Mr g A novel about the creation

Review by New York Times Review

So, what is God really like? As personified by the author of "Einstein's Dreams" in this fanciful account of how the Supreme Being cobbled together the cosmos, he's a good sleeper. Mr. g also meditates with titanic abandon. ("I breathed in the Void, breathed out the Void.") Like that Potter kid, another master conjurer, God has spent his formative years living with an aunt and uncle (albeit these two are of a more sympathetic bearing). Beginning with an insistent whimsy that braces the reader for a higher-minded version of "Creation for Dummies," Lightman's novel quickly evolves into a soulful riff on the birth and eventual demise of our universe. Punctilious forays into physics alternate with face-offs between the book's divine narrator and an operagoing dark opponent named Belhor, who wrestle over elusive matters like human suffering and mortality. Lightman the humanist allows room for the compatibility of rationality with spirituality and mystery, while Lightman the scientist plays devil's advocate with the partisans of Genesis, blinding them with logic. Jan Stuart is the author of "The Nashville Chronicles: The Making of Robert Altman's Masterpiece."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 29, 2012]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Novelist and physicist Lightman (Ghost, 2007) takes us to the Void, where three entities, the genius Mr g, fussy Aunt Penelope, and kind Uncle Deva, loll about until Mr g expresses his intention of doing something, thus instantly establishing a past (when nothing was done) and, therefore, time itself. He soon creates space and energy, which prompts this meditative thinker to come up with quantum physics in order to weave a bit of artistic ambiguity into the universe he playfully sets in motion. A stranger, Belhor, inexplicably appears, asking annoying questions about Mr g's ability to control his creation, thus adding philosophical and spiritual dimensions to the dazzling processes under way. Fluent in the vivid language of particle physics, from oscillations and helices to gluons and quarks, Lightman rhapsodically charts the very geometry of existence, from the birth of stars to the first stirrings of life and the evolution of human beings. As glorious life unfolds by mindless chance, the creator himself is amplified and enlarged by its complex and poignant beauty. With iridescent precision, fairy-tale wonder, and brainy humor, Lightman crafts an enthralling and provocative cosmic parable that offers a startlingly fresh perspective on the mysteries of the universe and the paradoxical human condition.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Physicist and author Lightman (Einstein's Dreams) offers another rumination in the form of a touching, imaginative rendition of God's creation of the universe. Bored with the Void, his bickersome Aunt Penelope and tenderhearted Uncle Deva his only companions through Nothingness, the genius Nephew casts about in his infinite imagination for change, form, and meaning. Seized by an idea, he creates time-past, present, and future-suddenly injecting structure and motion into the "endless sleep" they'd heretofore inhabited. From time follows space and energy, the creation of universes, one of which Nephew favors, calling it Aalam-104729 (after "the ten thousandth prime number in base ten"), endowing it with laws of symmetry, relativity, and causality, and filling it with matter, so that it begins to develop life. Aunt and uncle are thrilled with their new plaything, yet the contrarian Belhor urges God to let the animate creatures have free will, thereby permitting great suffering among them, but also joy. While Belhor insists that the creatures live mean, insignificant lives, and that good and evil are relative but necessary, God sees a grandeur and beauty in their individuality. Above all, the immortal characters are changed by their brush with the enterprising, however doomed, mortals, bringing this elucidating treatment of quantum physics to an affecting, hopeful conclusion. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

