The Book of Skulls

2.5/5

A journey of four college-aged men as they seek out the House of Skulls, where they believe (to varying degrees) that two of them can find the source of eternal life, through the death and sacrifice of the other two. This novel defies genre, landing somewhere in the nebulous space between science fiction, fantasy, and horror, without really satisfying the qualities of any of them. This is the third novel that I've read by Silverberg, and probably the hardest to both rate and qualify for myself.

The quality of the writing itself, like Man in the Maze and Hawksbill Station, is superb. It reads effortlessly, even as the subject matter increases in complexity. It has a trance-like quality to it, where I found myself getting wrapped up show more in the prose itself. The Book of Skulls has a compelling premise, that I enjoyed from beginning to end, especially satisfied with it's ambiguous conclusion that leaves the reader to determine the outcomes. Silverberg touches on some important themes like sacrifice, guilt, and betrayal, but saves most of his thoughts for death. How humans relate to it, what a meaningful death entails, how much of our energies go towards fighting it, what it would mean to be immortal. I also found most of the characterization work to be fruitful and detailed. All of the main characters were starkly different, with unique life experiences, fears, and thought processes that fed into their actions.

I especially enjoyed the novel as it turned inward, exploring the darker crevices of each character's psyche. The reader slowly begins to unfurl each one in turn as they expose themselves mental and emotionally, making for compelling reading.

This all being said, I do think this novel dates itself more harshly than the others that I've read from Silverberg. His treatment of not only women, but also homosexuality, is cringe inducing at best, flat out appalling at worse. Women only serve as objects of sexual appetite to all of the main characters, and while some might argue that this is befitting for late-teen, early-college aged men, it is not handled in a way in which it is clear that these men are exclusively at fault for their backwards behavior. Sex in this context played a huge role in the novel, which made it not only a distraction from Silverbergs more sane and salient points, but actively made the work significantly worse.

Ultimately, I am left feeling wholly disappointed. The ingredients of something amazing are here, but they are largly ruined. I think a modern take on same plot and themes could drop all of the sexist and homophobic nonsense, but lose none of the value. show less

Four students - a privileged WASP, a Midwestern medical student, an Irish Catholic gay, a Jewish scholar - travel cross-country to an Arizona monastery, there to complete a trial that will give them eternal life. They begin this trial knowing that the Ninth of its mysteries requires one of them to commit suicide and another to be murdered in order for the surviving two to achieve immortality. The students' adventures are very much set in the late Sixties but are not dated or camp. The execution is almost as interesting as the premise, a rare achievement. One complaint: I didn't appreciate the crack about Oklahoma accents.

"El libro de los cráneos" (1972), de Robert Silverberg, es una novela de ciencia ficción especulativa que trasciende los convencionalismos del género para adentrarse en un drama psicológico y existencial. La obra sigue a cuatro estudiantes universitarios —Eli, Ned, Timothy y Oliver— que, durante las vacaciones de Semana Santa, emprenden un viaje desde Nueva Inglaterra hacia el desierto de Arizona, impulsados por el descubrimiento de un antiguo manuscrito titulado El Libro de los Cráneos. Este texto, desenterrado por Eli en una biblioteca, promete la inmortalidad a través de un rito iniciático custodiado por una misteriosa secta. Sin embargo, el precio es ominoso: de cada grupo de cuatro candidatos, dos deben perecer para que show more los otros dos alcancen la vida eterna.

A medida que los jóvenes atraviesan Estados Unidos en un viaje físico y metafórico, sus personalidades y conflictos internos emergen con crudeza. Eli, el erudito judío obsesionado con el manuscrito; Ned, el poeta homosexual que juega con las tensiones del grupo; Timothy, el heredero aristocrático que oculta su escepticismo tras una fachada de indiferencia; y Oliver, el ambicioso y disciplinado estudiante de medicina, se enfrentan a dilemas morales, sexuales y filosóficos. El viaje, impregnado de un aire de fatalidad, los lleva a cuestionar sus creencias, deseos y lealtades, mientras el espectro de la muerte y la promesa de la inmortalidad los arrastra hacia un destino incierto en el corazón del desierto.

