- i genuinely can't tell if the mc is meant to be satirical.
- the creepy scenes were sooo gripping i loved them.
- there were huge swaths of text that read like gibberish, as if the writer had just dumped a heap of the first synonyms that appeared in his brain to fill space. almost as if there was no meaning at all in the first place, so that the reader is forced to come to the conclusion that the mc is simply 'too genius'.
- the ending was unconventional but in retrospect it completed the book in the only way i think it could.
this book will be unforgettable but not for the reasons i would like. mostly cos it took me forever to get through, and made me feel like an absolute pleb.
- the creepy scenes were sooo gripping i loved them.
- there were huge swaths of text that read like gibberish, as if the writer had just dumped a heap of the first synonyms that appeared in his brain to fill space. almost as if there was no meaning at all in the first place, so that the reader is forced to come to the conclusion that the mc is simply 'too genius'.
- the ending was unconventional but in retrospect it completed the book in the only way i think it could.
this book will be unforgettable but not for the reasons i would like. mostly cos it took me forever to get through, and made me feel like an absolute pleb.
June 23, 2020
I felt an odd familiarity with the characters, all sort of odd academics dealing with theories of consciousness while in some ways in the throes of academia instead of regular consciousness. It was a bit a Of an academic Paper crossed with a mystery novel. Even with the pacing problems, I liked it.
Thanks to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.
September 3, 2021
This book is about consciousness. The plot is irrelevant. Okay, not irrelevant, but it's not relevant in the way you think.
Or, really, the book is not so much about consciousness. It's about questioning how one can know anything from within the system one is trying to know.
[Note: Skip to the end of this review if you want me to solve the mystery of the book for you.]
This quote from the book sums it up pretty neatly:
The book is essentially applying Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem to consciousness.
The central character is struggling with the paradox: how does one "solve" the mystery of consciousness while using consciousness to solve the mystery? If consciousness is only defined as in relation to an observer of that consciousness, how can you know anything about it is correct?
There's a really fascinating bit towards the end about the paradox of the Boltzmann brain, which I'm going to try to paraphrase (it matters towards the end of this review, I promise). I suppose I could mark this as a spoiler, but come on. (A modern parallel of the BB is "what if we're all living in a simulation?") So here's the rub: if you take a Materialism view of physics, then it's much more likely that any individual human consciousness is a Boltzmann brain rather than an actual brain. But, if that's the case, then everything the brain knows about physics is false, because it's just a momentary flash of the void. In which case it's not more likely that the human consciousness in question is a Boltzmann brain rather than an actual brain. This would have been a nice argument to have in my back pocket in my college freshman year Metaphysics seminar. I'm going to guess that Erik Hoel is not the originator of this philosophical counterargument to the Boltzmann brain concept (if he is, that's amazing! He's a genius!), but the whole thing is wonderfully posed and explained in this book in a way that made me engage with this philosophical material in a new way.
So now let's pull back a bit and talk about the plot and the characters and some quirks of the book that might, in lesser hands, feel like annoying authorly mistakes but in this case seem intentional:
- The POV shifts between characters in unexpected moments. It can be jarring, especially towards the beginning when the reader isn't prepared for it. Sometimes we move into a POV that doesn't ever feel fundamental to the book's through line. One might think the author has broken a writing rule. But my feeling is that this is intentional. The book is playing games with consciousness. We're slipping out of the primary consciousness and into others because we're observing the primary observer. It's content influencing form.
- The plot. Ha ha ha, I don't mean that the plot is a mistake. What I mean is that the plot is never truly resolved. Plus is this supernatural fantasy? So many others make a big deal about this being a literary whodunit, but that's not the point. The point is knowability of anything.
(Addendum to the previous item: Erik Hoel is a great writer, and I enjoyed reading the mystery part of the book. It's totally fine to read a book and exist at the surface level and enjoy the surface level while also digging around in the sump pump of the literary basement.)
- The way every chapter starts with the primary (and sometimes secondary) character waking up from a dream. I admit this got a little wearisome, but it's like two sentences each chapter so not a big deal. Plus the book is doing something here. There are very few moments that are not doing something. Any time the book spins into the primary character's observations, even if he's just looking at trees or buildings, his thoughts are laying down metaphors for consciousness, interconnectedness, and observer bias.
Okay, so, what to make of all of it? What to make of the ending? What's with the feints towards supernatural? I'm here to give you the answer.
Here's the thing: this is a book.
I don't mean that glibly. I mean: it's a book. These aren't actual consciousnesses. Or, in some ways, one can think about a book itself as a kind of Boltzmann brain consciousness. It's a complete unit, backstory through finale, it exists in its book form, is the same moment always, never changes forward or back. Like a Boltzmann brain, a book is a frozen moment in a void.
