Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on September 5, 2023 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
Lavie Tidhar is one of the more interesting prolific writers out there these days as he's known largely for his Central Station short novel (itself sort of a collection of short stories) as well as his short stories and edited collections of international SF/F work. His work has honestly been pretty hit or miss for me, but it has always featured some very different and out there worlds and concepts (for example, a clown-based Western in an imaginary world of a grieving father) and his last short novel, Neom, was one I really really liked. So I always am happy to try his stuff and The Circumference of the World is the latest.
And well, The Circumference of the World is an interesting short novel with a bunch of inspirations....but I don't really think they come together in any coherent fashion. The story revolves around a book - "Lode Stars" - that may not exist but supposedly contains the secrets of the universe as told by a scientology-esque religion founded by a manic golden age sci-fi writer. This book affects the lives of a woman from Vanua Lava, a face blind book dealer, a Russian mobster, and the writer himself, but their stories and the framing device sometimes of strange otherworldly entities telling the story don't really mesh? It's hard to explain or know what to think about this, but I'll try better below:
Note: I read this in part in Audiobook, which uses multiple narrators to put on a very interesting and unique performance. Very well done, so if you're interested in this book, would recommend in this format.
Plot Summary:
It's a lot of ideas, and in general they're all interesting ones: you have Delia and her two lives - her one back at home where she found love in another of her people and the land and culture where you can most vividly see the galaxy in the sky and her one in London where she's also found love, if a lesser one, in Levi and in mathematics (part of the reason she left) that went astray when Levi was so addicted to his theories of math and Lode Stars that it got him abducted. And well there's the fact that her roots back home (and her connection to Lode Stars, a thing she couldn't care less about) make her immune to the Eaters and allow her to not care about them (and instead, she finds the ideas of Hartley's religion kind of pleasing without that fear, even if she isn't a believer). It's an interesting contrast of ideas that the book abandons really quickly. And then you have Chase's search for a book he can't believe exists, through book dealers of golden age scifi (a position that Tidhar once filled himself) all the while dealing with the difficulties of his faceblindness. And then you have Lens' story coming up through the brutal ways of the Russian mafia, finding some rare moments of joy anonymously at scifi conventions, before becoming obsessed with the book. And well there's the story of Hartley and how obnoxiously egotistical and out there he is, and yet how he's catered to constantly even by the racist and otherwise prejudiced minds in charge of golden age Scifi (John W Campbell is rightfully portrayed as an asshole here).
It's a lot of stuff, all based upon ideas Tidhar has found over the years or his own experiences and interests as he explains in his afterward. But it doesn't really come together as a single complete book and just feels like a jumble of ostensibly related but not really thematically related stories. At one point one character apparently travels in time and you think "Ah, here's how it's going to tie together" and then nothing comes of it, it's never explained and we just go on!
Other people will like this more because they'll find the ideas more interesting, I'm sure. But to me, this is unfortunately more of a mess of ideas than something cohesive and none of the ideas are strongly enough developed to work for me enough that I can ignore that and love it.
Plot Summary:
Delia Welegtabit was born an albino on the island of Vanua Lava, where she was raised in love by her parents and learned to find love in others...and to see the galaxy in the sky like none other. It was there she first discovered the love of mathematics that would take her to university in London...and there she would see a strange book written by a foreign science fiction writer - "Lode Stars". Years later, when in London, Delia would marry another mathematician Levi Armstrong who would be obsessed with finding Lode Stars, an impossible book said not to exist, which supposedly contains the truth about the universe: that we are all just data/information on the cusp of a Black Hole, around which swirl the "Eaters" who wish to dine on our memories.The Circumference of the World is told in a very nonstandard fashion. The story starts as if it's being told through the eyes of the "Eaters", the outside space eaters of memories (who the audiobook voices with a harmonious often creepy combination of its male and female readers at times), with the story then featuring different parts from different perspectives: first we have a few chapters from Delia, setting up her birth and growing up on Vanua Lava before coming to London, marrying Levi, and engaging Daniel Chase on a quest before disappearing; then we have chapters featuring Chase's look for the book and Levi; then we have chapters following the past of Oskar Lens, etc etc. We even get a snippet from the mysterious book Lode Stars itself (I think this was originally a novelette published by Tidhar elsewhere) and then a section following Eugene Hartley, the L Ron Hubbard-esque creator of the book and the religion that sprung out of his dogma.
When Levi goes missing supposedly with a copy of the book, Delia asks a face-blind book dealer Daniel Chase to find him. That search leads to both the church started by Lode Star's writer - Eugene Hartley - and to a dangerous Russian Gangster and Hartley superfan Oskar Lens, who is a true believer and believes the book is his only chance at salvation. And surrounding all of this is the question: was Hartley himself just a mad vain conman or did he really see the true state of the world, and if he did, how can they all stave off the hungriness of the Eaters?
It's a lot of ideas, and in general they're all interesting ones: you have Delia and her two lives - her one back at home where she found love in another of her people and the land and culture where you can most vividly see the galaxy in the sky and her one in London where she's also found love, if a lesser one, in Levi and in mathematics (part of the reason she left) that went astray when Levi was so addicted to his theories of math and Lode Stars that it got him abducted. And well there's the fact that her roots back home (and her connection to Lode Stars, a thing she couldn't care less about) make her immune to the Eaters and allow her to not care about them (and instead, she finds the ideas of Hartley's religion kind of pleasing without that fear, even if she isn't a believer). It's an interesting contrast of ideas that the book abandons really quickly. And then you have Chase's search for a book he can't believe exists, through book dealers of golden age scifi (a position that Tidhar once filled himself) all the while dealing with the difficulties of his faceblindness. And then you have Lens' story coming up through the brutal ways of the Russian mafia, finding some rare moments of joy anonymously at scifi conventions, before becoming obsessed with the book. And well there's the story of Hartley and how obnoxiously egotistical and out there he is, and yet how he's catered to constantly even by the racist and otherwise prejudiced minds in charge of golden age Scifi (John W Campbell is rightfully portrayed as an asshole here).
It's a lot of stuff, all based upon ideas Tidhar has found over the years or his own experiences and interests as he explains in his afterward. But it doesn't really come together as a single complete book and just feels like a jumble of ostensibly related but not really thematically related stories. At one point one character apparently travels in time and you think "Ah, here's how it's going to tie together" and then nothing comes of it, it's never explained and we just go on!
Other people will like this more because they'll find the ideas more interesting, I'm sure. But to me, this is unfortunately more of a mess of ideas than something cohesive and none of the ideas are strongly enough developed to work for me enough that I can ignore that and love it.
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