Con un estilo introspectivo y coral, Silverberg teje una narrativa que combina elementos de thriller psicológico, reflexión filosófica y misticismo, explorando los límites de la fe, el sacrificio y la condición humana. "El libro de los cráneos" es una obra provocadora que desafía las expectativas del lector y lo invita a reflexionar sobre el costo de la trascendencia.

Robert Silverberg, uno de los titanes de la ciencia ficción del siglo XX, demuestra en "El libro de los cráneos" (1972) su capacidad para trascender los límites del género y ofrecer una obra que, aunque anclada en premisas especulativas, se erige como un profundo estudio de la psicología humana y los dilemas existenciales. Publicada en una época de efervescencia contracultural, la novela captura el espíritu de los años setenta, con su mezcla de escepticismo, búsqueda espiritual y cuestionamiento de las estructuras tradicionales, al tiempo que se mantiene atemporal en su exploración de temas universales como la mortalidad, el sacrificio y la ambición.

La novela se estructura como un relato polifónico, alternando las perspectivas de sus cuatro protagonistas: Eli, Ned, Timothy y Oliver. Cada voz es distintiva, no solo por su estilo narrativo, sino por la profundidad con la que Silverberg delinea sus personalidades y conflictos internos. Eli, el intelectual torturado por su herencia cultural y sus inseguridades, encarna la búsqueda obsesiva del conocimiento; Ned, con su sensibilidad poética y su ambivalencia sexual, aporta una dimensión estética y trágica; Timothy, el privilegiado que oculta su cinismo bajo una fachada de indiferencia, representa el pragmatismo de la élite; y Oliver, con su disciplina casi monástica, personifica la ambición desmedida por trascender los límites humanos. Esta multiplicidad de perspectivas permite a Silverberg explorar la complejidad de la condición humana desde ángulos diversos, creando un mosaico narrativo que es tan introspectivo como dinámico.

Uno de los mayores logros de la novela es su capacidad para entrelazar elementos de ciencia ficción con un drama psicológico de corte existencial. Aunque el manuscrito de "El libro de los cráneos" y la promesa de inmortalidad podrían situar la obra en el terreno de la fantasía mística, Silverberg evita caer en los clichés del género. No hay naves espaciales ni batallas intergalácticas; en su lugar, la narrativa se centra en la tensión interna de los personajes y en el simbolismo del viaje como metáfora de la búsqueda de sentido. La secta en el desierto de Arizona, con su aura de misterio y su ritual macabro, evoca tanto las tradiciones esotéricas como las parábolas filosóficas, recordando a obras como "La montaña mágica" de Thomas Mann o los relatos de iniciación de Hermann Hesse, pero con un giro más oscuro y contemporáneo.

El estilo de Silverberg es preciso y evocador, con una prosa que equilibra la introspección con un ritmo narrativo que mantiene al lector en vilo. La novela se beneficia de su estructura episódica, que alterna momentos de camaradería y ligereza con pasajes de profunda introspección y tensión dramática. Las descripciones del paisaje estadounidense, desde las autopistas de Nueva Inglaterra hasta el árido desierto de Arizona, funcionan como un telón de fondo que refleja el estado emocional de los personajes, mientras que las interacciones entre ellos —cargadas de ironía, rivalidad y deseo— destilan autenticidad y crudeza.

Sin embargo, "El libro de los cráneos" no está exenta de críticas. Algunos lectores podrían encontrar que la premisa central, con su mezcla de misticismo y sacrificio, roza lo inverosímil, especialmente si se aborda desde una perspectiva estrictamente racionalista. Asimismo, la intensidad de las reflexiones filosóficas puede resultar abrumadora para quienes busquen una narrativa más convencional o centrada en la acción. No obstante, estas objeciones palidecen frente a la ambición de Silverberg, que no pretende ofrecer respuestas fáciles, sino plantear preguntas inquietantes sobre la fe, el sacrificio y el precio de la ambición.

En el contexto de la ciencia ficción de los años setenta, "El libro de los cráneos" destaca por su audacia y su rechazo a las convenciones del género. La novela de Silverberg se alinea con la Nueva Ola de la ciencia ficción, que privilegiaba la experimentación estilística y los temas psicológicos sobre las narrativas de aventura espacial. Comparada con otras obras de Silverberg, como "Muero por dentro" o "Tiempo de cambios", "El libro de los cráneos" comparte su interés por la introspección y la exploración de la identidad, pero se distingue por su tono más sombrío y su estructura coral.

