“The two most engaging powers of an author: new things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new,” wrote Samuel Johnson – powers that Michel Faber exhibits in abundance in his astonishing novel, now published in a beautifully designed paperback edition. Developing his interest in science fiction, demonstrated in his first novel Under the Skin, Faber invents alien creatures, the Oasan, living on a new planet to which protagonist Peter is sent to be a Christian missionary. As time passes, the Oasan become familiar to Peter, while erstwhile normality grows stranger.
At first, Peter pines for his beloved wife, Bea, and for their cat, Joshua, sorely missing the people and places he has left behind, in a plot that brilliantly shows how it’s possible to be geographically distant and yet still emotionally entwined.
Written words are the only tool that Peter and Bea have to keep in touch, via a messaging system called the Shoot. Faber explores the powers and pitfalls of words and their ability to bridge – or widen – divides. Peter craves close companionship, for he has an “almost obsessional preference for face-to-face communication” and laments the couple’s intimacy draining away.
The narrative gathers momentum as Faber explores forms of “human intercourse” – from sexual to spiritual and linguistic. As Peter attempts to learn the Oasan’s language, the complexities of human communication are thrown into relief. Although Bea and Peter are a couple who “seldom missed an opportunity to show kindness to strangers”, their correspondence displays how easy it is to hurt those we most love.
Not only the humans and aliens but Joshua the cat, too, play a part in this novel’s nuanced study of tenderness. He lays a forepaw on Peter as if telling him not to go: “It was a poignant moment, expressing the situation better than language could have,” writes Faber, “or perhaps it was just that the exotic cuteness of the cat put a protective furry layer over the raw human pain, making it endurable.”
As Faber tests the limits of language – and how much of a world can be conveyed in a word – he displays language’s great power, making strange things familiar and familiar things startlingly strange.
The Book of Strange New Things is published by Canongate (£8.99). Click here to order it for £6.99
