In Vigil, a dying oil tycoon is visited by ghosts
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Vigil
George Saunders, Bloomsbury
I’m not generally a fan of novellas (or short novels). Just as I’m diving into them, they end. But while interesting people continue to write interesting-sounding works like these, I feel an obligation to keep reading them, and this week I’ll feature not one, but two of these relatively slim volumes.
First, there is Vigil by Booker Prize-winning author George Saunders, whose novel Lincoln in the Bard it was a worldwide hit. IN Vigilthe ghost of a woman named Jill “Doll” Blaine descends to Earth to watch over the final hours of an oil tycoon named KJ Boone.
Jill’s job, as she sees it, is to comfort. She likes to help a soul find peace with what they have done. But it turns out Boone doesn’t need any comfort. He’s quite happy with the decisions he’s made, even though his life as an oil tycoon has inevitably involved so many lies and so much environmental destruction.
The story takes place during the last few hours of the tycoon’s life. Other ghosts appear, as do family members. They all come looking for some moment of reckoning with the tycoon. Frustrated with Boone, Jill, our narrator, ends up flying back and forth, visiting elements of her own life and death before returning to her place at his bedside.
As you’d expect from a famous wordsmith, every line of Saunders’ work is fresh and gorgeous. He is the enemy of the dull and clichéd.
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While interesting people write interesting-sounding novels all the time, I feel obligated to read them
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But in the end I found myself dissatisfied with it Vigildenouement. I guess I expected to understand Boone’s heart more. Or, perhaps foolishly, I wanted the same reckoning that everyone in the story wanted. I also felt that Jill was the most interesting character in the book and would have liked to have spent more time exploring her tragic backstory.
But no one can deny Saunders’s brilliance and artistry, or the seriousness of the issues he explores. Vigil. I think this is probably a book that deserves to be read at least twice.
Rainseekers
Matthew Kressel, Tor Publishers
Now to that Rainseekers by Matthew Kressel. It is essentially a series of short stories, with a narrative arc running through them. The main protagonist, Sakunja Salazar, is an influencer-turned-journalist living on Mars at a time when the planet’s terraforming efforts are finally bearing fruit.
There is now open water on the Red Planet, and you can even breathe air at certain times, as long as there isn’t a low-oxygen air current blowing in to spoil the moment. Sakunja takes part in a buggy ride deep into the Martian wilderness with a group that intends to be the first to witness rain on Mars. It is a beautiful and poetic thought.
Along the way, Sakunja interviews his fellow rainseekers, asking them about their lives and their reasons for wanting to see Martian rain. Each of these hikers’ stories contributes to the overarching story of the group traveling into the wilderness.
Kressel is very good at telling human stories, powerfully and in few words, and that adds weight to the novella. The stories create a living picture of the solar system as it is in Kressel’s vision of the future.
I think the least successful part of the book for me was Sakunja herself, who never managed to arouse my interest or sympathy. However, it is an enjoyable and very human companion piece to terraforming classics such as Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars trilogy.
Emily also recommends…
Juice
Tim Winton, Mr. Macmillan
If you are interested in oil tycoons and their role in climate change, this is the book for you. In this novel, we travel far into the future, but it turns out that there are still people alive who can be punished for what went wrong. It’s a great piece of work – and this month’s New Scientist Book Club pick!
Emily H. Wilson is the author of the Sumerian series (Inanna, Gilgamesh, and Ninshubar, all published by Titan) and is currently working on her first science fiction novel. She is a former editor of New Scientist and can be followed on Instagram @emilyhwilson1
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