So when the primary character struggles with how to know anything, when he obsesses over the fact that everything he knows begins from the position of an observer... that has a double meaning. It's a book! The reader is the real observer. The characters can never know anything more than they've been allowed to know.
It's a perfect metaphor for how we can't understand consciousness from within consciousness.
We may not be able to solve the problem of consciousness in the real world, but in the book world... Maybe? Perhaps the main character is on the brink of solving it. But for him, solving the problem of consciousness means something different than it does for us, because he is actually a character in a book. That's a terrifying fourth-wall breaking discovery to make and perhaps what has happened at the end.
Or, really, the book is not so much about consciousness. It's about questioning how one can know anything from within the system one is trying to know.
[Note: Skip to the end of this review if you want me to solve the mystery of the book for you.]
This quote from the book sums it up pretty neatly:
the basic structure of formal systems, defined as a set of axioms and subsequent theorems, inherently means that one cannot derive the axioms of a formal system or formal method from within the system or method . . . axioms must always stand outside of it.
The book is essentially applying Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem to consciousness.
The central character is struggling with the paradox: how does one "solve" the mystery of consciousness while using consciousness to solve the mystery? If consciousness is only defined as in relation to an observer of that consciousness, how can you know anything about it is correct?
There's a really fascinating bit towards the end about the paradox of the Boltzmann brain, which I'm going to try to paraphrase (it matters towards the end of this review, I promise). I suppose I could mark this as a spoiler, but come on. (A modern parallel of the BB is "what if we're all living in a simulation?") So here's the rub: if you take a Materialism view of physics, then it's much more likely that any individual human consciousness is a Boltzmann brain rather than an actual brain. But, if that's the case, then everything the brain knows about physics is false, because it's just a momentary flash of the void. In which case it's not more likely that the human consciousness in question is a Boltzmann brain rather than an actual brain. This would have been a nice argument to have in my back pocket in my college freshman year Metaphysics seminar. I'm going to guess that Erik Hoel is not the originator of this philosophical counterargument to the Boltzmann brain concept (if he is, that's amazing! He's a genius!), but the whole thing is wonderfully posed and explained in this book in a way that made me engage with this philosophical material in a new way.
So now let's pull back a bit and talk about the plot and the characters and some quirks of the book that might, in lesser hands, feel like annoying authorly mistakes but in this case seem intentional:
- The POV shifts between characters in unexpected moments. It can be jarring, especially towards the beginning when the reader isn't prepared for it. Sometimes we move into a POV that doesn't ever feel fundamental to the book's through line. One might think the author has broken a writing rule. But my feeling is that this is intentional. The book is playing games with consciousness. We're slipping out of the primary consciousness and into others because we're observing the primary observer. It's content influencing form.
- The plot. Ha ha ha, I don't mean that the plot is a mistake. What I mean is that the plot is never truly resolved. Plus is this supernatural fantasy? So many others make a big deal about this being a literary whodunit, but that's not the point. The point is knowability of anything.
(Addendum to the previous item: Erik Hoel is a great writer, and I enjoyed reading the mystery part of the book. It's totally fine to read a book and exist at the surface level and enjoy the surface level while also digging around in the sump pump of the literary basement.)
- The way every chapter starts with the primary (and sometimes secondary) character waking up from a dream. I admit this got a little wearisome, but it's like two sentences each chapter so not a big deal. Plus the book is doing something here. There are very few moments that are not doing something. Any time the book spins into the primary character's observations, even if he's just looking at trees or buildings, his thoughts are laying down metaphors for consciousness, interconnectedness, and observer bias.
Okay, so, what to make of all of it? What to make of the ending? What's with the feints towards supernatural? I'm here to give you the answer.
Here's the thing: this is a book.
I don't mean that glibly. I mean: it's a book. These aren't actual consciousnesses. Or, in some ways, one can think about a book itself as a kind of Boltzmann brain consciousness. It's a complete unit, backstory through finale, it exists in its book form, is the same moment always, never changes forward or back. Like a Boltzmann brain, a book is a frozen moment in a void.
So when the primary character struggles with how to know anything, when he obsesses over the fact that everything he knows begins from the position of an observer... that has a double meaning. It's a book! The reader is the real observer. The characters can never know anything more than they've been allowed to know.
It's a perfect metaphor for how we can't understand consciousness from within consciousness.
We may not be able to solve the problem of consciousness in the real world, but in the book world... Maybe? Perhaps the main character is on the brink of solving it. But for him, solving the problem of consciousness means something different than it does for us, because he is actually a character in a book. That's a terrifying fourth-wall breaking discovery to make and perhaps what has happened at the end.
March 18, 2021
I received a complimentary advance copy of this title from the publisher.
