Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Contact
Name: Contact
Author: Carl Sagan
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: 1985
Rating: 4.3/5
Sometimes, movies are born famous because they are based on good books; but sometimes, books are made more famous by the making of a movie. Contact is a great book, but it belongs to the latter category; it broke out of the universe of Science Fiction geeks and became really famous because of the movie. And Jodie Foster.
Yet, I can talk about the book without pausing to think or speak about the movie at all, because the movie makers made it very, very different from the book, but still did a great job of it.
Carl Sagan's writing style is not for the impatient. If you were expecting to be sucked into a roller coaster science fiction adventure with aliens and lasers, you will be very disappointed. The book strolls along leisurely, building up the characters, the plot and the scenarios in acute detail. Every new location, every new character is devoted a couple of pages of description so that you may better appreciate the events. Such breaks from the plot were initially annoying, but once you accept that you will not be sitting on the edge of the chair for this one, prop up a pillow and relax, and enjoy the novel. It took me more than three days to read the novel, which is not overly large by any standards; and considering that at the end of it I really liked the book, that time frame is a record for a guy who's known to finish thousand-page novels in a day.
In a refreshing departure from the traditional way of writing Science Fiction novels, Sagan spends a lot of time on the human psyche: exposing it in all its pettiness, narrowness, irrationality and self-destructiveness, especially when it comes to mass behaviour. The book is not about the triumph of the spirit of one woman, nor is it about the triumph of science. There are no triumphs and no tragedies, but there is hope. A lot is spoken about the divine, and about faith; but nowhere is it ridiculed or disproved. A true scientist cannot be an Atheist, as he/she will not accept the absence of God without proof. I felt a strange sense of satisfaction on hearing the book reinforce my own views. Truly, the conversations between Ellie, the protagonist, and Palmer, the man who became a priest after he died and lived to tell the tale, are the high points of the book in my opinion.
The SETI project picks up a radio signal from the constellation Vega - one fine day, all of a sudden. It consists of beats counting out the prime numbers. Hidden within that signal is a re-transmission of the first television broadcast from Earth: that of Adolf Hitler declaring the Olympic Games open. It appeared that the transmission had taken 26 years to reach Vega, and had been amplified and sent back. 52 years for the round trip, and the message was clear: there was intelligent life out there. And they were saying Hi.
Of course there had to be more to it. Hidden further within the signal are thousands of numbered pages of data. Until their message is discovered, every Messianic and Apocalyptic Cult and Religion in the World gets whipped into a frenzy. The Earth becomes a teapot on the verge of exploding. And then, the message is deciphered to contain instructions to build a machine that can carry 5 people on some unknown mission.
Diplomacy, Science, Religion, Politics and Madness make for strange bedfellows. But the leaders of the world find themselves no choice but to build the machine, and choose 5 people impartially from every point of view to sit on those enigmatic seats, at the risk of simply not knowing what it was they would be missing.
But what were they going to do with the tale told by those 5 when the task was done?
Ellie: ...are you willing to put your life on the line for your faith? I'm willing to do it for mine. Here, take a look out that window. There's a big Foucault Pendulum; the bob must weigh 500 pounds. My faith says that the amplitude of a free pendulum can never increase. I'm willing to go there, put the bob in front of my nose, let go, and have it swing away and then back toward me. If my beliefs are in error, I'll get a 500 pound smack on my face. You want to test my faith? In turn, would you be willing to stand a foot closer to this same pendulum and pray to God to shorten the swing?
.
.
The sealed note read: "Meet me at the National Science and Technology Museum, 8:00pm tonigh. Palmer Joss."
Joss was nowhere to be seen. If you had to meet Palmer Joss in this museum, she thought, and the only thing you had ever talked to him about was Religion and the Message, where would you meet him? Of course... "Does this museum have a Foucault's Pendulum?" she asked the guard.
Author: Carl Sagan
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: 1985
Rating: 4.3/5
Sometimes, movies are born famous because they are based on good books; but sometimes, books are made more famous by the making of a movie. Contact is a great book, but it belongs to the latter category; it broke out of the universe of Science Fiction geeks and became really famous because of the movie. And Jodie Foster.
Yet, I can talk about the book without pausing to think or speak about the movie at all, because the movie makers made it very, very different from the book, but still did a great job of it.
