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Luminarium

de Alex Shakar

MembresRessenyesPopularitatValoració mitjanaMencions
15910170,523 (3.43)1
Fiction. Literature. Thriller. HTML:

This Los Angeles Times Book Prize??winning novel is a "dizzyingly smart and provocative" look at technology, spirituality, and the search for meaning (Dave Eggers).

A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year

Named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Austin Chronicle, and Kansas City Star

Twin brothers Fred and George Brounian were once co-CEOs of a New York City software company devoted to the creation of utopian virtual worlds. Now, as two wars rage and the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, George is in a coma; control of the company has been wrenched away by a military contracting conglomerate; and Fred has moved back in with his parents.

Broke and alone, Fred is led by an attractive woman into a neurological study promising to give him "peak" experiences and a newfound spiritual outlook on life. But as the study progresses, reality becomes increasingly porous??and he finds himself caught up in what seems at first a cruel prank: a series of bizarre emails and texts that purport to be from his comatose brother.

Moving between the research hospitals of Manhattan, the streets of a meticulously planned Florida city, the neighborhoods of Brooklyn, and the uncanny, immersive worlds of urban disaster simulation; threading through military listserv geek-speak, Hindu cosmology, outmoded self-help books and the latest neuroscientific breakthroughs, Luminarium is a brilliant examination of the way we live now, a novel as much about the role technology and spirituality play in shaping our reality as about the undying bond between brothers, and the redemptive possibilities of love.
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Es mostren 1-5 de 10 (següent | mostra-les totes)
Interesting idea, wandering narrative but I felt the characters were a little lackluster. A good story and unique in some ways though. ( )
  Jonathan5 | Feb 20, 2023 |
Set in 2006, as the 5th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, this is the story of twin brothers who had a dream of creating a on-line gaming world. Their fledgling company got undermined by government contractors who wanted to use their unique technology to train soldiers. As the book begins, one of the brothers is in a coma due to cancer. The other brother is frantically trying to hold his company and his life together. It's kind of hard to describe the plot beyond that but I really enjoyed this book. ( )
  capewood | Mar 12, 2022 |
Once again I'm suckered by numerous reviews mentioning Delillo.
  Adammmmm | Sep 10, 2019 |
(Sometime in July) I'm doing everything I can to avoid reading this book. I sort of want to know what happens with George and with the Mira experiment but not enough to keep reading. It's an odd book.

08/11/13 -- I ditched it formally added it to my discard list and carried on, but I kept thinking about it and wondering what he was going to do with it all so I picked it up again and finished it.

Mike, a reviewer I follow sum's up much of my frustration with the book when he points out that the narrative is "sometimes (maybe a few too many times) bogged down by the weight of sweeping thematic concerns which put a drag on forward motion and I'd go with "few too many times." Enough already. But, there is much that is interesting and smart and committed to make it worth the time. And there is a "dinner" scene between Fred and Holly and Vartan near the end of the book that is really quite oddly spectacular. In fact, Holly and Vartan, with the Reiki and the magic tricks, and their crappy apartment were some of the strongest writing in the novel.

If I were going to make up an odd shelf -- self, self-immolation and 9/11 -- I'd put it there with James Hynes book Next, but Luminarium is a kinder book and Fred although as self-involved as Kevin Quinn has better reasons. ( )
  mkunruh | Nov 13, 2016 |
I'm not quite sure where to start with this one. It's not an easy read, but not a difficult one either. I recommend picking this up when you're in a pensive place, when you need a little musing about the meaning of life, but in engrossing novel form, not thick pretentious philosopher form. In fact, that's how I would describe this book in a nutshell: profound but not pretentious. And that, my friends, is a delicate balance to strike; with the (incredible) exception of [b:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|11|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide, #1)|Douglas Adams|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327656754s/11.jpg|3078186], I'm not sure I've ever seen it struck so deftly.