En última instancia, "El libro de los cráneos" es una obra que desafía al lector a confrontar sus propias creencias sobre la vida, la muerte y el sentido de la existencia. Silverberg no solo ofrece una narrativa absorbente, sino también una meditación profunda sobre el costo de la trascendencia y la fragilidad de las conexiones humanas. Es una novela que, como los mejores textos de su género, no solo entretiene, sino que invita a la reflexión y perdura en la memoria mucho después de haber cerrado sus páginas. show less

Elevator pitch time: Robert Silverberg's "Sci Fi Masterwork" The Book of Skulls is In the Company of Men meets The Holy Mountain* but in, you know, prose. Only I'm pretty sure I'm expected to forgive all of the scorchingly misogynist** elements of the former because it's a product of its time. Only I'm kind of failing at the forgiving thing. But it has enough remarkable qualities to make me really want to find a way to forgive it, but forgiving it feels like a bit more gender treachery than I'm comfortable with nursing in my heart and so I'm having a real David Foster Wallace-style internal conundrum about this damnable book.

It was about 1/3 of my way into The Book of Skulls that I realized I was eyeball deep in the first genuine hate show more read of my life. But also that I could not stop admiring what Silverberg was pulling off here, even as I seethed with hatred and ill wishes for all four of his protagonists.

The Book of Skulls tells the story of four Harvard boys who have decided to make a spring break road trip to Arizona, following up on some esoteric research they've done that has led them to the cautious but fervent conclusion that the secret to eternal life/youth/vigor is to be found at a secret desert monastery there. Said Harvard boys being, in their four different ways, exactly the kind of nasty, bullying know-it-all jerks that I chose to attend a fraternity-free liberal arts hippie college in the forest to avoid. As in it's not just their misogyny that makes them unpleasant. Super-rich, carelessly arrogant Timothy; driven, ruthless, tightly-wound Oliver; bitter, cynical, sneering Ned (who is also a bit of an awful caricature of a gay/bisexual man); and scrawny, scholiastic, intelectually domineering Eli (a bit of a caricature of the Manhattan Jew) redeem themselves only in odd moments of conversation, mostly in the book's second act in Arizona, when they start really wrestling with the fascinating questions of if this quest of theirs could possibly see fulfillment, what it would really mean to live forever (in a strong and healthy young body), belief, faith, and each other. Lots of tasty talk about metaphysics, for those of you who enjoy that sort of thing, which I do.

And we get to know them really, really well, because the duties of first person narrator are shared equally among them, chapter by chapter, the narrating stick tossed around the circle like a skittle. Which, yes, is one of this novel's many stunning technical achievements, because The Book of Skulls could definitely pass Robert Anson Heinlein's Godbody test.***

This all comes to the fore with stunning rapidity, long before Arizona, though, because the immortality they seek has some mighty interesting strings attached: for anyone to succeed, four must apply together, and of those four, only two may receive the boon. Of the other two, one must willingly sacrifice himself (as in suicide) and one must be murdered by the other applicants. That's a hell of a scenario to play out and spend a whole novel entertaining, and Silverberg gets enough mileage out of it to make an infinite number of trips from Massachusetts to Arizona.

Before they're even out of Manhattan, the boys are all making their case for what the outcome is going to be -- if the claim/offer doesn't turn out to be bunk. Interestingly, they all seem to agree, and to make a very persuasive case for it, each with his own arguments as to how and why the predicted outcome would be so. And, but here's the thing, this happens many, many times through the novel. Every few passes 'round of the narrative skittle, the reader is persuaded of a different outcome, while simultaneously unable to dismiss the previous versions thereof. This is utterly, jaw-droppingly masterful.

And there's more masterful where that came from. We're not just dealing with the present Timothy, Oliver, Ned and Eli here. We're dealing with their past selves, and their projections of themselves, imaginally, into an infinite future (of these, only Eli really bothers to plan out what he might do with all that time, and his plans are wonderfully grandiose; of the four he's the least loathesome by kind of a lot. Of the four). And that's not all, either, because, like I saw happening in Dostoevsky's Poor Folk,in addition to the different versions of the characters in the voyage through time, we're also dealing with each character's projections, his internal emulators, of the other three. I'm too lazy to do the math right now, as usual, but it's somewhere upwards of seven versions of at least of the four characters being juggled around in Silverberg's and our heads at pretty much every given moment in the narrative, and it never gets confusing or annoying or anything but stunningly brilliant.