In his new book, Lightman (Einstein's Dreams) assumes the voice of God-God being the titular Mr g. The Devil makes an appearance early on with vexing questions like "Do you think it is possible for a thing and its opposite both to be true?" But Mr g goes ahead to create space, time, and matter all the way up to sentient beings with existential quandaries, finally concluding that "this relationship between time and space was also beautiful and good." (Lightman's background as a theoretical physicist serves him well here.) Still, the demons Baphomet and Belhor keep showing up with more questions about free will. The novel's not as heavy as the subjects imply. This God seems young and caught between his squabbling Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva. Though Lightman's clever irreverence recalls Salman Rushdie and Kevin Brockmeier, his plainspoken style lends the book a fitting -earnestness, although the characters are less interesting than the scientific details. -VERDICT Readers who don't mind the liberties the author takes with the sacred might enjoy this scienced fiction.-Travis Fristoe, -Alachua Cty. Lib. Dist., FL (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Time As I remember, I had just woken up from a nap when I decided to create the universe.   Not much was happening at that time. As a matter of fact, time didn't exist. Nor space. When you looked out into the Void, you were really looking at nothing more than your own thought. And if you tried to picture wind or stars or water, you could not give form or texture to your notions.   Those things did not exist. Smooth, rough, waxy, sharp, prickly, brittle--even qualities such as these lacked meaning. Practically everything slept in an infinite torpor of potentiality. I knew that I could make whatever I wanted. But that was the problem. Unlimited possibilities bring unlimited indecision. When I thought about this particular creation or that, uncertain about how each thing would turn out, I grew anxious and went back to sleep. But at a particular moment, I managed . . . if not exactly to sweep aside my doubts, at least to take a chance.   Almost immediately, it seemed, my aunt Penelope asked me why I would want to do such a thing. Wasn't I comfortable with the emptiness just as it was? Yes, yes, I said, of course, but . . . You could mess things up, said my aunt. Leave Him alone, said Uncle Deva. Uncle toddled over and stood beside me in his dear way. Please don't tell me what to do, retorted my aunt. Then she turned and stared hard at me. Her hair, uncombed and knotted as usual, drooped down to her bulky shoulders. Well? she said, and waited. I never liked it when Aunt Penelope glowered at me. I think I'm going to do it, I finally said. It was the first decision I'd made in eons of unmeasured existence, and it felt good to have decided something. Or rather, to have decided that something had to be done, that a change was in the offing. I had chosen to replace nothingness with something. Something is not nothing. Something could be anything. My imagination reeled. From now on, there would be a future, a present, and a past. A past of nothingness, and then a future of something.   In fact, I had just created time. But unintentionally. It was just that my resolution to act, to make things, to put an end to the unceasing absence of happenings, required time. By deciding to create something, I had pressed an arrow into the shape- less and unending Void, an arrow that pointed in the direction of the future. Henceforth, there would be a before and an after, a continuing stream of successive events, a movement away from the past and towards the future--in other words, a journey through time. Time necessarily came before light and dark, matter and energy, even space. Time was my first creation.   Sometimes, the absence of a thing is not noticed until it is present. With the invention of time, events that had once merged together in one amorphous clot began to take shape. Each event could now be enveloped by a slipcover of time, separating it from all other events. Every motion or thought or the slightest happenstance could be ordered and placed exactly in time. For example, I realized that I had been sleeping for a very long time. And near me--but I couldn't say how near, because I had not yet created space--Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva had also been sleeping, their loud snores rising and falling like something or other, their tossings and turnings unfolding in time. And their interminable bickering could now be identified with moments of wakefulness, which in turn could be understood as taking place between periods of sleep. I refused to think how much time I had wasted. In fact, we had all slept in a kind of pleasant amnesia, a swoon, an infinite senselessness. In various ways, had we not luxuriated in the unstructured Void, unaccountable for our actions? Yes, unaccountable. Because without time, there could be no reactions to actions, no consequences. Without time, decisions need not be considered for their implications and effects. We had all been drifting in a comfortable Void without responsibilities.   See, my aunt complained when it became apparent that we were now conscious of time. I told you that you would mess things up. She shot Uncle a look of disapproval, as if he had encouraged me to act as I had, and then she began an unhappy summary of the various things that she had done and not done during the immediate past, then during the past before that, and so on, back and back through the now visible chasms of time, until Uncle begged her to stop. You should never have created the past and the future, she said. We were happy here. See, now I must say were , when before . . . Oh! There it is again. It was nicer when everything happened at once. I can't stand to think about the future. But don't you think that we have some responsibility to the future? I suggested. To all the things and beings I might create? Non- sense, shrieked Aunt Penelope. What a foolish argument. You have no responsibility to things that don't yet exist and won't ever exist if you could just keep your big thoughts to yourself. But it's too late now, she went on. I can feel time. I can feel the future. She had gotten herself into one of her states, and the Void twisted and throbbed with her displeasure.   Gently, Uncle caressed her. For the first time ever, she responded to his touch. Her ranting diminished. Soon after, she realized that her hair needed combing, and that was the beginning of something and probably all for the best. Excerpted from Mr G: A Novel about the Creation by Alan P. Lightman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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