Two Books Off the Shelf: Eleanor Rigby and Mars Life (It Gets Lonely Up There)

What fell off the shelf and into my lap?

Two very fine books.









Eleanor Rigby
by Douglas Coupland
Bloomsbury, 2004

Another Douglas Coupland novel?

Yeah, I guess so. This is the fourth one I’ve read, and the third I’ve reviewed here.

(The missing book is Microserfs which was an early version of JPod and, it being an earlier work, I didn’t think was up to the same standard.)

But Eleanor Rigby, a book from a couple of years ago, looks at a different type of Genx'er--the lonely type. Meet Liz Dunn, a woman in her thirties who lives an isolated sort of existence. She has a good paying job (the details of which we don’t really learn or need to), has a fairly nice condo, is comfortable, but very lonely.

This doesn’t seem to bother her much, but she acknowledges that she’s practically invisible to the rest of the world--something she has in common with the hero of the Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby.”


Suddenly, into her life comes a long-lost child... a son she gave up for adoption twenty years prior following an out-of-character teen pregnancy resulting from a school trip to Rome. Meet Jeremy. He’s charming. He’s a mystic. And he’s dying. In a very short time, Jeremy’s presence changes everything about Liz’s life. Where life was a muted gray, it is now vibrant and colorful. Even in dealing with the trials of Jeremy’s illness, there is life in Liz’s world now.

Liz’s story doesn’t end after Jeremy passes on (this is not a spoiler), but it does take an unexpected--and very unfairly unexpected twist. But even in the unfairness of Liz’s fate, there is a celebration of life.

Overall it’s an interesting book. It looks at loneliness--but not necessarily as a condemnation. It looks at those who live outside the box. Who don't care to live by others' expectations. Who embrace life even if it’s not the life that other people think they should be living. Even when normal life is embraced--there’s something subversive about the way it’s done. Working a 9-5 job. Selling mattresses. Having a child. Singing backwards.

There’s a lot in this book that is similar to The Gum Thief, a later book by Coupland already reviewed here, in which it looks at alienation and how we perceive others and ourselves, but while the overall message is positive, Eleanor Rigby doesn’t quite reach the same level.

But in the context of the book, one should look at the story’s accomplishments on its own merit. In that regard, it accomplishes the story quite well.

Recommended? Sure. Mind you, there are no explosions or rockets or shoot-outs, but there are hallucinations, visions, and falling stars.

So hey... yeah, it’s a high recommendation.


Mars Life
by Ben Bova
Tor, 2008

Mar’s Life by Ben Bova is part of the Grand Tour series of novels about the exploration of life of the solar system, and the third in a series about Mars itself.

No fear, though.

One need not have read the first two books, or any of the other Grand Tour novels, to enjoy this book thoroughly.

In the first book, Navajo scientist, Jamie Waterman, discovered cliff dwellings on Mars--proof of intelligent life in Mars’ distant past, and makes a special connection with Mars via his Navajo heritage.


Jamie sees it as his twin mission to spearhead the study of life on Mars, and to protect it exploitation and contamination from unrestrained colonization. Fast forward to the current book, the scientific climate on Earth--particularly the United States--is not looking good. A religious fundamentalist movement called the New Morality has been consolidating power--particularly among various Christian sects--and has initiated a campaign of suppression in education, the sciences, and anything having to do with life on other planets. Because Earth has been having a lot of troubles lately--particularly with polution and rising oceans due to unchecked global warming, the New Morality takes advantage of the situation by promoting an Earth-First stance and uses this as an excuse to get funding for Mars cut.

The story focuses on the scientists on Mars and their conflicting missions as they’re affected by shrinking funding and pressure from home due to the New Morality. The fundamentalists use their power to pressure donors to pull their support of the Mars program. They convince both Congress and the President that the New Morality will soon be in control of the government--so they had better play ball. Even academic institutions bow to the pressure of the power-hungry religious right by severing their ties to off-planet scientists. Will ignorance mean the shutting down of the Mars program? Will the New Morality be able to convince humanity to ignore the evidence in front of them of life on other planets? Will Jamie Waterman be able to save the Mars program, and keep it from being overrun by rich space tourists in the process? Time is running out.

Politically the book was pretty timely given the Bush administration’s lack of support for the scientific inquiry. Bova’s choice of having Earth suffer the after-effects of global warming was no coincidence. The clash between science and religion is not a new theme in Bova’s Grand Tour novels. Similar themes appear in Bova’s novels Saturn, Jupiter, and others. Bova doesn’t condemn religious faith, but he does (and I believe rightly so) condemn extremism. Most scientists have no problem reconciling science and faith, but sadly not everyone has that ability or will.

I highly recommend all of Bova’s Grand Tour novels, which I list here for your convenience.

Pick them up when and where you can.



Mars (1992)
Empire Builders (1993)
Moonrise (1996)
Moonwar (1998)
Return to Mars (1999)
Venus (2000)
Jupiter (2001)
The Rock Rats (2002)
Saturn (2002)
The Silent War (2004)
Powersat (2005)
Mercury (2005)
Titan (2006)
The Aftermath (2007)
Mars Life (2008)

And that’s it for now. Keep on reading!

Cheers!

For information on how to get your book reviewed on Falling Off the Shelf, or to send hate mail, feel free to contact me at john (at) johnteehan (dot) com.