The Plot to Save Socrates

by Paul Levinson, 2006, 266 pages

This book was recommended to me by someone who said it reminded them a bit of To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. As this is one of my favorite books, I promptly checked it out of the library. I can say that yes, there was time travel and some sleuthing involved, but it wasn't humorous in the same way as Willis can be. The novel was at times a bit ponderous and loosely based on philosophic ideas rather than relying on wit and plot to draw the reader in (which was the case with To Say Nothing of the Dog).

The book opens with Sierra Waters, a grad student in New York City in 2042. Her specialty is ancient Athens, which turns out to be just ideal because she ends up becoming embroiled in a time travel quest which goal is to save Socrates from his fatal poisoning in ancient Athens.

The plot begins when her teacher finds an old lost dialog involving Socrates and his conversation with Andros, a visitor to his cell trying to convince Socrates to escape. Andros claims to be from another time, and can provide a DNA-complete replica of Socrates to leave in the cell, so no one will ever know the difference. So the mystery becomes: who is Andros? Did/will Andros succeed? What will the impact be on modern society to suddenly have Socrates living among us again?

To answer these questions, Sierra and her teacher, and a few friends they make along the way, begin traveling through time, assuming different names and roles as events roll along. This gets a bit confusing as the narration shifts from character to character, so the reader never has one character to cling to in all of the adventure. The reader is left to straggle along behind all of the adventurers and try to pick up what is happening. For a long part in the middle of the book, it almost threatens to unravel completely, but then things start to come back together. By the end of the book most things are resolved, but the reader is still left feeling a bit uncertain.

Besides the storytelling method outlined above, another technique used by the author was to tie in parts of the newly-discovered Socratic dialog as the book moves on. At the beginning, our characters had found only a page or two; by the end of the book the reader has finally been exposed to the entire discovered dialog. As the characters find the pages, they often seem to ramble on a bit in their own kind of Platonic dialog amongst themselves (especially when they get to talk to Socrates himself!). I found myself struggling a bit as this happened more and more often. If I see another character simply replying "yes" to a long question from another character, I will scream.

Specimen Days

I did a lot of reading on Friday and Saturday. I finished Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days, which was really quite good. It's a novel in three parts, all set in NYC; the first part is historical fiction set in the late 1800's, the second part is modern, and the third part is set in the future. All are loosely tied to Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" in some way. He also seems to recycle characters throughout the three eras. They aren't the same people, but their names are the same and the general feel of the character remains the same. Very well done.

I especially liked the way he tied in some of Whitman's philosophies, and had the characters illustrate his ideas. One of the main ideas was that one returns to nature when one dies and experiences the joy of being one with the world, which is a relief from the pain of living. The epiphanies the characters have are very beautiful and touching. Each of the characters also has to make a difficult decision at some point, which has both good and bad consequences, very bittersweet decisions. Lots of emotion in this book.

It was recommended to me by a friend; I don't remember all he told me about it at the time, but I can see now why he was so enthusiastic about it. I wish I could remember now what he said. I will definitely have to have a conversation about it with him soon.

A Brief History of the Dead

I spent the better part of Sunday devouring "A Brief History of the Dead" by Kevin Brockmeier. It's a sci-fi book based on the idea that when we die, we go to an in-between place for as long as people still live who remember us. When the last person who remembers us dies, we finally go to the final place. It's also about a future society that is hit by a huge deadly virus.

I found myself fascinated, and at turns sad and hopeful as I read it. It's beautifully written too, I got a very strong sense of setting and poetic language. At only 272 fairly small pages, it's a pretty quick read. I think I want to read it again though, just cause it was so evocative. Sometimes being too eager for plot developments, I find myself impatiently skimming the slower, descriptive parts, which is kind of a shame. It's like chugging an exquisite wine just to get drunk.

Added: Oh, and I also meant to mention that for a couple days after finishing this book, I kept thinking about all the people I know that I would be sustaining in the afterlife. I couldn't help but keep thinking of more people to add to my list. Like, that girl from kindergarten whose birthday party I went to. Or, the person I saw get injured in the tilt-a-whirl at the fair when I was 8. Or, the cashier I kind of got to know at the local market around the corner from my house in 2000. How many people do I know? Does it count if I can't think of them right now, but if the right set of circumstances came up I could remember them? Do they have to know me too?