Non-Stop

Non-Stop is a short book by today's standards: only 160 pages in a pocket edition. Yet it manages to cram quite a lot of content in its small space: a nice analogy for a book about a generational starship.

Some claim giving that away is spoiling it, but the knowledge is out in the open on page 21, and the book was published in the US as Starship.

Non-Stop/Starship is the debut novel of Brian Wilson Aldiss, and one that left me wanting to read more of his work.

The book is not entirely without problems. It's partly 50ies pulp, especially in the character department. Today's readers might complain about a lack of depth or character development. Yet to do so would be the result of superficial reading. Indeed, there's only 160 pages, and Non-Stop generally focuses on plot, so drawing complex characters wasn't Aldiss's main intention. There's simply not enough room for it. But that doesn't mean there's nothing there. Consider the very first two sentences--great, great lines by the way.

Like a radar echo bounding from a distant object and returning to its source, the sound of Roy Complain's beating heart seemed to him to fill the clearing. He stood with one hand on the threshold of his compartment, listening to the rage hammering through his arteries.

It's in passages like this, often almost hidden, Aldiss manages to say profound things about being human--namely, about humans being bodies. Spread throughout the novel there are similar observations--about love and feelings too. What more character depth do you want? Is "being a body" flawed enough for today's crowd?

There are some other small problems too, but lets not dwell on those. Non-Stop is a very rich book--I made 4 pages of notes, a ton for such a short book--and this review wouldn't do it justice if I start nitpicking. I won't elaborate on all the book's goodies either, but focus on two big -isms: postcolonialism & existentialism.

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Full review on Weighing A Pig