Love and other thought experiments- Sophie Ward

The first fiction book in a long time; my non-fiction reading choices were making me angry and helpless.

This book was on the periphery of many a Google search. A title like this would have had me gravitate towards it in a heartbeat a few years; today, it stirred a mild interest. And a book that's been in the limelight too much like this one doesn't generate a longing similar to 'finding' my own books or taking recommendations from trusted and personally-known sources.

I was pleasantly surprised.

The story does need patience. The chapters are individual and connected at the same time. The narrator moves from being the humans to the ant(God?) inside the human's brain and AI (also a version of God). The author explores the possibility of multiple narratives/dimensions of a single life and therefore takes us on trips where the main character dies in one thread and lives in another. The focus being life and death along with following the understanding of love between a couple, their child, the father (and his partner) of the child and one set of grandparents. God (well integrated and will not make anyone uncomfortable, I think) plays an important role

The story starts with Rachel waking up one day and telling her wife that she thinks an ant went into her brain through her eye and is lodged there. The author sets the tone for the book in a way that you either leave now or never. I chose the latter. I ploughed through the first two chapters with a bit of, 'is it really necessary to finish this book' and ended up being hooked to the end and looked forward to every new chapter. The curiosity Sophie generates in the narrative worked for me, I liked her version of philosophical connections that reflected in each chapter, it reflected many things that I think about. Easy to read but the layers make more sense if you are inclined towards unraveling the consciousness without judgement and you have dabbled with the inward-looking mindset over the years. It is not magic-realism or fantasy, its just what she says, experiments of thought and its power over us.

Some thoughts that resonated:

Ant in the brain - 'The telescope reverses - the smallness of your place in the world and the greatness of mine. First time it was inside out and not outside in. We were one.'

'Whatever I changed, I would end up at the same place' - such peace this statement gives, nothing I could have done would have taken me anywhere else but here.

'Human lives as simulations.'

'We(humans) are the purest distillation of consciousness without any of the distractions.'

'What humans crave the most - a perfect soul'