The Book of Strange New Things

Peter Leigh transformed his life from a down-and-out junkie by embracing religion and becoming a well respected pastor. He married Beatrice, the nurse who saved him from himself and cared for him through the worst of his transformation. They both offered their services to USIC, a private corporation that was trying to establish a human colony on Oasis, a far off planet light years from Earth. After a rigorous screening process, Peter was hired on a mission to bring religion to the indigenous people of Oasis, the Oasans. Bea, who did not get past the initial screening, stayed home, holding down the fort and caring for their cat, Joshua, while the world fell down around her.

This is a story about western colonialism and corporate exploitation of indigenous peoples for power and profit, and how religious indoctrination is used to achieve those ends. Despite Peter's best intentions, he was blind to the fact that he was being used as an instrument of USIC to get the Oasans to produce white flower--the only edible, and highly versatile, plant on the planet. In return, USIC provided the Oasans with drugs, which also worked to USIC's benefit. The company was prepared to go to any length to advance its interests, even if it meant great personal costs to the indigenous peoples it exploited and its own employees, like Grainger (the USIC pharmacist) and Peter, among others. It counted on its employees' loyalty, personal commitment to USIC's agenda, and the naive trading abilities of the Oasans.

Although the various story lines followed the kinds of interpersonal relationships we all have with those around us, Faber constructed this story with layers and layers of nuance. The themes in this book ranged from politics and religion, to personal commitment and personal fallibility, to the tension between the environment and raw corporate avarice. It was just the sort of book that whisked you away somewhere far from your everyday travails here on Earth, but returned you thinking about your own circumstances and how interests other than your own got you here. You don't always have to go somewhere else to find your path. Sometimes it's right in front of you.

This is quite a clever novel. From the constant wordplay (USIC... ummm, "M"-less music) to the allusory narrative constructions (Peter's Jesus arc, Bea's parallels to Dante's Beatrice in the Inferno, etc) Faber's story plays with and against the reader's expectations in order to bring about his overarching theme: interactions change everyone involved.

Faber is so good at writing about vulnerability, either physical or emotional, and it is a source of the tension he builds to keep this novel moving. In fact, the fragility of the human body is one of the more powerful ideas flowing under the surface of the novel.

I just finished the novel and I haven't spoken to anyone about it so I'm still processing what I read. I can say this is the kind of book that gives you a lot to talk about afterwards. It is also the kind of book, which invites that kind of discussion and I think Faber has made something that will last longer than a Hardcover run.

I highly recommend this to anyone who likes reading, but particularly for anyone in a book club.

Strange. We make the strange familiar and the new old. Like the familiar foods which have been simulated by processing the alien white flower. But everything is really new and strange. But how else can we relate to the totally alien? But if we have distorted it, are we relating to it at all?

If God created man in His image, in whose image did He create aliens? Or is "image" being taken too literally as physical likeness. But if Jesus was born as a man on earth, what is his message for aliens on other planets?
He would never have gotten crucified on Oasis. That's not the kind of thing the natives would ever do. They're all so civilized, but in an emotionally effortless way. They aren't fighting a sinful nature. Nor are the humans who have been selected to live with them. The rejects, meanwhile, are destroying the earth.