This book had a lot going on. Ultimately, that was its downfall. The main character was interesting as was the subject. I know not a thing about neuroscience but was fascinated. It felt at times like two separate novels that were slap-dashed quickly into one with minimal finesse. I think that this will be a love it or hate it book. If nothing else, this is wholly unique and unlike any book I have previously read.
This book had a lot going on. Ultimately, that was its downfall. The main character was interesting as was the subject. I know not a thing about neuroscience but was fascinated. It felt at times like two separate novels that were slap-dashed quickly into one with minimal finesse. I think that this will be a love it or hate it book. If nothing else, this is wholly unique and unlike any book I have previously read.
June 23, 2020
Such a fascinating read. Kierk and Carmen are bright young students accepted into a prestigious programme to work on the scientific understanding of consciousness. Kierk is brilliant but tortured, arrogant and unlikeable to some, a genius whose passion and obsession are to find an overarching theory for consciousness, at times a struggle which brings him towards madness, at other times transcending towards a brilliant enlightenment.
Hoel writes a beautiful dreamscape construct with his prose, and with it is exploring the very concept of reality, the meaning of life, and the fabric of the universe that we each individually perceive. It’s a really ambitious topic and I found it an accomplished piece of writing.
The perspective switches very fluidly at times, which initially was disconcerting but became more integral later on; at times the reader is even unsure what is reality and what is dream; this is clearly deliberate and an important element in the story. I really liked the way the reality of the story constantly unhinged and broke apart, the fear and the madness and the excitement, these feelings of the characters were made manifest in the chaotic telling of the story itself.
Thank you to @Abramsbooks and #Netgalley for the arc to review.
Hoel writes a beautiful dreamscape construct with his prose, and with it is exploring the very concept of reality, the meaning of life, and the fabric of the universe that we each individually perceive. It’s a really ambitious topic and I found it an accomplished piece of writing.
The perspective switches very fluidly at times, which initially was disconcerting but became more integral later on; at times the reader is even unsure what is reality and what is dream; this is clearly deliberate and an important element in the story. I really liked the way the reality of the story constantly unhinged and broke apart, the fear and the madness and the excitement, these feelings of the characters were made manifest in the chaotic telling of the story itself.
Thank you to @Abramsbooks and #Netgalley for the arc to review.
February 28, 2021
This book did not work for me. It felt like two different novels in one. There's the novel that delves into consciousness and questions of neuroscience, and then there's the murder mystery novel. These two felt so disconnected from each other and never ended up coming together in the end that I was left feeling disappointed, and like my reading journey with this story was wasted.
The characters never really felt fleshed out or fully developed, especially the female characters and the shift in narrative voice comes off rather abrupt and jarring causing a lot of confusion in the story. This all leads up to an ending that hasn't earned it's payoff, which could leave many readers feeling dissatisfied.
The characters never really felt fleshed out or fully developed, especially the female characters and the shift in narrative voice comes off rather abrupt and jarring causing a lot of confusion in the story. This all leads up to an ending that hasn't earned it's payoff, which could leave many readers feeling dissatisfied.
June 10, 2021
Amazon? Do you have more stars on Goodreads? I want to give this book more stars!
It is about an intellectual struggle to grasp consciousness. This book has convinced me that consciousness is The philosophical problem. We ask how is it possible that we are us. How the hell am I me? Whatever naturalistic or otherwise explanation gets presented I am like: " yes, but how and why is there an actual undeniable (?) consciousness inside of us"
When it comes to he story there is not much action, but that is how I like books to be. Instead we are immersed in this strange narrative which switches points of view from narration, introspections and raw consciousness POV. But it keeps the story a coherent whole.
Best book of the year I've read so far.
It is about an intellectual struggle to grasp consciousness. This book has convinced me that consciousness is The philosophical problem. We ask how is it possible that we are us. How the hell am I me? Whatever naturalistic or otherwise explanation gets presented I am like: " yes, but how and why is there an actual undeniable (?) consciousness inside of us"
When it comes to he story there is not much action, but that is how I like books to be. Instead we are immersed in this strange narrative which switches points of view from narration, introspections and raw consciousness POV. But it keeps the story a coherent whole.
Best book of the year I've read so far.
March 19, 2021
Not an easy read but an interesting and well written story.
It's very complex and you must love science to fully appreciate it.
I liked the style of writing even if the story is a bit confusing at time.
Interesting characters and plot.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
It's very complex and you must love science to fully appreciate it.
I liked the style of writing even if the story is a bit confusing at time.
Interesting characters and plot.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
July 12, 2022
3.5 stars
Full review on my channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M90hp... and on my blog (thebookdreamersalley.home.blog).
Full review on my channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M90hp... and on my blog (thebookdreamersalley.home.blog).
August 10, 2023
as i write this, i am no more than two minutes past reading the last line on the last page, shutting the book, and placing it on my side table. it took me a long time to finish this one and i’m not quite sure how to formulate all my thoughts so soon after completing it… but i’ll try.
