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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Selected Works of T S Spivet by Reif Larsen (view source)
Revision as of 08:55, 3 September 2020
, 08:55, 3 September 2020no edit summary
However, author Reif Larsen has transcended the sum of such influences to produce an engrossing and original novel. There is no doubting its scope and ambition, akin to TS's own 'lifelong task of mapping the real world in its entirety'.
The uniting themes of family and heredity arise from TS's ill-matched parents: his father a taciturn cowboy; his mother, Dr Clair, an obsessive entomologist. TS clearly takes after his mother who, we discover, is not as ''paralyzingly empirical'' as she seems. She turns out to have imaginatively documented the life of one of her husband's ancestors, an early female geologist – here presented as a story-within-a -story which parallels the lives of both Dr Clair and TS.
Along the way, Larsen ropes in Darwin and quantum theory, religion and feminism. He maps social as well as geological strata, and explores tensions between art and science, creationism and evolution. This sometimes suggests too much breadth and too little depth. Overlaid on a relatively slight plot, the whole at times feels too disparate to hold together.
Such reservations aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Its richness and quirkiness captivated me and, as someone who can find novels a chore (in particular unconvincing first-parson narratives), I genuinely found it hard to put down. Sure TS, as a child prodigy, has a vocabulary and learning way beyond his peers, but this could simply be because he is telling his story from an adult perspective - we are never told at what age his narrative was written.
Despite his mendacious tendencies and his gnomic utterances, TS Spivet is hard to dislike. Because of his age and personality, he is both vulnerable and sophisticated; naive yet knowing. Through his eyes , we see the world afresh in all its dizzying diversity and infinite wonder, and you can't ask much more of a novel than that.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag. We also have a review of [[I Am Radar by Reif Larsen]].
If this book appeals then we think you might also enjoy [[Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese]].
