The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

There was a red button on the wall
labelled EMERGENCY, but no button
labelled BEWILDERMENT

I was struggling recently with the idea that I’d read something by Dutch author Michel Faber before. It took me a while* to come up with his bibliography and I did indeed notice a title that was familiar (in the sense that I sort-of remember having read it). It was The Hundred and Ninety Nine Steps which Waterstones’ website assured me is, “an ingenious literary page-turner and is completely unforgettable.”

Ahem.

I probably did read it and most likely enjoyed it but, being as my mind-attic has more recently been stuffed with such useless nonsense as which days the kids have to take PE kit (who schedules PE on consecutive days, I ask you!) and the many parental passwords to Netflix, Disney+, Amazon, BBC iPlayer etc. (other streaming services are available) we impose to prevent a) the kids watching things they shouldn’t be watching, and b) preventing the kids seeing all the things we’ve been watching we shouldn’t be watching, that no doubt this information was squeezed out the mind-sky-light and has been lost in the mind-void between relevant neurons.

This all means to say that I had no great expectations of The Book Of Strange New Things other than it had a lovely cover (it does) and was nothing to do with Faber’s Rabelaisian, Dickensian bestseller The Crimson Petal…, which I have no intention of ever reading and of which no more later.

It turns out Michel Faber has written a science fiction novel. And it’s a bit… damp.

I don’t quite know how else to describe it, and I’m not just talking about the humid environs of the planet named Oasis. Firstly, I don’t buy the junkie-turned-priest evangelistic missionary crusade nonsense. Are we expected to seriously believe that intergalactic relations between humans and the native aliens** would depend almost entirely on the presence of a suitably fervent Christian preacher? And that humans couldn't make food out of the native flora without help? And the alien’s willingness to accept Jesus into their lives was a result of their literal understanding of the Bible? And that their existence was devoid of any other such stories or systems of belief? And that the junkie-turned-priest would turn into some sort of ascetic monk and go native?

Secondly, the sections where junkie-priest writes his letters back home to Bea, the pretty nurse with whom he shared both his bed and his ministry (indeed, the pretty nurse whose ministrations when he had broken his ankles led him to his saintly calling) are naff, to put it bluntly. Bea’s letters about the end-of-times going on back home fall short of convincing, Peter’s rather rapid estrangement from Terran reality and his pretty nurse doesn’t really speak to the uncrossable divides between two humans in any sort of relationship, but rather to some sort of neuro-divergence, perhaps a result of drink and drugs, perhaps the root cause of his addictions and interpersonal issues. And, most accusingly, I didn’t really care about either of them. I was more interested in the discussions about the language barriers, the discourses Peter has with the Jesus Lovers (cringe) as he calls the aliens, the mad former priest who ran off into the wilderness to live an eremitic life away from both aliens and humans, Peter’s assigned base liaison whose story felt more relevant and interesting.

It’s all a bit flat and passionless in the wrong places.

That’s not to say it wasn’t enjoyable in places, and I was never so put-off that it was put down. There is lots to recommend it, not least of which is that it’s a really accessible sci-fi novel for those whose hackles were up by the mere mention of genre fiction. However, hard-core genre fans would be quick to point out lots of its inherent flaws and no doubt, explain who had done it better, before Faber. Just don’t expect Dickens or Walter Miller Jnr.

*Wiki search

**yes, yes, I’m aware

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