But still, as I believe I've mentioned already, I hated these characters and I wished them ill. So even as I was riveted watching their fascinatingly ugly (and yet weirdly also tender, because there are real emotional bonds there) group dynamics, what really kept me reading was my ill-wishing hope that they were all heading for doom, or at least disappointment.****

Yes, I read this book fervently hoping for an Alejandro Jodorowsky "zoom back camera" moment for this quartet, so I could point and laugh and say it served them right -- but as story got into its second act, at the mysterious monastary, and I realized how much I was thinking of The Holy Mountain as I read, and I further recalled that this novel and this film are almost exact contemporaries of one another (The Book of Skulls was first published in 1972; The Holy Mountain was first released in 1973), and I managed to dial back the hate for a while. This was because, awful as these Silverberg boys are, they are not a patch on the assembly of asshats that Jodorowsky paraded on pretty much the same quest.

So perhaps the point both Silverberg and Jodorwosky had in mind at the time, a time of turmoil, ugliness and let-down -- Vietnam, Watergate, violent protests and overreactions to protest, the sexual revolution (which, I just read yesterday, may well have had as much to do with penicillin and its power to cure syphilis as it did with the birth control pill -- maybe even more so) in its wild and heady pre-AIDS days, etc. -- was the idea that we have to go through an ugly, frightening, appalling stage (in other words, an adolescence) in order to develop into something finer? Most people think caterpillars are ugly, and even the ones that grow into the prettiest butterflies often cause a LOT of economic/aesthetic/ecological damage by eating like hogs while they're caterpillars (though the ecological and economic damage they cause is abetted by our agricultural practices, of course, just like arrogance and misogyny and other horrible character traits can also be laid at a society's door, if no one is bothering to take corrective/preventative action before the kids are turned loose on the world "young, dumb and full of cum").

Regardless of whether this attempt-to-forgive has any merit, I'm still stonked with admiration at this book. This is very different from loving it. I just recognize it as a wildly successful work of art. And hey, it did something that many say art should: it made me uncomfortable.

And hey, I did have fun hoping that the monastic order waiting for the boys in Arizona would be those magnificent bastard hoaxters, Casaubon, Diotallevi and Jacopo Belbo from Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum.

Now I think I'm going to read that, since it's thematically related to this one I've just finished and all. Plus, it's very likely my favorite book of all time, it's been many years since I've indulged, it always makes me smile, and after mind-vomiting my way through this, I need to smile for a bit.

*And they really, really, did not need to meet ever.

**And homophobic, and anti-Semetic, and anti-Catholic elements, too, but those fade into the background in the light of the casual awfulness with which women are treated, described or portrayed here. Even in a moment we are perhaps supposed to read as laudably sympathetic/empathetic, when one of the protagonists is observing to himself that the waitress serving them at a greasy spoon has had a long day, he has to throw in a remark like "there was an acrid, cunty smell coming off her." Really? Really? REALLY? And then there's the moment when one character confesses a rape to another, and that other is only actually interested in the incest angle of said rape. This is not a plot spoiler, by the way, more of a trigger warning. The detail of the confession has absolutely nothing to do with the plot except it needed to be something shocking. Well, uh, congratulations, Captain Asshat Silverberg. But so seriously, I would rather read a book with no women in it at all than one in which they are always and only treated as objects, and objects of contempt to boot. I would gladly read a fan-edit of The Book of Skulls in which all the appearances of my gender had been excised. Gladly. I WOULD RATE THAT HYPOTHETICAL FAN EDIT WITH FIVE STARS.

***Godbody also being a novel told in multiple first person accounts, to a degree of perfection that is truly astonishing, Heinlein said of Ted Sturgeon's last and finest novel that a person could, if he or she had a friend choose passages at random from the text to read aloud (preferably without the guesser seeing where the passage is physically in the book), unerringly identify who the narrator is just from a sentence or two. I have done this several times; have even tried it with both people who have and haven't read the book making the selections, and it didn't matter which of those my reader of the moment was; I could always tell.

