Remainder

I recently finished this novel given to me by a friend in the publishing industry. It is written by Tom McCarthy who, amoung other things, is the General secretary of the International Necronautical Society (INS). On its website the society's 'Manifesto' contains the following;

"We, the First Committee of the International Necronautical Society, declare the following:-

1.That death is a type of space, which we intend to map, enter, colonise and, eventually, inhabit.

2. That there is no beauty without death, its immanence. We shall sing death's beauty - that is, beauty."*


These declarations already give you an insight into the themes of this interesting novel. It is really a study in existentialism; an absurd insight into the life of a character who becomes obsessed with recreating ("re-enacting") his memories(...are they his?). It is, however, disarming in its capacity to draw you (the reader) into the mind of this character. This inclusion is achieved by first person narration of such simple, honest charm that as a reader one is in the place of a special confidant.

Here are the opening paragraphs;

"About the accident itself I can say very little. Almost nothing. It involved something falling from the sky. Technology. Parts, bits. That's it, really: all I can divulge. Not much, I know.
It's not that I'm being shy. It's just that - well, for one, I don't even remember the event. it's a blank: a white slate, a black hole. I have vague images, half-impressions: of being, or having been - or, more precisely, being about to be - hit; blue light; railings; lights of other colours; being held above some kind of tray or bed. But who's to say these are genuine memories? Who's to say my traumatized mind didn't just make them up, or pull them out from somewhere else, some other slot, and stick them there to plug the gap - the crater - that the accident had blown? Minds are versatile and wily things. Real chancers."**

As a christian (ie. having a vastly different perspective on death to that of the INS), I found myself feeling a great sense of pathos for this (fictitious) person who becomes consumed with creating an eternal present out of his (imagined?) past, such that in so doing the world, and in particular other people, are collapsed into nothing more than props in his narcissitic drama. Is this the essence of sin?
As well as pathos, there was empathy. How often I have wanted other people to do things my way; to fit into my agenda; to control all the things around me so as to make the world perfect for myself.

It reminds me of these words by Iris Murdoch;
“Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”





*http://www.necronauts.org/manifesto1.htm
**Tom McCarthy, Remainder. p3. Alma Books, Surrey, UK (2006).