Carl Sagan's writing style is not for the impatient. If you were expecting to be sucked into a roller coaster science fiction adventure with aliens and lasers, you will be very disappointed. The book strolls along leisurely, building up the characters, the plot and the scenarios in acute detail. Every new location, every new character is devoted a couple of pages of description so that you may better appreciate the events. Such breaks from the plot were initially annoying, but once you accept that you will not be sitting on the edge of the chair for this one, prop up a pillow and relax, and enjoy the novel. It took me more than three days to read the novel, which is not overly large by any standards; and considering that at the end of it I really liked the book, that time frame is a record for a guy who's known to finish thousand-page novels in a day.
In a refreshing departure from the traditional way of writing Science Fiction novels, Sagan spends a lot of time on the human psyche: exposing it in all its pettiness, narrowness, irrationality and self-destructiveness, especially when it comes to mass behaviour. The book is not about the triumph of the spirit of one woman, nor is it about the triumph of science. There are no triumphs and no tragedies, but there is hope. A lot is spoken about the divine, and about faith; but nowhere is it ridiculed or disproved. A true scientist cannot be an Atheist, as he/she will not accept the absence of God without proof. I felt a strange sense of satisfaction on hearing the book reinforce my own views. Truly, the conversations between Ellie, the protagonist, and Palmer, the man who became a priest after he died and lived to tell the tale, are the high points of the book in my opinion.
The SETI project picks up a radio signal from the constellation Vega - one fine day, all of a sudden. It consists of beats counting out the prime numbers. Hidden within that signal is a re-transmission of the first television broadcast from Earth: that of Adolf Hitler declaring the Olympic Games open. It appeared that the transmission had taken 26 years to reach Vega, and had been amplified and sent back. 52 years for the round trip, and the message was clear: there was intelligent life out there. And they were saying Hi.
Of course there had to be more to it. Hidden further within the signal are thousands of numbered pages of data. Until their message is discovered, every Messianic and Apocalyptic Cult and Religion in the World gets whipped into a frenzy. The Earth becomes a teapot on the verge of exploding. And then, the message is deciphered to contain instructions to build a machine that can carry 5 people on some unknown mission.
Diplomacy, Science, Religion, Politics and Madness make for strange bedfellows. But the leaders of the world find themselves no choice but to build the machine, and choose 5 people impartially from every point of view to sit on those enigmatic seats, at the risk of simply not knowing what it was they would be missing.
But what were they going to do with the tale told by those 5 when the task was done?
Ellie: ...are you willing to put your life on the line for your faith? I'm willing to do it for mine. Here, take a look out that window. There's a big Foucault Pendulum; the bob must weigh 500 pounds. My faith says that the amplitude of a free pendulum can never increase. I'm willing to go there, put the bob in front of my nose, let go, and have it swing away and then back toward me. If my beliefs are in error, I'll get a 500 pound smack on my face. You want to test my faith? In turn, would you be willing to stand a foot closer to this same pendulum and pray to God to shorten the swing?
.
.
The sealed note read: "Meet me at the National Science and Technology Museum, 8:00pm tonigh. Palmer Joss."
Joss was nowhere to be seen. If you had to meet Palmer Joss in this museum, she thought, and the only thing you had ever talked to him about was Religion and the Message, where would you meet him? Of course... "Does this museum have a Foucault's Pendulum?" she asked the guard.
# posted by Prashanth @ 1:52 AM 
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Yes, the ending was beautiful!
Definite Spoiler... hence encoded in ROT13. Please copy the text and paste it at www.rot13.com:
Vg'f vagrerfgvat gb jbaqre jurgure guvf cvrpr bs svpgvba jbhyq or nf jbaqreshy jvgubhg gung nyy-raqf-jryy svavfu.V, sbe bar, jbhyq unir ybirq vg rira vs gur raqvat unq orra ynetryl qvfnccbvagvat sbe Ryyvr.
Definite Spoiler... hence encoded in ROT13. Please copy the text and paste it at www.rot13.com:
Vg'f vagrerfgvat gb jbaqre jurgure guvf cvrpr bs svpgvba jbhyq or nf jbaqreshy jvgubhg gung nyy-raqf-jryy svavfu.V, sbe bar, jbhyq unir ybirq vg rira vs gur raqvat unq orra ynetryl qvfnccbvagvat sbe Ryyvr.
Contact reminds me a lot of an earlier sci-fi flick, The Abyss starring Ed Harris... both main characters meet the aliens face to face at the end.
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