The Book of Strange New Things

Book Review

Title: The Book of Strange New Things

Author: Michel Faber

Publisher: Canongate (2015)

Pages: 585

Search for meaning is one of the things that distinguishes intelligent life from others.  How much does religion help in the process?  Michel Faber’s novel, The Book of Strange New Things, takes Christianity with its Bible (which is called ‘The Book of Strange New Things’ by the inhabitants) to Oasis, a planet in a distant galaxy. 

“I’m an alcoholic,” says the protagonist.  “Me too,” says Grainger, a prominent character.  “It never leaves you,” responds the protagonist.  Grainger smiles.  “Like God, huh?  More loyal than God.”

The protagonist is Peter Leigh, a Christian pastor who has been appointed by a shady American corporate named USIC [whose expansion is never given; does it sound like You-Sick?] to take Jesus and his gospels to the native population of Oasis.  Before becoming a pastor, Peter was an alcoholic and a drug addict who stole others’ money and things in order to get drugs and liquor.  He met Beatrice, a nurse, in a hospital and they fell in love.  Bea had endured a terrible childhood whose scars left an ocean of longing in her which, perhaps, only a reclaimed addict could satisfy.  The two marry and become a very loving couple.  It is Bea who fills Peter’s heart with Jesus and the gospels.  Peter never reverts to his addictions though he uses the present tense while speaking to Grainger on Oasis: “I’m an alcoholic.”

Financial hurdles attract Peter to the prospects offered by USIC.  Peter and Bea are separated by galaxies.  The native people of Oasis had accepted Jesus as their God and Saviour even before Peter reached their planet.  But the former pastor had abandoned them; he just disappeared.  The Oasans [as they are called by the USIC scientists and engineers] cut off food supply to the humans until a new pastor is provided.  God is the ultimate meaning and solace for the Oasans who don’t even want the Bible to be translated into their language.  The relative mysteriousness of English renders the religion more magical to them. 

Religion is magic.  It is addictive.  It gives hope. 

But none of the scientists and engineers taken to Oasis from the earth require god or religion.  They tolerate Peter because their food depends to a considerable extent on his services to the native population.  The scientists and engineers are also people recruited by USIC after a lot of screening.  They also had a shady past like Peter.  But their profession and its skills which find a new playfield on Oasis give a new meaning to their life and they don’t revert to their addictions.  They are all meritorious people who had gone astray for one reason or the other.  The earth can destroy the meritorious.  Oasis can regenerate them.

Oasis breaks Grainger, however.  She reverts to alcoholism as the craving for normal human love takes shape in her.  She wants to meet her father, the person who meant everything to her as a child. 

Peter is broken too in spite of his deep faith in God.  In fact, the novel suggests that his faith is shaken when Bea finds the earth of the 21^st century a terrible place to live on.  “There is no God,” writes Bea using the interstellar email system provided by USIC and Peter is jolted.  Bea is breaking up.  Peter has to be with her. 

The novel explores human love, love for god and discovering meaning in one’s profession as means of making life meaningful.  It is a pleasant read all through.  Faber’s style is simple and captivating.  Yet nothing much really happens in the novel, pretty long as it is.  One can read it delightfully as a narrative about an alien planet and the human struggle to domesticate it.  The rest lies beneath as an undertone. 

One of those undertones I personally found fascinating is Peter’s doubts about his own faith toward the end of the novel:

The cynicism he’d thought he’d banished for ever was coursing through his system.  Placebo, all is placebo.  Swallow the pills and feel invigorated while the cells die inside you.  Hallelujah, I can walk on these septic feet, the pain is gone, barely there, quite bearable, praise the Lord. [Page 551]