Monday, June 11, 2007

2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke

Summary: No idea how to summarize it without sharing something important. Basically wierd improbable stuff happened interspersed with someone's view of the future. The very short version is that it's about a space voyage to Sarturn plus some background info [slash] notable events in the fictional past.

Why I read the book: This probably isn't going to be a common heading, but it seems necessary here, considering that I probably never would've read this book had one of my friends not recommended it to me. Or more correctly had I not been at the library the day one of my friends recommended it to me. And I'm now struck by a sudden urge to analyse the grammer elements of that sentence, but that serves no relevent purpose so I shall refrain. Aside from calling it a past contrary to fact conditional statement.

General response: The first part, in which a force from somewhere messes with the minds of primitive man-apes, was rather wierd and unexpected. I thought the book had to do with humans exploring space, not humans evolving by the intervention of something. And I was right; it's just that that doesn't cover the entire book, just most of it.

I'm not sure whether I'd call it a good book. Certainly it was well-written. It does a good job of explaining everything important, but not such a good job of holding my attention. I finished reading it because I wanted to know what happens, not because I was pretty much incapable of putting it down. Maybe that was because I didn't always have that much time to read, but I'm pretty sure I could've gotten it finished alot faster had I really really wanted to.

Response to the ending: 
Bwuh? It just kind of ends in the midst of going "strange things are happening". No resolution at all except to give the audience a glimpse of the force controlling what's going on. I think the best summary of the last couple chapters is "wtf?" 

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