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carlacbarroso's review against another edition
2.0
It had a very interesting beginning but then "The Matrix" happened. I was expecting a bit more of adventure and getting to know the new continent but that only takes about half of the book and I wasn't thrilled about the other half.
afarre01's review against another edition
4.0
Great book! I liked it a lot but it didn't end up taking the direction that I anticipated. The beginning of the book was really fantastic but I think it could have used more action and explanation toward the end. Lots of loose ends never got tied up...
avisreadsandreads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm
Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, and Grief
Minor: Suicide, Religious bigotry, and Pregnancy
rbreade's review against another edition
Darwinia is a slow-burn of suspense as an early 20th-century expedition attempts to find out why most of Europe suddenly became a prehistoric jungle populated by--different--flora and fauna. And then when the first interlude arrives, on page 123, the novel pivots to something even more strange as Wilson explores the idea of , to name just one of the ingredients he's working with here.
Spoiler
reality as a computer simulationblackoxford's review against another edition
4.0
The War in Heaven
Religious doctrine has always been an impertinent imposition on spiritual and metaphysical imagination by those in search of power. Doctrine not only stops the development of religious thought, it also promotes anti-religious sentiment that limits understanding of ourselves, of others, and of the meaning of our existence in the universe. Darwinia is a brilliant exposition of the insanity as well as inanity of doctrinal formulation and enforcement. Its premise is that the theory of evolution has been successfully suppressed by religious interests until The Miracle occurs. Significantly, however, the book is not anti-religious but also suggests the authentic, and humanly essential, poetic possibilities of religion.
It is not incidental that the book starts in 1912, that is, at the height of the Fundamentalist movement in the United States. Nor is it arbitrary that its main action occurs in the early 1920’s, a period of remarkable insight by the French Jesuit palaeontologist Teilhard de Chardin. Nor, finally, is it merely fictional convenience that the story centres on the re-exploration of the European continent, the cultural powerhouse of Christianity. Darwinia is a fantasy incorporating these three themes with great theological punch.
Doctrine kills religious imagination. It treats imagination as an algorithm. It substitutes a shared vocabulary and grammar for the intimate communication of religious experience. It insists that all religious experience be expressed in this vocabulary as if it were divinely rather than humanely created. Doctrine stops the evolution of religious thought and therefore of collective religious awareness. Paradoxically, doctrine deprives human beings of the ability not only to express but even to have religious experience. It gives religion a bad name. Religious doctrine, consequently, inhibits the evolution of the species, particularly its capacity for cooperation for mutual benefit.
Think about the development of the musical symphony. Suppose Papa Haydn had been the doctrinal head of the European musical establishment in the late 18th century, and had declared his preferred symphonic form, and perhaps that of Mozart and a few others, as the definitive and perfected expression of musical art. His followers might have gone on to prescribe the allowable instruments, permissible harmonies, the limits of interpretation and embellishment within this form. The consequence? No Beethoven, no Brahms; and subsequently no Tchaikovsky, no Stravinsky; and probably no Beatles and no Beach Boys.
The Fundamentalists published their ‘fundamentals,’ that is, their judgments about the essential doctrinal components of Christianity between 1910 and 1914 (in twelve volumes!). These fundamentals included not just statements about the nature of God, but also what they considered orthodox opinions about the nature of the world, including so-called ‘old earth creationism,’ the idea that fossils, geologic strata, and other evidence of evolutionary development were in fact an original part of creation as described in the book of Genesis. Why God would plant such misleading evidence for human beings to ponder about is, according to this view, just one of the divine mysteries.
Because of events recounted in the book, Fundamentalism becomes the politically correct form of religion in the North America of Darwinia. But a sort of Lewis & Clark expedition to what has become a European wilderness discovers overwhelming evidence that this cannot be the case. In fact, a futuristic Interlude recasts both the events which provoked the fashion for Fundamentalism, as well as the entire trajectory of sentient existence. This Interlude tells a creatively imaginative tale about human purpose and spiritual destiny which is simply beyond the capacity of such doctrinal religionists to imagine.
The discoveries made by the expedition parallel those of Teilhard de Chardin during his work in China at approximately the same time. Picking up on an idea of a Russian anthropologist, Teilhard developed the concept of the ‘noösphere’ which is a central theme of the Interlude and the key to the whole of Darwinia (the place name itself is a slur invented by the Hearst Press mocking the theory of evolution). This noösphere is the ‘next phase’ in evolution according to Teilhard. It follows on from the bare geosphere of non-living matter, and from the subsequent biosphere in which living beings have penetrated to every corner of the geosphere, transforming it into a cradle of self-development. All is contained in the ontosphere, the realm 0f existence.
The noösphere is a result of life developing and proliferating thought. The noösphere in a sense anticipates the reality of the ‘Cloud’ of the worldwide web by several generations. It consists of our shared knowledge, and our awareness of this knowledge, as something dependent upon but distinct from the matter, both living and non-living from which it has emerged. Teilhard considered this as pointing to a phenomenon of cosmic not just earthly import: The progressive spiritualisation of the universe. This is precisely the situation described in the Interlude.
