2001: A Space Odyssey

Simplesmente fantástico e um ótimo companheiro pro filme, porque permite entendê-lo melhor e ao mesmo tempo ter visuais claros do que está acontecendo no livro. Não pude evitar de ler os momentos chave do livro com o tema principal de Interestelar na minha cabeça, apesar de Zarathustra.
Acho que duas sensações que tive com esse livro foram absolutamente sensacionais, além de algo que eu tive com livros de ficção científica muito bons: a primeira foi finalmente ter a sensação de quão vasto o Universo é, de quão absurdo e maravilhoso é que o ser humano tenha conseguido ir até a Lua e além. Puta merda, nós mandamos robôs até Marte, meu deus do céu.
A outra foi muito mais pessoal, e não sei quanto ela tem a ver com show more o momento de vida que estou. Sei que eu estava num chalé aqui no Canadá, perto de Montreal; o chalé pertence ao amigo do meu primo, é enorme, todo confortável, e nele eu percebi que pela primeira vez, minha frase brincalhona fazia sentido: 'Acabou a casa de boneca'. Sou um adulto, com sonhos, uma missão, apenas mais um humilde membro da raça humana; acabou a era de ter férias escolares fazendo nada, porque o ano começa comigo sendo celetista e é isso aí. Ao me olhar no espelho, senti todo o pouco tempo que vivi escorrendo; o melhor ano de minha vida está chegando ao fim, e em algum ponto, todas as pessoas que admiro devem ter se sentido assim. Parece um conceito óbvio, e em algum nível racional, é óbvio que eu e qualquer pessoa racional sabe que todo mundo já foi adolescente, jovem adulto, etc, até chegar à velhice. Mas eu nunca havia SENTIDO na pele essa verdade. Nunca tinha conseguido olhar e pensar 'caramba, aquela pessoa bem sucedida já teve esse momento'. E acho que esse livro, com sua enorme jornada em busca de vida e um sentido maior, me fez perceber quão vastas são nossas histórias, como somos universos reais entrelaçados e, ao mesmo tempo, somos um pedaço irrelevante do Cosmos. Somos humanos, compartilhando de uma experiência tão básica e real quanto estar encarnados em um pedaço de carne que envelhece e, ao mesmo tempo, somos poeira. E isso me deu paz. show less

Whatever you might think of the movie, and I didn't like it, this is a great book. It's a weird history, the book developing as the movie was being written and filmed, but it makes clear that Kubrick, again, didn't share Clarke's vision, or couldn't bring it to the screen anyway. The book takes way more time with man in its infancy, where this part of the film just doesn't make sense without the book's narrative. It makes so much more sense. And Hal, while voiced wonderfully in the movie, is way creepier, and a good deal more complicated in the book. Finally, Dave's journey into the portal makes sense here in the book, while Kubrick just substitutes some psychedelic colors and music. Is it clear I don't like Kubrick - will never forgive show more him for missing the point in [The Shining], like he misses the point here.

Read the book.

4 bones!!!!
Recommended show less

This read of 2001: A Space Odyssey was my first, and I last watched the film over thirty years ago. The edition in hand is the 1999 "millennium" pocket paperback, with retrospective front matter by Arthur C. Clarke discussing the authorial process. In light of that introduction, I'm a little surprised that Stanley Kubrick didn't get a byline on the novel as a co-author. The book was plotted as a stage of the development of the screenplay, drawing on earlier stories by Clarke and incorporating Kubrick's ideas and ambitions for the film. Then the two parallel media products were completed in dialog with each other. In the end there are some significant differences between the novel and the movie, but the book certainly exposes and show more clarifies many of the ideas behind the film.

Clarke wrote "hard" sf, with an effort to maintain scientific and social plausibility. So, with the passage of time, his projected world of "2001" now set a generation in our past has come to represent an alternate history, and it's one that makes me nostalgic for turns not taken in our cultural and technological paths. Clarke's 2001 has a manned moon base, and in general space exploration has progressed in preference to the technologies of simulation and social control that have come to dominate our 21st century to this point. He imagined a better diversion of the military-industrial complex into the work of peaceful extraterrestrial inquiry than we have been able to achieve. His geopolitical scenario failed to foresee the collapse of the USSR, but credibly made the USA and USSR allies in tension with China, as the USA and Russia arguably were in our actual 2001.

It was interesting to reflect that one of the conceits of this novel has come to dominate a lot of 21st-century sf: a "first contact" with extra-solar intelligence that is mediated by some sort of archaeological remains. I see this trope in a lot of recent space opera, including MacLeod's Newton's Wake, Harrison's Kefahuchi Tract books, the Expanse series, and even Wells' Murderbot books. I wonder if my library catalog needs an "exo-archaeology" tag to tie these works together.

