I don’t recall anyone recommending this novel by the American writer to me, but I really enjoyed his «The Overstory » and « « Bewilderment » although there is a fair bit of far-out pseudoscience in the latter.
But this book is disjointed in the extreme. Back and forth from the 1950s to the present, from the small island of Makatea in French Polynesia, to Montreal, to Chicago, Urbana, and Evanston, from the magical creation myths, the joys and discoveries of deep sea diving to game theory, chess and Go, to the deep philosophy of Russian thinkers, exploitive capitalism, and the problems of dealing with Lui Body dementia, nothing is connected to anything else.
The title is based on a mythical social network site called Playground. An AI machine does a masterful job of answering every question the 89 islanders put to it about proposed development. The AI system then becomes all powerful and all knowing beating a human genius at Go and threatening to extinguish Homo sapiens. The creator becomes a billionaire only to die of Lui Body Dementia before the development that he has proposed for the island becomes a reality.
To be fair, the description of the astonishing life forms in oceans is detailed and very interesting even if their interactions with humans is embellished. At times it seems the author is simply displaying his admittedly vast knowledge of that life and bemoaning its impending losses.
There is an attempt to tie up loose ends in the last few chapters, but it doesn’t quite work, with the time lines often confusing at least to me.
I have to acknowledge that the writing style is clear and engaging with usually short sentences in third person prose.
«Play was evolution’s way of building brains, and any creature with a brain as developed as a giant oceanic mantra sure used it. »
Of life in seemingly impossible places: «… life was never very good at obeying human logic. »
I was disappointed in this book.
3.5/5
The Passionate Reader 