Teilhard considered that this process of the transformation of matter into thought has a final objective. He called this the Omega Point, a teleological terminus for all of creation. The Interlude suggests that the Omega Point is far beyond the time of the inevitable heat death of solar systems, galaxies, and even the suspension of the Higgs field from which matter originates. Time advances more and more slowly until it stops entirely. Thought is the cosmic resistance to this physical entropy. The noösphere is the last battleground of the old universe and it is the potential source of many new universes. But only, of course, if the noösphere is allowed to evolve without inhibition.
The American philosopher, C. S. Peirce, had anticipated Teilhard by half a century when he defined truth as that which would be known just before the end of sentient life in the universe. In his philosophy, this final goal is a necessary presumption of science, indeed of any inquiring mind. This is the equivalent 0f Teilhard’s Omega Point and points to an implicit hope which is the foundation 0f all metaphysics, including religion. It also suggests a force exerted by the Omega Point backwards, as it were, in time and affecting events in the present. This is the force exploited by Wilson in his fantasy in a remarkably interesting way.
Teilhard was of course condemned as a heretic by the fundamentalist bullies in his own Catholic Church. His error was considered one of ‘modernism’, the very same evil that was being fought against by the Protestants (the Protestants also found the Catholics to be too fundamentalist but that’s another story). But Teilhard’s poetry found its way into the environmental movement as the Gaia Hypothesis among other things, and into Darwinia as a central inspiration. The Fundamentalists went on to become the Moral Majority and Evangelical Republicans, still trying to make the rest of us conform to their myopic vision 0f reality. Peirce’s name has been generally forgotten but not his philosophy which lives on in a number of ‘schools.’
Metaphysical poetry, and the people who write it, speak it, and appreciate it are still fighting to be heard in religion. There are always Fundamentalists who want to turn the imagination, and religion with it, into an algorithm. The war never ends. It’s a bumpy road to the Omega Point.
Religious doctrine has always been an impertinent imposition on spiritual and metaphysical imagination by those in search of power. Doctrine not only stops the development of religious thought, it also promotes anti-religious sentiment that limits understanding of ourselves, of others, and of the meaning of our existence in the universe. Darwinia is a brilliant exposition of the insanity as well as inanity of doctrinal formulation and enforcement. Its premise is that the theory of evolution has been successfully suppressed by religious interests until The Miracle occurs. Significantly, however, the book is not anti-religious but also suggests the authentic, and humanly essential, poetic possibilities of religion.
It is not incidental that the book starts in 1912, that is, at the height of the Fundamentalist movement in the United States. Nor is it arbitrary that its main action occurs in the early 1920’s, a period of remarkable insight by the French Jesuit palaeontologist Teilhard de Chardin. Nor, finally, is it merely fictional convenience that the story centres on the re-exploration of the European continent, the cultural powerhouse of Christianity. Darwinia is a fantasy incorporating these three themes with great theological punch.
Doctrine kills religious imagination. It treats imagination as an algorithm. It substitutes a shared vocabulary and grammar for the intimate communication of religious experience. It insists that all religious experience be expressed in this vocabulary as if it were divinely rather than humanely created. Doctrine stops the evolution of religious thought and therefore of collective religious awareness. Paradoxically, doctrine deprives human beings of the ability not only to express but even to have religious experience. It gives religion a bad name. Religious doctrine, consequently, inhibits the evolution of the species, particularly its capacity for cooperation for mutual benefit.
Think about the development of the musical symphony. Suppose Papa Haydn had been the doctrinal head of the European musical establishment in the late 18th century, and had declared his preferred symphonic form, and perhaps that of Mozart and a few others, as the definitive and perfected expression of musical art. His followers might have gone on to prescribe the allowable instruments, permissible harmonies, the limits of interpretation and embellishment within this form. The consequence? No Beethoven, no Brahms; and subsequently no Tchaikovsky, no Stravinsky; and probably no Beatles and no Beach Boys.
The Fundamentalists published their ‘fundamentals,’ that is, their judgments about the essential doctrinal components of Christianity between 1910 and 1914 (in twelve volumes!). These fundamentals included not just statements about the nature of God, but also what they considered orthodox opinions about the nature of the world, including so-called ‘old earth creationism,’ the idea that fossils, geologic strata, and other evidence of evolutionary development were in fact an original part of creation as described in the book of Genesis. Why God would plant such misleading evidence for human beings to ponder about is, according to this view, just one of the divine mysteries.
Because of events recounted in the book, Fundamentalism becomes the politically correct form of religion in the North America of Darwinia. But a sort of Lewis & Clark expedition to what has become a European wilderness discovers overwhelming evidence that this cannot be the case. In fact, a futuristic Interlude recasts both the events which provoked the fashion for Fundamentalism, as well as the entire trajectory of sentient existence. This Interlude tells a creatively imaginative tale about human purpose and spiritual destiny which is simply beyond the capacity of such doctrinal religionists to imagine.
