Ian Watson’s 1973 novel The Embedding is a profound exploration of language, culture, power, and the extraordinary efforts undertaken to extract and expand what it means to be alive. It is also a disturbing, unsettling, and, at points, shocking novel. Ultimately, however, The Embedding proves a rewarding read — a compelling tale that steadily gathers momentum, propelling the reader to keep turning the pages.
Watson provides four narrative threads (outlined below) that he masterfully braids together to create a tale that gradually takes on the cast of a high-stakes thriller.
Laboratory in England — Chris Sole, one of the novel’s major protagonists, is a linguist conducting research on young children with the aim of unlocking a deeper form of language embedded within English itself. What might initially appear innocent is, in fact, highly unethical: the children are plied with powerful drugs and confined to a secret basement section of a small rural hospital — a glass-enclosed room the size of a schoolroom, sealed off from the outside world. The researchers’ justification: the children are third-world orphans rescued from blighted poverty.
Brazilian Project — Charlie Faith is one of many American engineers engaged in the construction of a series of dams designed to create a colossal water system so vast it can be seen from the moon — a kind of North American Great Lakes embedded in the Amazon jungle. But the undertaking faces formidable challenges, among them harassment from left-wing guerrillas.
Brazilian Rainforest Tribe — Several dozen miles downriver from Charlie Faith’s headquarters in Santarém, deep in the Amazon jungle, French anthropologist Pierre Darriand — a former friend of Chris Sole — is studying a small indigenous tribe, the Xemahoa, as they practice their rituals and await the birth of their messiah.
Aliens on a Mission — In deep space, an immense alien spacecraft analyzes media broadcasts from Planet Earth. The aliens eventually dispatch what appears to be a compact flying saucer to Earth’s surface to meet with an international delegation.
The Embedding is overflowing with ideas revolving around linguistics, anthropology, altered states, cultural bias, geopolitics, and, of course, first contact with highly intelligent aliens — all within 250 pages.
Full review to follow . . .
Comments
Post a Comment