DISCLAIMER: if you can’t get though this long-ass review, you will hate the novel
the revelations was a complicated read for me. at times, hoel’s propensity for long, wandering prose succeeded by the main character kierk’s own meditations on consciousness were fascinating and intriguing. his use of language is unique, and i enjoyed dissecting sentence after sentence. one page could take five minutes if i wanted it to. other times, these felt more like diversions, the author himself regurgitating all of his own thoughts on the matter (as he is a neuroscientist researcher in—no surprise—the field of consciousness). especially as the boom dragged on, it felt self-indulgent, particularly as the novel was attempting to support itself in a deceptively complex plot that maneuvered between reality, subconscious, and the true imagination with little regard for what “makes sense.” don’t get me wrong, i appreciated the complexity of the novel, it certainly scratched an itch i didn’t know i had and encouraged me to think quite deeply about ideas i had never considered. but at times it felt that plot had been abandoned in favor of the author attempting to create something incredible (and not being very subtle about it).
the plot itself was interesting, to say the least. even while struggling to complete the novel, i needed to know how it ended. the main action-inducing plot was solving the mysterious death of their peer but there was of course the attempt to discover a theory for consciousness. hoel did a generally good job of wrapping these two together, but at the same time it felt like the murder mystery was shelved for most of the novel. even the ending (which i found myself surprisingly happy with) seemed to largely ignore that aspect of the story. with that being said, the emotional journey we see kierk take by the end of the novel in relation to the theory of consciousness generally made up for it, as it had him do what i had been begging for him to do the whole novel (without spoiling, i’ll say that he figured out how to take everything just a little less seriously).
something i did really love about the novel was the omniscient pov with which hoel writes. the way that the novel is written as a sort of stream of consciousness that flows through individual characters with little to no warning really enhanced the storytelling element. in a novel about consciousness, it makes a lot of sense to write in a way that experiments with perspective and, well, the consciousness and knowing-power of the narrator itself. when we (and erik hoel and kierk suren) talk about a hive mind intelligence, a futuristic brain-to-brain model where the individualized consciousness is virtually nonexistent (frankly, that’s what he should write next), omniscient storytelling is like a preliminary (very very very preliminary) step in wrapping our heads around what that might mean.
finally, i would be remiss if i didn’t mention the one thing that truly set me over the edge while reading this novel, and that is that i am not entirely sure the author has actually met a woman before (or if he has i don’t think he took the time to actually speak with her). by the end of the book i really came to like carmen, but my god her introduction made me cringe. hoel seems very pleased with himself in having created a “well-rounded” female character when really her primary internal struggle for the majority of the novel was the fact that she is somehow smart AND hot (how crazy). meanwhile, kierk gets to struggle with the biggest questions of the universe. hoel eventually finds a way to give her about as much depth as he can spare while still allowing kierk to keep his title as Tortured Genius.
in all, i am giving this book three stars, a representation of my general enjoyment and interest as well as my frustrations with his authorial choices and my strong belief that his editor could probably have been more strong-willed. i think this book is definitely worth reading but be prepared for a long ride and a very strong desire to find someone else who has read it afterwards
DISCLAIMER: if you can’t get though this long-ass review, you will hate the novel
the revelations was a complicated read for me. at times, hoel’s propensity for long, wandering prose succeeded by the main character kierk’s own meditations on consciousness were fascinating and intriguing. his use of language is unique, and i enjoyed dissecting sentence after sentence. one page could take five minutes if i wanted it to. other times, these felt more like diversions, the author himself regurgitating all of his own thoughts on the matter (as he is a neuroscientist researcher in—no surprise—the field of consciousness). especially as the boom dragged on, it felt self-indulgent, particularly as the novel was attempting to support itself in a deceptively complex plot that maneuvered between reality, subconscious, and the true imagination with little regard for what “makes sense.” don’t get me wrong, i appreciated the complexity of the novel, it certainly scratched an itch i didn’t know i had and encouraged me to think quite deeply about ideas i had never considered. but at times it felt that plot had been abandoned in favor of the author attempting to create something incredible (and not being very subtle about it).
the plot itself was interesting, to say the least. even while struggling to complete the novel, i needed to know how it ended. the main action-inducing plot was solving the mysterious death of their peer but there was of course the attempt to discover a theory for consciousness. hoel did a generally good job of wrapping these two together, but at the same time it felt like the murder mystery was shelved for most of the novel. even the ending (which i found myself surprisingly happy with) seemed to largely ignore that aspect of the story. with that being said, the emotional journey we see kierk take by the end of the novel in relation to the theory of consciousness generally made up for it, as it had him do what i had been begging for him to do the whole novel (without spoiling, i’ll say that he figured out how to take everything just a little less seriously).