Another notable feature was the epistemological feint in Chapter 15, where Dave Bowman recovers from an earthbound training simulation thinking at first he is being awoken from hibernation in space. This passage stands as a foil for the protagonist's later alien-curated experiences in the final section of the book, and together they offer a sfnal interrogation of human subjectivity that is not quite phildickian but still savory.

2001 has very short chapters; I usually read three or more in a sitting. These in turn are grouped into six parts: Primeval Night, TMA-1, Between Planets, Abyss, The Moons of Saturn, and Through the Star Gate. The structure suggests an initiatory ascent according to the symbol systems of modern Hermetic Kabbala: Malkuth/Earth (Neophyte), path of tav to Yesod/Luna (Zelator), path of samekh to Tiphareth/Sol (Adeptus Minor), path of gimel and Da'ath (Babe of the Abyss), Binah/Saturn (Magister Templi), and Chokmah/Zodiac (Magus). The initiand in this case would be humanity as a whole, and the viewpoint characters differ from section to section in the first half of the book.

The relationship of Clarke and Kubrick's 2001 to Homer's original Odyssey is not fully obvious. It seems to have been widely understood merely in the sense of episodic adventure over a journey, but my reading of the novel reassured me that the more specific sense of a homeward journey was intended, and this gist is consistent with the mystical progression that I inferred from the divisions of the text. "With eyes that already held more than human intentness, the baby stared into the depths of the crystal monolith, seeing--but not yet understanding--the mysteries that lay beyond. It knew that it had come home, that here was the origin of many races beyond its own; but it also knew that it could not stay" (293, emphasis added). I plan to read further in Clarke's "Odyssey Sequence," and I am curious to see whether the esoteric themes are perpetuated in the later books. show less

Ancient aliens guide the evolution of mankind through mysterious monoliths.

Even though the book was released after the famous film directed by Stanley Kubrick debuted, it would be a mistake to consider it a novelization of the movie. Actually, Clarke and Kubrick collaborated on both the screenplay and the novel, and Kubrick’s name was originally supposed to appear on the cover as co-author. But Kubrick got caught up with filming, and Clarke finished the novel on his own. That’s why there are some noticeable — but not, in my opinion, critical — differences between the novel and the film. Some details were changed during filming for story purposes or because the original idea was too difficult to shoot. For instance, the location show more of the second monolith was moved from one of Saturn’s moons to orbit around Jupiter because Kubrick could not figure out how to realistically depict Saturn’s rings on film. (This was before Cassini, remember.)

However, if you somehow missed both the movie and the book, I would recommend reading the novel only after seeing the movie first, and only if you don’t mind a lot of explanation for what happens in the movie. For me, Clarke’s novel augments my understand of Kubrick’s film and helps me understand the movie’s many abstract concepts: What are the aliens? What are their motives? Why did the HAL 9000 go crazy? How was Dave Bowman transformed and what is the significance of his transformation?

Clarke’s writing style is restrained and focused, making this short novel very readable. The best sections are the final two, aboard the spaceship Discovery during HAL’s breakdown and Dave’s encounter with the monolith. Clarke effectively conveys the paradoxical emotions of space travel: the boredom and tedium of space flight; the thrill of exploring worlds so beautiful and alien that it is almost impossible to comprehend them; and the extreme isolation and loneliness of being millions of miles from all other members of the human race. The sequence where the HAL 9000 computer loses its mind is particularly chilling, just as in the movie. And the description of Dave’s journey into the monolith is awe-inspiring, yet Clarke keeps us tethered to the universe and concepts we can understand.

It’s rare that both a great film and a great book can be produced in tandem; I can’t really come up with another example. The only flaw is perhaps the dated title. We’re now a decade past the pivotal title year, and about as far from building a moon base or putting people on Mars as we could be, much less mounting a manned expedition to the outer solar system. Well, just ignore the date, or consider this an alternate history instead of a vision of the future. What if our evolution had been guided by godlike aliens undertaking a multi-million-year experiment? Would be better off today, post-2001? show less

I read this book decades ago, and of course I've seen the movie numerous times. But the story remains one of the most compelling and interesting that I have ever read.

What's compelling, I think, is its inscrutability. The featureless, impenetrable black monolith, left on the Moon and on Saturn's moon, Iapetus ("Japetus" in the book) represent an otherness that confronts us with our own limits. Although in the book much more is explained about the monolith and its makers than in the movie, it remains mysterious and beyond reach. Amidst popular images of aliens as just like us, only different, Clarke's unseen aliens are utterly beyond and utterly different. Their image stimulates humility.

