I wasn’t expecting much when I picked up Genesis by Bernard Beckett. Originally published in 2006 in New Zealand, the novel won the New Zealand Post Book Award for Children and Young Adults and recently made its way to the United States, where it was republished by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The American version will be released April 20 and has already been selected as one of the best books of April 2009 by Amazon.com.
The premise of the story is not a particularly original one. Anaximander, the novel’s protagonist, is a student who wants to be accepted into the Academy, which makes her relatable to current teenagers who feel the pressure of getting into a certain university or college.
The Academy, however, is a bit different from a traditional college. Instead of instructing students, the Academy is a governing body more than anything else and is responsible for creating and sustaining society.
In Genesis, we enter a futuristic society called the Republic, a tightly controlled, technologically advanced state in which people scan each other electronically in place of traditional greetings and in which holograms are commonplace. Through Anaximander’s examination, the reader learns about the Republic’s history and how it came to be. There are glimpses of the past — Anaximander mentions the U.S. invasion of Iraq and economic relations with China. There are references to “the independence riots of 2047” or “the dust storms of 2041” that give us a sense of the time frame, although we do not know for sure exactly when the novel is taking place.
Instead of writing the novel in traditional paragraphs, Beckett opts instead to write the novel as if it is a transcript, occasionally writing blocks of text describing how the protagonist is feeling. He usually confines himself, however, to recording the spoken words without description. This ambiguity is perhaps one of the most effective tools Beckett uses. There is hardly any setting or physical description and one gets the sense that the words are being spoken in oblivion, and that the ideas expressed by the novel can transcend any physical boundaries.
There’s a sort of power to this lack of filtering, and while the style takes a while to get used to, the novel picks up pace and never loses the tension and tautness that compels the reader to keep flipping the page. Although I at first did not understand why this novel was slated as a “thriller,” the description is accurate. I felt compelled to keep reading, and the ending came to my complete and utter surprise.
The central theme throughout the novel is whether artificial intelligence can achieve the human capacities of emotion, reason, and thinking. This idea, a favorite topic of great science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov, is not a new one. Movies such as I, Robot or Artificial Intelligence: AI explore the possibility of inorganic life and its consequences. Beckett’s novel, however, proves surprisingly original and takes a stance on the subject that is both refreshing and startlingly disturbing. Instead of focusing on the clichés of emotion, he focuses on the power of ideas and how they can cross the boundaries between man and machine. There is not a single moment in the novel that is sentimental or unreal, despite the science fiction aspects, and Beckett does a fantastic job creating a realistic and likeable character while using her to explain his utopian society.
In sum, Genesis is the best novel I have read so far this year. At a slim 144 pages, it is a quick and simple read. Nonetheless, it had a profound impact on me, challenging me to think about the power of ideas in a way I never have before.
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
