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Our Tragic Universe
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
15 posts | 26 read | 15 to read
Can a story save your life? Meg Carpenter is broke. Her novel is years overdue. Her cell phone is out of minutes. And her moody boyfriends only contribution to the household is his sour attitude. So she jumps at the chance to review a pseudoscientific book that promises life everlasting. But who wants to live forever? Consulting cosmology and physics, tarot cards, koans (and riddles and jokes), new-age theories of everything, narrative theory, Nietzsche, Baudrillard, and knitting patterns, Meg wends her way through Our Tragic Universe, asking this and many other questions. Does she believe in fairies? In magic? Is she a superbeing? Is she living a storyless story? And whats the connection between her off-hand suggestion to push a car into a river, a ship in a bottle, a mysterious beast loose on the moor, and the controversial author of The Science of Living Forever? Smart, entrancing, and boiling over with Thomass trademark big ideas, Our Tragic Universe is a book about how relationships are created and destroyed, how we can rewrite our futures (if not our histories), and how stories just might save our lives.
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Ruthiella
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
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Pickpick

#7days7covers #covercrush

@cathipink Will you post a cover you love each day for seven days without explanation?

Thank you for the tag @CarolynM

batsy Nice pick! I really enjoyed this book 🖤 (as I have most of hers that I've read) 5y
Ruthiella @batsy I love her. There‘s something about the way she thinks that appeals to me. I still need to read her newer stuff however. 🖤 5y
cathipink Thank you for tagging me! About to post 🙂🙂 5y
sudi 😍 5y
32 likes5 comments
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Tonton
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
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Pickpick

Knitting!Pushing a car into the bay!Storyless stories, writers block, meaning of the universe!The black dog...and how relationships are made stronger or broken…metaphysics and so many ideas tumbling one after another. Wasn‘t sure if I liked it、 but couldn‘t help coming back to it. I need to read all her other books. Wow, guess I‘m a fan.

Lindy Great review. I‘m sold. 5y
batsy I love her! Think you'll like this one, @Lindy :) 5y
Lindy @batsy Recommended X 2. Yay! 5y
40 likes4 stack adds3 comments
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Ruthiella
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
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Pickpick

#riotgram Perhaps my #favoritetitle of all the Scarlett Thomas books thus far . Her books are weird with a healthy dose of the metaphysical. ❤️

batsy Love her books! 6y
Ruthiella @batsy Yay! So glad to find a fellow fan of Thomas 😀 Her books are so odd but so fascinating too! 6y
batsy Yes, I agree! Love seeing your collection; I've read all of it except The Seed Collectors. 6y
Ruthiella @batsy I haven‘t read The Seed Collectors either and I also still need to read the three Lily Pascale mysteries. 6y
batsy Oh yes, I'd forgotten about the mysteries! I haven't read those and they sound good. 6y
26 likes5 stack adds5 comments
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BarbaraJean
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
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Mehso-so

Finished this on Sunday; still trying to figure out what I think of it. While reading, I veered between fascination with the book‘s ideas, and frustration at the main character‘s lack of agency. I also kept waiting for something to happen. That was part of the point—one of the underlying ideas is the “storyless story,” but in the end, it didn‘t quite pull off what it was going for. That said, I did enjoy it! And: #LitsyAtoZ letter O is complete!

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BarbaraJean
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
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“The universe should be unfathomable. You shouldn‘t be able to fix the meaning of the universe, just as you shouldn‘t be able to reduce Hamlet or Anna Karenina to a sentence or say what they ‘really mean.‘ I want a tragic universe, not a nice rounded-off universe with a moral at the end.”

I‘ll probably finish this one up tonight, and I‘m still not quite sure what I think about it. I am enjoying lots of the philosophical-y bits like the one above.

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BarbaraJean
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
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I just spent so much time stalking for #SecretSantaGoesPostal and then browsing ideas for books and bookish items that these two lovelies haven‘t been getting much love tonight! Gonna give at least one some attention now before I turn in for the night!

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callunakeep
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
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Pickpick

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book was highly unusual. I finished it & still can't decide what I thought of it. While reading the book I had a horrible review & a two star rating planned in my head. Every time I was actively reading it I thought it was horrible, but when I wasn't reading it I kept wanting to find out how it was going to progress. This book was its own "storyless story", & I have given 4 stars for having such a profound & unusual effect on me!

9 likes1 stack add
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callunakeep
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
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I am about halfway through this audiobook and I honestly cannot decide how I feel about! About 3/4 of the time I am listening to it, bored to tears with it and ready to bail ... but 1/4 of the time I am engaged so I just keep listening in the hopes that it will become more engaging as I go ... so far it hasn't.

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Oryx
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
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Love me some book art

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betherinahq
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
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Pickpick

I really love the way Scarlett Thomas writes. It must be tricky to write 1st person present tense and keep it going and making sense. This book is very "meta" and seems to be about everything and nothing all at once.

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NinjaBookBox
Our Tragic Universe | Scarlett Thomas
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Pickpick

One of my favourite books of all time,about a writer struggling with her relationships,the Beast of Dartmoor and the end of the world,with some sock knitting thrown in for good measure! So weird yet so entirely wonderful.