2001, the book, does differ in some details from show more 2001, the movie. For one, the journey of the Discovery is to the Saturn system, not the Jupiter system. More significantly, Clarke explains what Dave Bowman experiences and learns rather than, as in the movie, allowing images to tease us with hints but no definitive account. I have to say that I prefer the movie on that score. Many people complained, and still do, that they can't figure out what is going on in the movie's final sequences. But that seemed to me to be the point -- we just don't understand.

Another point that is explained in the book more definitively than in the movie is Hal's breakdown. Here it is plain that Hal is unable to cope with keeping his knowledge of the Discovery's true mission from Bowman and Poole, having to lie to them, at the same time as his own mission is to serve them. Hal begins acting unpredictably, and he begins covering his tracks to keep his secrets and protect himself, for the sake of his own dedication to the mission.

All in all, more is explained, and less is left mysterious, and I do prefer the movie although I love the book -- maybe the only time I have ever preferred a movie to a book. In this case, though, it's not entirely true to say that the movie is based on the book. Both were written at the same time, and it's not clear that Clarke ever would have written the book if not for the movie project. For us as readers, it's hard not to read the book with the images of the movie in mind. If you are interested in the part of the story that was not occasioned by the movie project, find a copy of Clarke's short story, "The Sentinel" -- a precursor to the story of the alien monolith. show less

As masterfully made as Stanley Kubrick's version of 2001: A Space Odyssey is, it's too slow and too quiet at times for my taste. It's like an art gallery of outer space paintings is on display, and the camera moves even slower from shot to shot than a person would in a gallery. I like it - and in fact certain scenes in the film are favorites (especially the one where the ape man is going all ape having discovered ape man's first weapon, a piece of bone, smashing it in a pile of other bones so that one bone, a tibia looked like, gets ricocheted end-over-end into the air and just as the flying tibia has reached its flight's slow-mo apex, the scene seamlessly transitions to a space station likewise rotating end-over-end: fantastic show more filmmaking and editing for sure, but I prefer Clarke's novel nevertheless.

I prefer the novel mostly because Clarke crafted more meaningful philosophical observations on the page than Kubrick could accomplish with his camera - except for that iconic, Zarathustra-themed tibia-space station segue. And that's why, I think, the movie just plods and plods along - face it, even though it's a classic, it's boring - while the novel builds and builds (and is never boring) towards its monolithic climax, where we witness the birth of the next speculative step in humankind's evolution, the "Star Child," or, the "Fetus In The Bubble-Womb Floating By The Moon Child," assuming you've only seen the film. And the film is fantastic, don't get me wrong; and as revered as the film is, I think the book is even better, arguably the best thing Clarke ever wrote.

And don't forget Hal - the neurotic computer given conflicting commands by his programmers who ultimately jettisons the crew - I like how he's characterized more so in the novel than he is in the film as well. In the movie, Hal gets reduced to what amounts to a red dashboard light and a voice sounding like, if it were human, had popped one too many valiums. Not very scary. Certainly no Frankenstein. In the novel, though, Hal comes off a lot creepier, edgier, and more mysterious, because he's not confined to the limits of the filmmaker's finite images, but left alone to however the reader's vivid (and infinite) imaginations envision him.

And in the time it would take a person to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey (does that movie ever end?) one could have easily polished off Clarke's novel. Or two, or three, or four of Clarke's slimmer novels even. show less

The author produced this novel in 1968, a collaborative effort with Hollywood director Stanley Kubrick who left the writing to Clarke while he focused on transmitting its ideas to film. The novel closely parallels the movie's plot but diverges in some instances. Where Kubrick was purposefully vague, Clarke provides details on the page in a straightforward manner. That isn't to say there's no lingering mystery, but it provides a much clearer sense of astronaut David Bowman's fate.

For all that Arthur C. Clarke gets wrong about the future (he omits personal computers and cellphones, posits zero inflation, his women remain in stereotypical jobs, there's no minorities in sight ...) he gets some surprising things right: the end of the Cold show more War and the rise of China, reading worldwide news over the internet and how mundane that news still is. The Voyager probes hadn't even been launched yet, and still his descriptions of Jupiter and Saturn together with their moons reads largely accurate.

The discovery of the monument on the moon and the signal it emits are the plot's primary driver. But there is something else happening. Originally it is the alien prompting of tools that helps ensure humanity's evolution and survival. So there is some irony, together with serendipity, in the fact that the ultimate tool - artificial intelligence - is what threatens to be our undoing just as we again make contact.

I'm not sure what my takeaway is, other than its speaking to the pleasant idea of some greater-than-us overseer who can intervene in our self-destruction, but which also displays a wisdom we should take to heart: that this intervention must ultimately be an act that we choose for ourselves. show less