something i did really love about the novel was the omniscient pov with which hoel writes. the way that the novel is written as a sort of stream of consciousness that flows through individual characters with little to no warning really enhanced the storytelling element. in a novel about consciousness, it makes a lot of sense to write in a way that experiments with perspective and, well, the consciousness and knowing-power of the narrator itself. when we (and erik hoel and kierk suren) talk about a hive mind intelligence, a futuristic brain-to-brain model where the individualized consciousness is virtually nonexistent (frankly, that’s what he should write next), omniscient storytelling is like a preliminary (very very very preliminary) step in wrapping our heads around what that might mean.
finally, i would be remiss if i didn’t mention the one thing that truly set me over the edge while reading this novel, and that is that i am not entirely sure the author has actually met a woman before (or if he has i don’t think he took the time to actually speak with her). by the end of the book i really came to like carmen, but my god her introduction made me cringe. hoel seems very pleased with himself in having created a “well-rounded” female character when really her primary internal struggle for the majority of the novel was the fact that she is somehow smart AND hot (how crazy). meanwhile, kierk gets to struggle with the biggest questions of the universe. hoel eventually finds a way to give her about as much depth as he can spare while still allowing kierk to keep his title as Tortured Genius.
in all, i am giving this book three stars, a representation of my general enjoyment and interest as well as my frustrations with his authorial choices and my strong belief that his editor could probably have been more strong-willed. i think this book is definitely worth reading but be prepared for a long ride and a very strong desire to find someone else who has read it afterwards
November 25, 2024
Whewph, I almost dropped this a few times so I could put it in my too-pretentious-to-finish booklist, but I do like this guy’s non-fiction articles/blogs. As many people have pointed out the main two characters aren’t even enjoyably hatable. They’re horrifically hatable and bland. Kierk with his pretentious-ass name and his insufferable geniuser-than-thou Wikipedia-article-“dialogue”-dumping self and Carmen who has a few good moments but is his like science manic pixie dream girl. Smarter-than-the-rest, hotter-than-all-others, but still totally cool, down-to-earth dream girl, but don’t forget she’s more beautiful than anyone else on Earth. They could actually be funny sometimes in their crazy, treating others like dumb fuckin muppets to throw around kind of way though.
Case in point, if you can somehow stand to reach page 443 in the e-book it’s all suddenly worth it. The way they berate/interrogate this college student - threaten, cajole, and assault her — I cried laughing. Almost as funny as the end of The Substance.
A little after that it actually seemed like the author suddenly became (self-?)aware of Kierk’s unlikability and he starts to lay it on a little thicker to be newly in-on-the-joke, “like guys I know he sucks. But I spent 4 years of my life writing this, how can we salvage my bloated manuscript, toooogether?” Or maybe even he got sick of his own character and just decided to make Kierk a full caricature for the last 100 page crunch.
There are some interesting one-off science ideas in here and some pretty dashes of prose but there’s just so much shit to swim through for it. Guy shoulda stuck to just science writing. I honestly don’t get how great writers like Peter Watts are sucking his dick — I guess they like that he asked them to read it first?
Overall, I like the ideas explored. Every once in a while there was some pretty prose or a good turn of phrase. But the book’s way too long. The characters are generally flat and unengaging. The plot is a whole nothing burger with lots of like, “what was the point of that?” Moments and the author just dumping potted summaries of all the interesting/“scary” science Wikis and articles on the internet — “Fermi’s paradox is craaaaazy bro, what if it’s cause of consciousness?”.
This book single-handedly shattered my reading momentum for the year. It’s not a very enjoyable read in the details most of the time, just enough good to keep going. Like you’re being tortured but getting a drop of morphine every 8 hours. The juice ain’t worth the squeeze. Love the respect and passion for the hard problem of consciousness though.
Case in point, if you can somehow stand to reach page 443 in the e-book it’s all suddenly worth it. The way they berate/interrogate this college student - threaten, cajole, and assault her — I cried laughing. Almost as funny as the end of The Substance.
A little after that it actually seemed like the author suddenly became (self-?)aware of Kierk’s unlikability and he starts to lay it on a little thicker to be newly in-on-the-joke, “like guys I know he sucks. But I spent 4 years of my life writing this, how can we salvage my bloated manuscript, toooogether?” Or maybe even he got sick of his own character and just decided to make Kierk a full caricature for the last 100 page crunch.
There are some interesting one-off science ideas in here and some pretty dashes of prose but there’s just so much shit to swim through for it. Guy shoulda stuck to just science writing. I honestly don’t get how great writers like Peter Watts are sucking his dick — I guess they like that he asked them to read it first?
Overall, I like the ideas explored. Every once in a while there was some pretty prose or a good turn of phrase. But the book’s way too long. The characters are generally flat and unengaging. The plot is a whole nothing burger with lots of like, “what was the point of that?” Moments and the author just dumping potted summaries of all the interesting/“scary” science Wikis and articles on the internet — “Fermi’s paradox is craaaaazy bro, what if it’s cause of consciousness?”.
