Yu: I've always thought of a novel, just the idea of what a novel is, as an amazing technology. I wanted to ask some of the age-old questions about time and identity and self, but I wanted to articulate those questions in new ways.ĬNN: In a sense, your book is something of a time machine. At its core, this is a story of a marriage and of a father-son relationship. I wanted to look at how a family is a kind of four-dimensional system, a system not of physical forces but emotional forces, like memory and regret, and how, over time, a family creates its own story of itself. Yu: The book, although sometimes lighthearted, also tries to take on heavier subjects. Underneath the science fiction, the story deals with a slightly dysfunctional family and their attempts to reconnect with one another.ĬNN recently asked Yu about his book and this often-debated science fiction "what-if?"ĬNN: So this is not your typical time travel story. He's got a crush on his computer operating system, named Tammy, and has the great misfortune of getting stuck in a time loop. It's an alternate reality similar to our own. "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe" features a down-on-his-luck time machine repairman, living in Minor Universe 31. Yu's appearance at this summer's San Diego Comic-Con won him a slew of new fans and generated buzz for the book. This is the dilemma posed in Charles Yu's debut novel, "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe." Yu's genre-defying story of time travel is receiving critical praise for being a quirky mix of string theory, "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and Philip Roth. What else am I supposed to do? I kill him. He steps out of a time machine, introduces himself as Charles Yu. (CNN) - What would you do if you ran into a future version of yourself?įor author Charles Yu, "When it happens, this is what happens: I shoot myself.
0 kommentar(er)