****So this is a very different enjoyment from that I gained from watching the antics and machinations of the Bastards In Space of Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space novels. show less

Vacanze nel deserto, chissà quale mente perversa della redazione Urania decise di trasformare l'assai più evocativo titolo originale, Il libro dei teschi, in questa assoluta banalità. Banalità che, assieme a una quarta di copertina decisamente fuorviante (chi la scrisse forse non aveva nemmeno letto il romanzo) mi ha tratto in inganno facendomi credere di non aver mai letto questo libro. Vabbè, una volta chiarito l'equivoco, dato che in effetti dalla mia prima lettura del Libro dei teschi è passato molto tempo, mi sono goduta la rilettura.
Silvergerg mescola temi new age alla Castaneda con elementi tao per creare questo classico on the road, che, come tutti i libri del genere, è innanzi tutto un viaggio all'interno di se stessi da show more parte dei quattro protagonisti. Interessante la scrittura, che vede ogni capitolo scritto dal punto di vista di uno dei quattro.
Vorrei dire che il finale è sorprendente, ma in effetti non lo è: vive chi deve vivere, e muore chi deve morire. Molto molto interessante. show less

The Book of Skulls is a very heavy period piece, a pressure cooker story of early 70s style New Wave SciFi paranoia. Four roommates at an elite East Coast college (it's Yale) are on a quest across America for a monastery that holds the secret of immortality, guided by an ancient tome found in the library stacks. But there's a catch. Mystery Nine states that life must be paid for by death: two members of the group will live forever, one will commit suicide, one will be murdered.

We meet our characters in rotating first person narration. Eli found the tome; he's a classicist, a neurotic New York Jewish intellectual. Ned is Irish Catholic, gay and/or bisexual, a self-styled Poet. Timothy is old establishment money, trust-funds and country show more clubs and a lineage back to the American Revolution. Oliver is a scholarship boy from Kansas, an intense youth who aims to become a doctor to defeat death.

They roadtrip across America, discussing their belief in their quest and its object, the various grades of friendships and animosities within the group, and sexual desire. There's an authenticity to very collegiate mix of shallowness and profundity. These boys have deep cracks, that have yet to be filled with the liquid of adulthood. Upon reaching the monastery, they are inducted into various mysteries and tested to see who will live, and who will die. Of the characters, Eli rings the trustest (his biography is close to Silverberg's), while Ned's frank homosexuality was bold and forthright for the period, but it hasn't held up very well (on the other hand, I wasn't there. Maybe a gay Boomer would find his portrayal more accurate). In the end, though, we know where these characters are headed, and their revelations, and the revelation of the true nature of immortality, are not as wrenching or interesting as I'd want. Silverberg, as always, turns a good yarn, but I've set to see him write a truly great one. show less

This heavily character-driven novel begins and continues like an interesting jaunt through america in a classic road-trip novel, but it eventually becomes something much more on two fronts that might possibly be just one.

Is it really about joining a secret society cult based on a the Book of Skulls that promises immortality at a price? Or is it really about exploring one's sexuality, with the majority of emphasis being on homosexuality?

I'm not saying that being a homosexual is the route to immortality in this tale. Far from it. It's incidental, but intricately linked to what the narrator is focused on within his own mind, always swirling closer and closer and closer and never quite being able to free himself through all the meditations show more and weird secret-society explorations because of it.

It can get a bit trippy, well beyond the sexuality aspects. Very '70's writing, with main focus on enlightenment and free love and using drugs to open their minds, but more than that, this is a very deep exploration of the mind and motives and reactions to so many conflicting desires. The narrator doesn't see himself as homosexual, he sees himself as bisexual, and all of it is just as muddied as his own hunt for personal enlightenment.

Death? Sex? Drugs? Quest? It's all part of the same novel, and it's very interesting on all those levels and also one more: Spirituality and mystery religions. Silverberg obviously has a great deal of knowledge about them and it held my attention nearly as much as the main tale. Fun stuff.

Other than that, it's nominally SF. It's more a tale of self-discovery during the 70's more than anything. :) show less