The book of strange new things

[Corygal]

Is anyone else obsessed? I've been up till 4am three nights running to finish it. Like a long, deeply enjoyable touring holiday for the head.

Now I'm haunted by it. And I've got questions...

Yes - I devoured it. It didn't turn out at all how I expected at the end. Love Michael Faber books - always worth reading.

Misty! My potential saviour! I am so glad you loved it as well. Can I ask... what do the Oasans think the Technique of Jesus is? Do they think they are going to be immortal and healed from all their rotting bits ie get physical healing and endless earthly life rather than spiritual union with God?

I know this sounds like a basic question but I wanted to check. Do you think the Oasans have the capacity for abstract thought?

And how do you rate Peter as a man and busband?

Hi - sorry not been around for a while.

I'm not sure what the Oasans thought Jesus would deliver to them. Do you think that since the Oasan girl died at the human compound they will lose faith in Jesus and/or the humans medicines?

I felt Peter's relationship with his wife when they lived together was quite co-dependent and stifling and that by going to Oasishes was breaking free. He was really detached about the baby but I thought at first it was because the planet was doing something to his brain. Do you think he was depressed?

The book left me with more questions than answers. I read it so fast that I think I will have to re-read it to see if I can glean more clues.

I thought at one point that the aliens were actually mutated humans who had gone" native" or that there was some terrible corporate conspiracy.

I was hoping do get it from Kindle store but is currently unavailable....

Hadn't heard of it until I saw this thread and was intrigued.Having looked on Amazon I now really need to read it!

Sorry for earlier Kindle warning. It is available on UK amazon. It was US where I got that info about unavailability....

Apologies for resurrecting a Zombie thread but I have just finished this and am trying to process it. I couldn't put it down but there are now more questions than answers!

I too was braced for a terrible corporate conspiracy (particularly bearing in mind Under The Skin) and also had a sense of doom about what effects the planet itself was having on Peter - its something in the water or the whiteflower. I did wonder whether the food/water were gradually ironing out his memories and emotions , bringing him to the state of present in which the Oasans exist. But none of that came to fruition.

I can see how, to a race who have no inherent capacity for the body to heal or recover, a religion that preaches life after death could be very seductive. But given that they have a limited perspective of time, Was, Now, Will Be - how deeply seductive could that eternal promise actually be? (Or is this why he doesn't achieve a wholesale conversion of the Oasan population?)

I liked the theoretical challenge of trying to preach a religion that is so heavily reliant on livestock metaphors to a population that has no livestock frame of reference - although he could have worked more with the destructive duck-dodos?

And his concerns that he was giving them religious faith without intellectual rigor was hilarious.

Anyway - lots churning round my head. Would be grateful for anyone else who has other perspectives!

Ah, I need to read this again! I really love this book

I too was waiting for a corporate conspiracy (although read Under the Skin after - another great book).

The faith of the Oasans was strange. They couldn't understand and,as you've said, their perspective of time wasn't really there,but it was a totally blind faith that seemed to be largely born out of nothing as they really didn't seem to grasp it, did they? I wonder if it was due to their constant requirement for medication but they didn't seem particularly phased as a whole!

However, Jesus Lover 5, who I was rather fond of, clearly had the ability to question to a degree and I found her faith truer than that of the others due to this.

I remember wondering if the whiteflower or that water was messing with his mind a bit, or if they were pumping some toxic gas into the atmosphere at the compound. He was far too consumed, with no doubts or questions and no concerns about his wife and what was going on at home. It was bizarre. I'm not sure if he was depressed,mind messed or seeing himself as a messiah to Oasans to the point that nothing else in the world mattered because that was in the hands of someone else while his purpose was to save them.

I need to read again now to discuss properly, but the new David Mitchell (Slade House) arrived today so that will come first!