The discoveries made by the expedition parallel those of Teilhard de Chardin during his work in China at approximately the same time. Picking up on an idea of a Russian anthropologist, Teilhard developed the concept of the ‘noösphere’ which is a central theme of the Interlude and the key to the whole of Darwinia (the place name itself is a slur invented by the Hearst Press mocking the theory of evolution). This noösphere is the ‘next phase’ in evolution according to Teilhard. It follows on from the bare geosphere of non-living matter, and from the subsequent biosphere in which living beings have penetrated to every corner of the geosphere, transforming it into a cradle of self-development. All is contained in the ontosphere, the realm 0f existence.
The noösphere is a result of life developing and proliferating thought. The noösphere in a sense anticipates the reality of the ‘Cloud’ of the worldwide web by several generations. It consists of our shared knowledge, and our awareness of this knowledge, as something dependent upon but distinct from the matter, both living and non-living from which it has emerged. Teilhard considered this as pointing to a phenomenon of cosmic not just earthly import: The progressive spiritualisation of the universe. This is precisely the situation described in the Interlude.
Teilhard considered that this process of the transformation of matter into thought has a final objective. He called this the Omega Point, a teleological terminus for all of creation. The Interlude suggests that the Omega Point is far beyond the time of the inevitable heat death of solar systems, galaxies, and even the suspension of the Higgs field from which matter originates. Time advances more and more slowly until it stops entirely. Thought is the cosmic resistance to this physical entropy. The noösphere is the last battleground of the old universe and it is the potential source of many new universes. But only, of course, if the noösphere is allowed to evolve without inhibition.
The American philosopher, C. S. Peirce, had anticipated Teilhard by half a century when he defined truth as that which would be known just before the end of sentient life in the universe. In his philosophy, this final goal is a necessary presumption of science, indeed of any inquiring mind. This is the equivalent 0f Teilhard’s Omega Point and points to an implicit hope which is the foundation 0f all metaphysics, including religion. It also suggests a force exerted by the Omega Point backwards, as it were, in time and affecting events in the present. This is the force exploited by Wilson in his fantasy in a remarkably interesting way.
Teilhard was of course condemned as a heretic by the fundamentalist bullies in his own Catholic Church. His error was considered one of ‘modernism’, the very same evil that was being fought against by the Protestants (the Protestants also found the Catholics to be too fundamentalist but that’s another story). But Teilhard’s poetry found its way into the environmental movement as the Gaia Hypothesis among other things, and into Darwinia as a central inspiration. The Fundamentalists went on to become the Moral Majority and Evangelical Republicans, still trying to make the rest of us conform to their myopic vision 0f reality. Peirce’s name has been generally forgotten but not his philosophy which lives on in a number of ‘schools.’
Metaphysical poetry, and the people who write it, speak it, and appreciate it are still fighting to be heard in religion. There are always Fundamentalists who want to turn the imagination, and religion with it, into an algorithm. The war never ends. It’s a bumpy road to the Omega Point.
yourfriendryanj's review against another edition
3.0
The first half of the book is much more interesting then the last half.
dreagan's review against another edition
3.0
Started off pretty promising, but the twist ended up to farfetched for me.
rebelbelle13's review against another edition
3.0
This book feels like it started off on one track, the author wrote himself into a corner and ran out of ideas, then went for something completely different and unexpected, either to subvert expectations or halfway through writing it decided to start taking an illicit substance. It's that jarring, and that much of a shift in storytelling. If this was written by two authors, I would say they each wrote half of a story and challenged themselves to make them into one. Both first half and the second half are good stories by themselves, but together, they make a mish-mash confusing mess. I found myself having to reread massive sections just to attempt an understanding at what was happening, and wondering why the narrative had to take place over 80 years of time. There was a massive buildup to a battle that waged over 20 pages, and the most important parts are glossed over. The parts that Wilson chose to tell versus the parts he left untold baffled me. There were tens of pages that left me wondering why they were included and to what end.
It's an interesting idea, to be sure- Europe one day simply disappears in a blast of light, leaving behind a brand new continent with its own vast history, ready for the human race to explore. A man named Guilford Law is part of one of the first exploration parties, and horribly awful things happen to them in the wilds of this new continent. That part is interesting enough, but then it devolves into ghosts and The Matrix type elements combined with sci-fi futuristic black hole- history and universe spanning consequences, and it feels too big for the story that Wilson started in the first place. It's jarring and unexpected, and not in a good way.
I can see why people walk away from this, because the tone shift is wild. Winner of the Hugo award? Um, okay, sure. It's decent enough, but not really for me. I, like most readers, really enjoy consistency in their sci-fi. This ain't it.
It's an interesting idea, to be sure- Europe one day simply disappears in a blast of light, leaving behind a brand new continent with its own vast history, ready for the human race to explore. A man named Guilford Law is part of one of the first exploration parties, and horribly awful things happen to them in the wilds of this new continent. That part is interesting enough, but then it devolves into ghosts and The Matrix type elements combined with sci-fi futuristic black hole- history and universe spanning consequences, and it feels too big for the story that Wilson started in the first place. It's jarring and unexpected, and not in a good way.
I can see why people walk away from this, because the tone shift is wild. Winner of the Hugo award? Um, okay, sure. It's decent enough, but not really for me. I, like most readers, really enjoy consistency in their sci-fi. This ain't it.