Subject: MYSTERIUM by Robert Charles Wilson

From: [email-masked] ()
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 02:09:00 GMT

MYSTERIUM by Robert Charles Wilson
         Bantam Spectra, ISBN 0-553-37365-X, 1994, 288pp, US$11.95.
                     A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		      Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper

     I have liked all of Robert Charles Wilson's previous books (THE HIDDEN
PLACE, MEMORY WIRE, GYPSIES, THE DIVIDE, THE BRIDGE OF YEARS, and HARVEST),
which is even more interesting when you consider how widely they vary.  THE
HIDDEN PLACE is a fantasy set in a hobo camp during the Great Depression,
MEMORY WIRE is a science fiction story of cybernetics in 21st Century
Brazil, GYPSIES is about the military trying to use children who can
"sidestep" into other worlds, THE DIVIDE is about the experimental
enhancement of intelligence, THE BRIDGE OF YEARS is about time travel, and
HARVEST is about aliens who come to transform the human race into something
higher.  If there's a pattern here, I don't see it.  (And lest there be any
confusion, this book is *not* by the co-author of the "Illuminati" books.
That is Robert *Anton* Wilson.)

     And now we have MYSTERIUM, a book based on gnosticism.  I must admit
that gnosticism in the early Christian church is not one of my strong
points.  From a historical perspective, I know that gnosticism led inpart
to Manichaeism and the religion of the Bogomils, but I am less clear on
their doctrines, so I have to take MYSTERIUM based on what Wilson conveys
within it.  (I hope he's more accurate on gnosticism than on mathematics--
where he refers to the "anthropic principle in the language of set theory"-
-or physics--where he describes a thirty-degree incline as "not steep.")  Of
course, one might claim that since one of the basic principles of gnosticism
is hidden knowledge Wilson doesn't have to convey it clearly.  After all, in
Luke 8:10 it is said, "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see,
and hearing they might not understand," a very gnostic concept.

     The town of Two Rivers, Michigan, is happy when the government builds a
secret laboratory nearby, disappointed when they discover the employees
won't be pumping money into the local economy, and surprised when they wake
up one morning to discover that their entire town has been transported to a
world like theirs--but different.  Their country--whatever it is--seems to
be at war with New Spain, and the Proctors have arrived to bring the town
under control.  No one is quite sure what has happened, but Howard Poole is
sure it has something to do with his uncle, Alan Stern.

     The three parts of MYSTERIUM are entitled "Mysterium," "Mysterium
Tremendae," and "Axis Mundis" (reminiscent of the three sections of A
CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ).  Each begins with a brief excerpt from Stern's
diary, heavy on the Greek terms but somewhat helpful in understanding the
religious basis not only of this new world but also of the book itself.
Because gnosticism is the key to what's happened to the town of two rivers.

     I have a couple of minor quibbles.  Given the time of the "world-
split," it seems unlikely that names such as Boston and Meso-America would
be use.  (Wilson attempts to explain this by having Graham note, "The
movements of people, the evolution of language.  It's as though history
wants to flow in certain channels.  Broad ethnic groupings persist, and
there are roughly analogous wars, at least up until the tenth or eleventh
century.  There are plagues, though they follow different patterns.  The
Black Death depopulated Europe and Asia no less than five times," but I'm
not convinced.)  And his science is sloppy (see my comments about set theory
and thirty-degree slopes earlier).  But in spite of these problems, I found
MYSTERIUM to be an engrossing novel.  I may not believe the religious
underpinnings of it, but then the same was true of A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ
and that didn't stop me from liking that.  This uses religion slightly
differently, of course, but read it for yourself to see how.

%T      Mysterium
%A      Robert Charles Wilson
%C      New York
%D      April 15, 1994
%I      Bantam Spectra
%O      trade paperback, US$11.95
%G      ISBN 0-553-37365-X
%P      288pp

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
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