‘See You in the Cosmos’: Book Review
Quirky, inventive, and engaging, though childishly irritating
It seems weird, imagining author Jack Cheng coming up with a stellar idea of the vast universe of Alex Petroski, a Coloradan young boy who aspires to recreate Voyager 1. This is obviously a book dedicated to the young demographic so Cheng can trick the readers’ minds thinking Alex has a flawless mind, but to us, the mature-minded, there is obviously a gap. Something doesn’t seem right. Yet the marvellous author managed to convert that ridiculous gap into an amusing plot point.
See You in the Cosmos is nothing like the contemporary first-person stories. Remember how Alex wanted to make Voyager 1, thus making the infamous Golden Record? You know, that disc that contains various audio representing the Earth bundled by Carl Sagan? So as a tribute, Cheng decided to write the novel in the style of a transcript. This induces more amusement, especially to me, a subtitle aficionado. But moreover, it is intense: dialogues are brief, thus feels a lot like jump cuts in a film, or timers at a time bomb. Whatever the ending is in each chapter, it pays off well.
But Cheng knows, making a glamorous style of delivery is not enough. Style is merely the frame of the painting. The Grand Budapest Hotel’s meh Boy with Apple never deserves a beautiful frame. But with Alex, his half-sister Terra, his brother Ronnie, and the other fellows who accompany Alex throughout his journey of seeking his lost father and audio to record in his Golden (wheeze) iPod, the result is a beautiful, lively composition. The dialogues, the metaphors, the descriptions… everything feels subtle and smooth, you don’t even know it is a metaphor. Because by then, you’re already indulged in Alex’s quirky brain.
If See You in the Cosmos was to be adapted to a motion picture, it should be a co-written screenplay between Wes Anderson and Taika Waititi. The weird humour and deep themes both filmmakers share is exactly what makes the novel resonated with me. And despite the cringe-worthy things Alex claim throughout, which becomes more true if you’re an alien sceptic, it gives you comprehensive metadata of Alex’s attitudes, punching you in the gut when…. “things”… strike. Thus, with all the perfections in it, tonal shifts and chapter switches don’t feel jarring; it rather feels natural and arises anticipation to what Cheng has to offer for Alex, for us.
What is jarring, however, is the length and medium of it. The transcript makes the plot slightly unauthentic. When you think of a work written from a child’s point of view, you expect physical flaws. Anne Frank’s diary, for example, is not retyped, not transcripted, and feels more childish. The tidiness of See You in the Cosmos may feel weird and disconnecting.
Despite so, the dialogues saves it all. Cheng litters really lively, realistic, and thought-provoking scenarios that make the readers feel as if they are witnessing Alex from his side. When Alex is swimming at a waterfall, we are swimming with him. When Alex is desperately searching for his lost dog in the nightlife of Las Vegas, Nevada, we are scouring around the streets with him. Aspects like that, when reading with enthusiasm, changes everything.
Cheng will never make a perfect piece out of a daring idea like this. It will leave the readers closing the book in confusion, and the ending is slightly unsatisfying, specifically random. But overall, it is a nice time sucking the LSDs infused in the Golden iPod and be the alien watching Alex, who he is ironically searching for. But it doesn’t feel like playing God, because when Alex collapses, I feel the pain — physically — and a tear flowed. I never felt that in my years of reading books.
GENRE: Epistolary, Bildungsroman
PAGES: 320
PUBLISHER: Penguin Books (UK)
AGE RATING: 10+
LANGUAGE: English, Filipino
ISBN: 978–0–399–18638–7