This book single-handedly shattered my reading momentum for the year. It’s not a very enjoyable read in the details most of the time, just enough good to keep going. Like you’re being tortured but getting a drop of morphine every 8 hours. The juice ain’t worth the squeeze. Love the respect and passion for the hard problem of consciousness though.
August 18, 2020
A lot is going on in this novel. It is a complex and intelligent story with many layers to it working at once. The narrative follows Kierk, a neuroscientist who abandoned his PhD just before completing it, returning to academia to take part in a program at NYU investigating consciousness. Kierk is plagued by the idea of forming a theory of consciousness, explaining what it is that makes people sentient, how firing neurons translate into conscious personhood. However, when one of his fellow coursemates end up dead, he and fellow coursemate, Carmen, become entangled in a complex series of events featuring student activists against animal testing, religious fundamentalism, department politics and the mysterious representatives of DARPA. As I said, a lot is going on. The story was compelling and very different due to the use of the author’s knowledge of neuroscience but it was well done, incorporating the philosophical alongside the scientific. Kierk was absolutely unbearable though, but I hope that was the point. I loved Carman as a character although I did think at times the choices made for her character were a little sexist. The cast of characters on the PhD programme was great and I would have enjoyed less of Kierk’s POV but I can see that it was necessary for the plot. A very interesting and different read. Thank you to ABRAMS/The Overlook Press for this ARC.
May 1, 2021
Kierk is a jerk, don't be like Kierk.
El protagonista es un borde. Su love interest es una supercientífica que, oh, dioses, también es supermodelo y está rebuena. Kierk es un pedazo de imbécil, pero se lo tenemos que aguantar todo, porque es un genio de lo suyo, que, al parecer, es hacerse pajas mentales sobre qué es la consciencia, cómo funciona, qué nos hace conscientes de nosotros mismos, por qué la perdemos cuando nos dormimos y la recuperamos intacta al despertar. Su genio se manifiesta principalmente diciéndoles a los demás que su investigación es inútil, que están equivocados en todo y que el trabajo de toda su vida es una caca. Y en no ser capaz de acabar el doctorado, por chulo. Eso sí, en cuanto se pone a hacer ejercicio, se le ponen musculazos en todos los sitios adecuados, porque lo genio no es óbice para lo mazao. Hay dos misterios que no lo son y un final que si me lo cuentan antes me ahorro perder unas horas de mi vida con el libro. 2⭐ porque algunas reflexiones son interesantes y hay un esfuerzo formal importante que en algunas páginas cuaja y las hace buenas.
El protagonista es un borde. Su love interest es una supercientífica que, oh, dioses, también es supermodelo y está rebuena. Kierk es un pedazo de imbécil, pero se lo tenemos que aguantar todo, porque es un genio de lo suyo, que, al parecer, es hacerse pajas mentales sobre qué es la consciencia, cómo funciona, qué nos hace conscientes de nosotros mismos, por qué la perdemos cuando nos dormimos y la recuperamos intacta al despertar. Su genio se manifiesta principalmente diciéndoles a los demás que su investigación es inútil, que están equivocados en todo y que el trabajo de toda su vida es una caca. Y en no ser capaz de acabar el doctorado, por chulo. Eso sí, en cuanto se pone a hacer ejercicio, se le ponen musculazos en todos los sitios adecuados, porque lo genio no es óbice para lo mazao. Hay dos misterios que no lo son y un final que si me lo cuentan antes me ahorro perder unas horas de mi vida con el libro. 2⭐ porque algunas reflexiones son interesantes y hay un esfuerzo formal importante que en algunas páginas cuaja y las hace buenas.
November 9, 2020
I am going to have to draw a line under this one and move on. I just can't get into it and it isn't holding my interest at all.
I know there is a murder...somewhere, but it hasn't happened yet and I really don't care.
Just not for me.
I know there is a murder...somewhere, but it hasn't happened yet and I really don't care.
Just not for me.
May 9, 2024
I personally like interesting word combinations for their own sake. I relish poetic and psychedelic prose on the contours and contents of someone’s phenomenology, and beautiful descriptions of scenes and environments. If you’re like me, you’ll get a lot out of reading this book just from a lot of the prose alone.
The pacing might not be for everyone, but I personally like that the book doesn’t continually build up suspense or constantly pick up momentum. I like that the book is structured the way it is, with the reader following Kierk and other characters as they wake up each morning. Different situations and emotions lose some steam and emotional salience as the character goes to sleep and wakes up the next day to meet the events, thoughts, situations and challenges of the new day. Things in “real” life have a rhythm and circadian cycle to them. I think the book is better for following the flow of actual lived life.
