Anátema

Na "Sunday Book Review" do "New York Times", saído hoje, sob o título "The Planet of the Monks", encontra-se uma recensão da autoria de Dave Itzkoff de "Anathem", o último livro do escritor de ficção científica norte-americano Neal Stephenson, de quem já aqui tenho falado. Em português e publicadas recentemente pela Tinta da China encontram-se nas livrarias duas obras dele que são os três primeiros volumes do chamado "Ciclo Barroco": "Argento Vivo", "O Rei dos Vagabundos" e "Odaliscas".

Transcrevo um extracto que nos dá uma ideia da trama da obra, que seria porventura mais de ficção filosófica do que de ficção científica se acaso esse género existisse:

"In the acknowledgments of ANATHEM (Morrow/HarperCollins, $29.95), Stephenson, the author of such meticulous historical novels as “Cryptonomicon” and “The Baroque Cycle,” gives inspirational credit for his latest work of fiction to a long line of distinguished thinkers, from Thales and Plato to Husserl and Gödel. But it is the spirits of the Greeks that exert the greatest influence on “Anathem”: at its best, the book is a thought experiment in narrative form, a meditation on how far a society can go on pure reason and arguments from first principles.

It is an intricate Socratic puzzle, yet — though you may wish to banish me or pour hemlock down my throat for saying this — I’m not entirely sure it’s a novel.

Set in a world that is similar but not identical to our own, “Anathem” imagines a modern-day monastic order whose members have pledged to live their lives without computers or electronic technology. Having long ago set aside such un­answerable questions as “Does God exist?” these alternative Augustines are free to contemplate issues of math, physics and philosophy; depending on the order they belong to, they are allowed to visit the outside world as much as once a year or as little as once a millennium."

O resto da recensão pode ser lido aqui.