Let's get slightly more concrete. Fred has an identical twin brother, George, who is in a coma after a long battle with cancer. Fred, not surprisingly, is having a bit of an existential crisis. [An aside: for me, I think the "not surprisingly" is important, because as incredibly, stupidly famous as Albert Camus and his Stranger are, I never once sympathized with that narrator, and hated every second of being dragged along on his philosophical journey. Fred, on the other hand, is a sad and complex but eminently sympathetic character; throughout the whole book I wanted desperately for him to figure out his life and everything in it. In other words, I rooted for him in a way that cut through, or survived, all the spiritualist questioning.] Rather on a whim, Fred enrolls in a medical study that turns out to be based on the concept that spiritual experiences can be replicated by manipulation/stimulation of certain areas of the brain and the chemicals therein. For example, a sense of connectedness or oneness with others and with nature can be simulated by messing with the part of the brain that defines the edges of the self, the "this is me, that is not me" perception. The goal, in a sense, is to see if the benefits of spirituality (peace, comfort, a sense of purpose) can be attained without the mysticism of religion: a "faith without ignorance," as the tester puts it.

That sounds a little deep and heavy, right? Well, it is, but it's leavened by the backdrop of Frank and George's company, a sort of Second Life-type immersive reality game called Urth. The problem is, Fred sold the company to pay George's medical bills, and now their game is being remade as a virtual training arena for the "military entertainment complex" [which, as another aside, I think is a brilliant phrase, though I don't know if it's original to this book].

Here's the fun part: without any spoilers, some things start happening to Fred that seem (sortof, although it's not really possible -- is it?) like George, still in his coma, might be orchestrating. Which naturally provides a different but still understandable and fascinating path to the pondering of life and the afterlife and the power of... what? The brain? The soul? The ineffable essence of the self?

Things get a lot more ethereal in the last chapter or so; I'm not even going to lie and tell you that I'm exactly sure what the last few sentences mean or where they're supposed to leave me. But by that point I'd gotten enough out of this book that I was content to just let them be; they're words, and they have meaning, even if I don't understand it yet. Is that my very own existential enlightenment? ( )
  BraveNewBks | Mar 10, 2016 |
Es mostren 1-5 de 10 (següent | mostra-les totes)
Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
Has d'iniciar sessió per poder modificar les dades del coneixement compartit.
Si et cal més ajuda, mira la pàgina d'ajuda del coneixement compartit.
Títol normalitzat
Títol original
Títols alternatius
Data original de publicació
Gent/Personatges
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Esdeveniments importants
Pel·lícules relacionades
Epígraf
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès. Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Lead me from the unreal to the real.

-- Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad
Dedicatòria
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès. Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
For Olivia, the Shakars,

and all my other guiding lights.
Primeres paraules
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Picture yourself stepping into a small, cuboid room.
Citacions
Darreres paraules
Nota de desambiguació
Editor de l'editorial
Creadors de notes promocionals a la coberta
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Referències a aquesta obra en fonts externes.

Wikipedia en anglès (1)

Fiction. Literature. Thriller. HTML:

This Los Angeles Times Book Prize??winning novel is a "dizzyingly smart and provocative" look at technology, spirituality, and the search for meaning (Dave Eggers).

A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year

Named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Austin Chronicle, and Kansas City Star

Twin brothers Fred and George Brounian were once co-CEOs of a New York City software company devoted to the creation of utopian virtual worlds. Now, as two wars rage and the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, George is in a coma; control of the company has been wrenched away by a military contracting conglomerate; and Fred has moved back in with his parents.

Broke and alone, Fred is led by an attractive woman into a neurological study promising to give him "peak" experiences and a newfound spiritual outlook on life. But as the study progresses, reality becomes increasingly porous??and he finds himself caught up in what seems at first a cruel prank: a series of bizarre emails and texts that purport to be from his comatose brother.

Moving between the research hospitals of Manhattan, the streets of a meticulously planned Florida city, the neighborhoods of Brooklyn, and the uncanny, immersive worlds of urban disaster simulation; threading through military listserv geek-speak, Hindu cosmology, outmoded self-help books and the latest neuroscientific breakthroughs, Luminarium is a brilliant examination of the way we live now, a novel as much about the role technology and spirituality play in shaping our reality as about the undying bond between brothers, and the redemptive possibilities of love.

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