Sure, some aspects of academia are exaggerated and a little cartoonish (it is a mystery novel after all), but a lot of the situations in this book (bureaucracy, “careerism”, people “playing the science game”, publish or perish, petty academic pissing contests, ect. ect.) really do reflect many aspects of science academia. Think of characters in this book like you’d think of the two scientists in the HBO series Chernobyl: amalgamations and representations of different characters you find “in real life.” It’s also clear that the author is trying to be romantic (romantic in the Moby Dick sense of the word) at various points. I think he succeeds at seamlessly switching back and forth between romantic language/descriptions with modern day scenarios involving young adults that text each other, go to the bar, get drunk and “hook up.”
I also personally like a book that sends you to Wikipedia, the dictionary and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy repeatedly. Sure, it breaks up the flow of the reading, but I think it’s worth it. Reading about them, even if at a surface level, will be fascinating and enriching. The many many conceptual issues in both the philosophy of consciousness and the empirical study of consciousness are some of the most fascinating and mind bending things you can spend your time thinking about while philosophizing in the shower. It is a topic at the intersection of so many fields and areas: cognitive science, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, the study of causation, bioethics ect. ect. It’s an area that has baffled many minds throughout history, and some of the most celebrated living scientists think it’s one of the main (possibly) unsolvable mysteries (e.g. Edward Witten went on records saying that he can’t even begin to imagine how some of these issues will be solved and doubt that we can crack consciousness). Consciousness is really at the center of this novel. What better way to be introduced to conundrums about the nature of the mind & experience that are both old and modern, contemporary & timeless, than through a mystery novel about a bunch of philosophically inclined theoretical neuroscientists in the big city?
All in all I have to give this novel 4.4 out of 5 stars because I have mixed feeling about what happens in the last few dozen pages of the book (some very good and some not so good). I don’t think it spoils anything. It’s a matter of personal taste (a lot of people absolutely loved the end of movies like “Annihilation” and “Parasite”…I personally would’ve ended those otherwise brilliant films differently)…different strokes for different folks. I would still recommend buying this book.
The pacing might not be for everyone, but I personally like that the book doesn’t continually build up suspense or constantly pick up momentum. I like that the book is structured the way it is, with the reader following Kierk and other characters as they wake up each morning. Different situations and emotions lose some steam and emotional salience as the character goes to sleep and wakes up the next day to meet the events, thoughts, situations and challenges of the new day. Things in “real” life have a rhythm and circadian cycle to them. I think the book is better for following the flow of actual lived life.
Sure, some aspects of academia are exaggerated and a little cartoonish (it is a mystery novel after all), but a lot of the situations in this book (bureaucracy, “careerism”, people “playing the science game”, publish or perish, petty academic pissing contests, ect. ect.) really do reflect many aspects of science academia. Think of characters in this book like you’d think of the two scientists in the HBO series Chernobyl: amalgamations and representations of different characters you find “in real life.” It’s also clear that the author is trying to be romantic (romantic in the Moby Dick sense of the word) at various points. I think he succeeds at seamlessly switching back and forth between romantic language/descriptions with modern day scenarios involving young adults that text each other, go to the bar, get drunk and “hook up.”
I also personally like a book that sends you to Wikipedia, the dictionary and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy repeatedly. Sure, it breaks up the flow of the reading, but I think it’s worth it. Reading about them, even if at a surface level, will be fascinating and enriching. The many many conceptual issues in both the philosophy of consciousness and the empirical study of consciousness are some of the most fascinating and mind bending things you can spend your time thinking about while philosophizing in the shower. It is a topic at the intersection of so many fields and areas: cognitive science, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, the study of causation, bioethics ect. ect. It’s an area that has baffled many minds throughout history, and some of the most celebrated living scientists think it’s one of the main (possibly) unsolvable mysteries (e.g. Edward Witten went on records saying that he can’t even begin to imagine how some of these issues will be solved and doubt that we can crack consciousness). Consciousness is really at the center of this novel. What better way to be introduced to conundrums about the nature of the mind & experience that are both old and modern, contemporary & timeless, than through a mystery novel about a bunch of philosophically inclined theoretical neuroscientists in the big city?
All in all I have to give this novel 4.4 out of 5 stars because I have mixed feeling about what happens in the last few dozen pages of the book (some very good and some not so good). I don’t think it spoils anything. It’s a matter of personal taste (a lot of people absolutely loved the end of movies like “Annihilation” and “Parasite”…I personally would’ve ended those otherwise brilliant films differently)…different strokes for different folks. I would still recommend buying this book.
November 26, 2022
Everytime I picked this up, I tore through the pages at rapid speed. When I got interrupted, I put it down and didn’t pick it up for a couple of months. This probably affected my experience of it.
