CoffeeAndThorn reviewed The Speed of Life by James Victor Jordan
Review of 'The Speed of Life' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
This is a unique and extraordinary book, cutting across mindsets as much as genres.
It can be read, just about, if you’re prepared to put the work in, as a crime thriller, a whodunit for the rape that slams through the early pages of this book. Sadly the violence and horror of that scene may make some readers stop there and decide the book is not for them, but press on if you can bear to, you will be repaid.
You may be better repaid if you think of it as a literary work, a meditation on consciousness and determinism. A physicist speculates about whether one could predict the future if one knew the trajectory of every object in space, every action and reaction in the infinite Newton’s cradle. A Seminole woman sees the future, as a child is born, locking into an inevitable prophesy. Throughout, the book traces the …
This is a unique and extraordinary book, cutting across mindsets as much as genres.
It can be read, just about, if you’re prepared to put the work in, as a crime thriller, a whodunit for the rape that slams through the early pages of this book. Sadly the violence and horror of that scene may make some readers stop there and decide the book is not for them, but press on if you can bear to, you will be repaid.
You may be better repaid if you think of it as a literary work, a meditation on consciousness and determinism. A physicist speculates about whether one could predict the future if one knew the trajectory of every object in space, every action and reaction in the infinite Newton’s cradle. A Seminole woman sees the future, as a child is born, locking into an inevitable prophesy. Throughout, the book traces the infinitely complex web of apparently unrelated actions and events, that underpin an eventual outcome. In the midst of such forces can anyone have free will?
But to keep yourself from losing track, you might try to read it as a cultural saga – complex, spanning generations and timeframes and perspectives – a saga in which, no matter how the cultural backdrop changes, women hold the world together, and men – sons – disrupt it. Throughout this book, sons are problematic.
But however you read it, you do have to put the work in. The intricacy of this work is intriguing, and the writing is sometimes quite mesmerising, but you can easily miss a step. It jumps in time and place and person, forwards and backwards. And the author does warn you. The process of the book is described rather neatly in a passage very near the beginning, in which a judge reflects on the nature of a trial: A trial is a jigsaw puzzle, she told the jurors. Each piece of the puzzle is a piece of evidence. There is no order in which the pieces of the puzzle must be assembled. But you can’t see the puzzle’s entire picture until you have all the pieces. When all the evidence is presented, you will have all the pieces of the puzzle. Then following my instructions, it will be your job to put the puzzle together. You can only reach a proper decision after you’ve seen the entire picture.
And it will, indeed, be your job, dear reader. The author gives instructions, and throws all the pieces of the puzzle into the mix. But you have to put it all together. Enjoy.