Omega; The Last Days Of The World by Camille FlammarionMy rating: 3 of 10 stars
I really don't know what to say... Let us sleep and perchance dream... and maybe a review will come.
First Part of the Novel
After sleeping on it I must say that this book will be an hard book to review. It tries to be several things at the same time. It's a scientific novel veiled by SF/Pseudohistory/philosophy/theological elements. It tries so hard to teach us that fails because of it...
At times I thought I was in:
Now the plot... Well again it's hard... The first half of the book is a serie of conferences between the great geniuses of earth as they try to discern the impact of a comet on earth. Several people have opinions and you listened to them all. And it's boring as hell. Why? Because it's full of information useless and it doesnt go anywhere.
The first chapter of this novel introduce us to the grim reality that is going to befall on earth. The comet, thirty times bigger than earth will collide with Earth and everyone will die. The comet itself is made of Carbonic-oxide.
I am no astrophysics or astronomer but I do know if that collided on earth it didn't matter what it was made off. Earth would be destroyed. But after several attempts to discern that we will die of asphyxiation or heat or cold or whatever it happens... page upon page of this:
"The hydrogen and the oxygen, combining with the carbon of the comet, will take fire. The temperature of the air will be raised several hundred degrees; woods, habitations, edifices, cities, villages, will all be rapidly consumed ; the sea, the lakes and the rivers will begin to boil ; men and animals, enveloped in the hot breath of the comet, will die asphyxiated before burned..."
"If it collided with Jupiter it would raise the temperature of that globe to such a point as to restore to it its lost light, and to make it for a time a sun again, so that the earth would be lighted by two suns, Jupiter becoming a sort of minor night-sun, far brighter
than the moon, and shining by its own light of a ruby-red or garnet color, revolving about the earth in twelve years. A nocturnal sun!"
So they thought that Jupiter was a sun... interesting.
And what was said was the absolute true: "Unfortunately, I must admit that the calculations of the astronomers are in this case, as usual, entirely correct." (The writer was an Astronomer)
Blah blah...
"We believe,that we may fearlessly accept the above estimate of 24cubic klm,as a basis of calculation;and as this figure is contained 4,166,666 times in 100,000,000,which represents the volume of the continents, we are authorized to infer that under the sole action of forces now in operation, provided no other movements of the soil occur,the dry land will totally disappear within a period of 4 milion years."
The all book is like this... tedious information... It's a new genre... it's call scientific fiction. It's harder than Hard SF... sorry the pun but that's it... It's tedious as hell.. page upon page of endless information.
After 110 pages of scientific debate of what would happen if a comet hit the earth we turn into theological debates and now the narrator tells us in a 20 page thesis "Everytime the church said that the end was near... it wasn't" ....
To say this book is apocalpytic fiction is to say I am Cristiano Ronaldo.. We are both portuguese so... --- after reading 150 pages I say:
STRIKE US OH MIGHTY COMET AND END MY PAIN!!!
"Then later statistics of the comet's victims were obtained, it was
found that the number of the dead was one-fortieth of the
population of Europe." - If a comet of that size had it earth, earth would be destroyed. Complete obliterated. Imagine something larger than the moon impacting on Earth. Goodnight everyone... But on this case....
"Scarcely a half hour had passed before people began to issue from their cellars, feeling again the joy of living, and recovering gradually from their apathy. Even before one had really begun to take any account of the fires which were still raging, notwithstanding the deluge or rain, the scream of the newsboy was heard in the hardly awakened streets."
This novel is full of entries like this...
Medical statistics, subtracting from the general total the normal mean, based upon a death-rate of twenty for every one thousand inhabitants, that is, 492 per day, or 15,252 for the month, which represents the number of those who would have died independently of the comet, ascribed to the latter the difference between these two numbers, namely, 222,633..."
But not all things are bad. At times it has some good prose or images...
"This apparent decrease in brilliancy was chiefly due to contrast, for when the eye, less dazzled, had become accustomed to this new light, it seemed almost as intense as the former, but of a sickly, lurid, sepulchral hue. Never before had the earth been bathed in such a light, which at first seemed to be colorless, emitting lightning flashes from its pale and wan depths"
Second Part of the Novel
After the first part of the novel was concluded we came to the pseudohistorical novel of Earth. From the time of the comet forward until the end of earth, galaxy and the universe...
It begins with a feminism propaganda (it was a guy who wrote the book... even with a name like Camille :) )
Now this book has turn into a feminism propaganda...
"Under the inspiration of a woman of spirit, a league was formed of the mothers of Europe, for the purpose of educating their children, especially their daughters, to a horror of the barbarities of war. So the women deprive man of sex.
"For about five years there was scarcely a single marriage or union. Every citizen was a soldier, in France, in Germany,in Italy, in Spain, in every nation of Europe. The women held their ground ; they felt that truth was their side, but their firmness would deliver humanity from
the slavery which oppressed it, and that they could not
fail of victory."
Of course man stop ... war!
And then the writer says that the future is Socialism
"It was this state of affairs which led to the great social revolution of the international socialists, of which mention was made at the beginning of this book, and to others which followed it."
"All philosophy, all religion, was founded upon the progress of astronomy."
"Humanity had tended towards unity, one race, one language,
one general government, one religion. There were
no more state religions ; only the voice of an enlightened
conscience, and in this unity former anthropological differences
had disappeared."
So this is his perfect view of the world? I think future looks boring as hell...
The evolution of mankind continues with the raise of a seven sense (electric) and eight sense (Psychic).
The last forty pages is a philosophical debate about the meaning of life and the ending of earth.... Oh.. and she destroy my beautiful city of lisbon engulfed by the Sea.
"The earth,an extinct sun, has cooled more rapidly than the sun.Jupiter,so immense, is still in its youth.The moon, smaller than Mars,has reached the more advanced stages of astral life,perhaps even has reached its end. Mars, smaller than the earth, is more advanced than the earth and less so than the moon. Our planet, in its turn,must die before Jupiter,and this,also,must take place before the sun becomes extinct."
The last chapter (about 10 pages) is resumed by All is Dust. Everything is energy and so nothing really perish. Not a person, planet or a sun. Everything is transformed. I guess Flammarions interest on life after death was a dominant theme.
"And all these things possessed nothing of the earth, whose very memory had passed away like a shadow. And these universes passed away in their turn. But infinite space remained, peopled with worlds, and stars, and souls, and suns ; and time went on forever.
For there can be neither end nor beginning."
Final Thoughts
This book is not for everyone. Heck it wasn't for me but I had to finish what I started. This book is an ode. Mainly an ode to science but also for Woman, Socialism and Evolution. In the end is an Ode to Mankind and reading the last couple of pages is an Ode to Life.
"It is sweet to live. Love atones for every loss ; in its joys all else is forgotten. Ineffable music of the heart, thy divine melody fill the soul with an ecstasy of infinite happiness ! What illustrious historians have celebrated the heroes of the world's progress, the glories of war, the conquests of mind and of spirit ! Yet after so many centuries of labor and struggle, there remained only two palpitating hearts, the kisses of two lovers. All had perished except love ; and love, the supreme sentiment, endured, shining like an inextinguishable beacon over the immense ocean of the vanished ages."
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