Absolutely breathtaking. (Literally—on the last few pages I was so captivated by the words that I had forgotten to breathe.) The language is purple and yet it works, the poetry beautifully balancing out the denseness of the content. Oh, and if you’re not a well-rounded nerd, you probably will probably become frustrated by unexplained jargon and references.
The narrative is told with third-person omniscience, almost entirely from Kierk’s perspective. The intimacy effectively allowed me to live through him, and so I identified—maybe even clung—to his solipsistic tortured-artist misunderstood-genius shtick. He’s barely likable enough to keep readers invested. The author, Erik Hoel, makes Kierk describe Carmen misogynistically, without winking at us or calling it out at all, which makes me think Hoel is oblivious to his own sexism creeping in.
Anyway, the unreliable narrator enables the medium to become the message. Hoel includes characters’ dreams, feelings, and thoughts, immersing us so deeply in the psyche that, within the world of this work of fiction, the line between what is real and what isn’t becomes blurred, especially when Kierk is drunk or high. And yet, something being “in your head” is still “real,” isn’t it? Hoel toys with the reader by leading us to ponder consciousness, and then to ponder the act of pondering consciousness. And then we end up questioning our own minds the way Kierk questions his. Clever magical realism.
Needless romance bothers me so much. Thankfully, the relationship between Kierk and Carmen contributes essentially to the story. Love cannot be an emergent property of sensuality, and while I don’t know how much this moral was intended, I like my reading and its implications nonetheless.
My problem with the book is its loose ends. Yes, the red herrings add to the playfulness, but introducing plot points without resolving them is kinda infuriating. I want to know what happened!
I’m not sure what larger point Hoel was trying to make here. The dialectical tension between the beauty and pleasure vs. restrictions and futility of scientific inquiry? I mean, that tracks with Hoel’s career path from academia to a newly-monetized Substack. Given the target of audience of the novel, he’s probably preaching to the choir.
EDIT: Hoel describes his book as "a text constructed from the top-down, thematically, wherein everything has a meaning and can be (if one wishes) unpacked” and implies Henry James is an influence. Heh. Knew it.
Absolutely breathtaking. (Literally—on the last few pages I was so captivated by the words that I had forgotten to breathe.) The language is purple and yet it works, the poetry beautifully balancing out the denseness of the content. Oh, and if you’re not a well-rounded nerd, you probably will probably become frustrated by unexplained jargon and references.
The narrative is told with third-person omniscience, almost entirely from Kierk’s perspective. The intimacy effectively allowed me to live through him, and so I identified—maybe even clung—to his solipsistic tortured-artist misunderstood-genius shtick. He’s barely likable enough to keep readers invested. The author, Erik Hoel, makes Kierk describe Carmen misogynistically, without winking at us or calling it out at all, which makes me think Hoel is oblivious to his own sexism creeping in.
Anyway, the unreliable narrator enables the medium to become the message. Hoel includes characters’ dreams, feelings, and thoughts, immersing us so deeply in the psyche that, within the world of this work of fiction, the line between what is real and what isn’t becomes blurred, especially when Kierk is drunk or high. And yet, something being “in your head” is still “real,” isn’t it? Hoel toys with the reader by leading us to ponder consciousness, and then to ponder the act of pondering consciousness. And then we end up questioning our own minds the way Kierk questions his. Clever magical realism.
Needless romance bothers me so much. Thankfully, the relationship between Kierk and Carmen contributes essentially to the story. Love cannot be an emergent property of sensuality, and while I don’t know how much this moral was intended, I like my reading and its implications nonetheless.
My problem with the book is its loose ends. Yes, the red herrings add to the playfulness, but introducing plot points without resolving them is kinda infuriating. I want to know what happened!
I’m not sure what larger point Hoel was trying to make here. The dialectical tension between the beauty and pleasure vs. restrictions and futility of scientific inquiry? I mean, that tracks with Hoel’s career path from academia to a newly-monetized Substack. Given the target of audience of the novel, he’s probably preaching to the choir.
EDIT: Hoel describes his book as "a text constructed from the top-down, thematically, wherein everything has a meaning and can be (if one wishes) unpacked” and implies Henry James is an influence. Heh. Knew it.
July 30, 2022
Remember in high school when you used complex words to sound smart? And, then you realized that you didn't sound smart but just snobby. Well, sadly, Erik Hoel makes a sport out of constructing sentences that are convoluted, circuitous, Byzantine, multifarious, and just unparsimoniously jumbling out five-dollar words. (Yeah, I had to...)
The thing is that the book raises interesting questions about consciousness and has nice tongue-in-cheek references to research, but sadly the wordsmithing of intelligence signaling takes overhand.
The thing is that the book raises interesting questions about consciousness and has nice tongue-in-cheek references to research, but sadly the wordsmithing of intelligence signaling takes overhand.
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