Vintage Contemporaries / Mr g

Time

As I remember, I had just woken up from a nap when I decided to create the universe.
 
Not much was happening at that time. As a matter of fact, time didn t exist. Nor space. When you looked out into the Void, you were really looking at nothing more than your own thought. And if you tried to picture wind or stars or water, you could not give form or texture to your notions.
 
Those things did not exist. Smooth, rough, waxy, sharp, prickly, brittle even qualities such as these lacked meaning. Practically everything slept in an infinite torpor of potentiality. I knew that I could make whatever I wanted. But that was the problem. Unlimited possibilities bring unlimited indecision. When I thought about this particular creation or that, uncertain about how each thing would turn out, I grew anxious and went back to sleep. But at a particular moment, I managed . . . if not exactly to sweep aside my doubts, at least to take a chance.
 
Almost immediately, it seemed, my aunt Penelope asked me why I would want to do such a thing. Wasn t I comfortable with the emptiness just as it was? Yes, yes, I said, of course, but . . . You could mess things up, said my aunt. Leave Him alone, said Uncle Deva. Uncle toddled over and stood beside me in his dear way. Please don t tell me what to do, retorted my aunt. Then she turned and stared hard at me. Her hair, uncombed and knotted as usual, drooped down to her bulky shoulders. Well? she said, and waited. I never liked it when Aunt Penelope glowered at me. I think I m going to do it, I finally said. It was the first decision I d made in eons of unmeasured existence, and it felt good to have decided something. Or rather, to have decided that something had to be done, that a change was in the offing. I had chosen to replace nothingness with something. Something is not nothing. Something could be anything. My imagination reeled. From now on, there would be a future, a present, and a past. A past of

ALAN LIGHTMAN is the author of seven novels, including the international best seller Einstein s Dreams and The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award. He has taught at Harvard and at MIT, where he was the first person to receive a dual faculty appointment in science and the humanities. He is the host of the public television series Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science. He is a professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT.

Aglow with wonder. . . . A far more subtle divine comedy. . . . It s a scientific vision laced with the mirthful aura of divinity. The Washington Post Book World

A soulful riff on the birth and eventual demise of our universe. The New York Times Book Review

Lightman writes exquisitely, so this fable on the origin of space, time, matter and life is a wordfest that is securely pinned to the rational making him a magic realist of a refreshingly different stripe. Nature
 
Entertaining. . . . Clever and witty. The Boston Globe

A scientist s creation myth. . . . Lightman hints that in the face of the universe s wondrous complexity and tremendous capacity for chaos, even an all-powerful creator may be humbled. The Daily Beast
 
A fluent description of the cosmos based on the principles of quantum physics a stunning, symmetrical light show of subatomic particles. The Wall Street Journal
 
Lightman is fundamentally serious, not satirical, and his awed amazement at the universe is contagious.   The Columbus Dispatch
 
The beautiful writing throughout this little gem of a book is an Alan Lightman trademark. The Washington Times
 
[Lightman] has, in Mr g, created not just a fascinating and oddly moving novel, but an entire genre: call it cosmological scientism. Or scientific cosmology. . . . There s nothing else like it. The Vancouver Sun
 
A cosmic wink at the infinite loop of creativity and mystery. The Miami Herald
 
With wit and a good sense of humor, Lightman is able to approach this very divisive topic in a manner that is sure to please Creationists and Darwinists alike. He deftly combines theology, complex scientific principles and more dilemmas into a lovely tale. The Charleston Post & Courier
 
A beautiful and philosophical fable that weaves the laws of quantum physics into a modern Genesis myth that will stick with a reader long after the book is put away. New York Journal of