Recursion
Recursion
By: Blake Crouch
[Fulfilled ‘A book with time travel’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
[Winner for ‘Best Science Fiction’ category of the 2019 Goodreads Choice Awards]
“What do you cling to, moment to moment, if memories can simply change? What, then, is real? And if the answer is nothing, where does that leave us?”
This book has an intense start.
The first thing is a woman jumping off a building because she has what has been deemed ‘False Memory Syndrome.’ The memories she has of her little boy are said to be false memories; he doesn’t exist. And she can’t handle living this life without him.
Then the main female character, Helena, has a mom with Alzheimer’s and is losing her memories.
Then the main male character, Barry, is reminiscing with his ex-wife about their daughter who would have been 26 that day if she hadn’t died in a car accident as a teenager.
Welcome to Recursion. It’ll give you some feelings.
I really enjoyed Crouch’s book Dark Matter and felt like he created an accessible science fiction novel with a compelling plot. Recursion felt a lot harder to wrap my mind around.
I like reflecting on the concept of memory and how it shapes us, how important it is to who we are.
That is what’s so sad about thinking about Alzheimer’s patients losing their reality and losing the memory of everything that made up their lives. That is what’s so sad about thinking of the jumping woman who had memories of a little boy that didn’t exist. We have loved ones and we can’t bear the thought of losing them, whether physically or in memories.
While Dark Matter explored the multi-verse, Recursion explores the idea of déjà vu and a changeable timeline.
What if déjà vu is actually a remnant memory from a previous timeline, “timelines that never happened but did, casting their shadows upon reality”?
In this story Helena is a neuroscientist and has spent her life working towards a way for Alzheimer’s patients to be able to re-access their memories. Obviously, her mother is her inspiration.
But what she ends up creating, with the unlimited resources of an ‘investor,’ is a chair that allows someone to access an old memory and then ‘enter’ that memory at which point everyone in the world is ‘transported’ back in time with no memory of their future life. When the ‘new’ timeline catches up with the original date of their ‘recursion’ they suddenly have memories of that other ‘dead’ timeline that no longer exists. By going back in time using the chair, the future is altered. For everyone.
At first it’s only a few people who have ‘False Memory Syndrome’ and it’s small scale little pockets of people. Other people’s lives are largely unaffected. But the more often and the more drastically the chair is used, the more widespread the déjà vu and the traumatic the experience when the timelines are remembered.
Time travel books are always a little trippy to follow the trajectory and think about the domino effect of changing the past. What made this one seem a bit even more out there is just that one person using the chair throws the entire world back. I just had a hard time with that connection. It got even more complex as other organizations made their own chair and multiple groups were using it.
Obviously, things get out of hand pretty fast. It becomes the classic ‘how do we undo this technology that we thought would be helpful and meaningful but immediately got weaponized and is now hurting people?’
Then the story becomes Helena and Barry reliving the same life over and over trying to find a way to destroy everyone’s memory of the chair and memories of the ‘false timelines’ because it’s deteriorating everyone’s mental health.
“If memory is unreliable, if the past and present can simply change without warning, then fact and truth will cease to exist. How do we live in a world like that?”
There is a pretty hopeless feeling in this book. Somewhat similar to Dark Matter, I guess, where you just feel like everything is ruined and the main characters will never get back to where they need to be. You definitely become invested in the outcome. Plus an ending with just nuclear warfare and fallout is pretty depressing and horrific so I’m glad Crouch gave us a better ending.
However, I didn’t like the trajectory of Barry’s character. He begins with this deep connection and attachment to his daughter and his life when she was alive. But as the book progresses it’s more about his relationship with Helena and making sure they’re together in each of the timelines. It felt like Barry was more than willing to ditch his other timeline and memories to be with Helena which I didn’t like as much.
At one point in the book they are partnering with a DARPA organization to use the chair to reverse recent military blunders or civilian attacks. Their justification is this:
“We aren’t talking about swapping out good memories for bad or randomly altering reality. We’re here for one purpose— the undoing of human misery.”
That’s the thing about technology isn’t it? New technology arises in an attempt to fix something or make life better or easier. We want to remove any misery when we can.
But I liked this quote from the book:
“Life with a cheat code isn’t life. Our existence isn’t something to be engineered or optimized for the avoidance of pain… That’s what it is to be human— the beauty and the pain, each meaningless without the other.”
I believe the brokenness and pain of the world is not how it’s supposed to be. God created the world and it was good. But then Adam and Eve rebelled against God which created a chasm between humanity and the perfect life. The curse and fallout of their rebellion resulted in heartache, turmoil, toil, and pain.
But the ultimate arc of the story of humanity is God’s plan to redeem us. The pain in our world is what reminds us that we need God. It reminds us of the perfect life that is promised to those who follow Christ. He brings beauty from ashes.
I know Recursion is fiction and I know it could never become reality. I am comforted by Tony Reinke’s book God, Technology, and the Christian Life because in a world with books and movies that can instill fear in us towards any technology, it reminds us that as much as we want to play God, we are limited by the true God. Reinke says,
“Man’s increasing ambition and power don’t threaten God; they threaten man himself, because the more power they are able to concentrate, the more harm they will be able to do to themselves and the world.”
We see that at the Tower of Babel. God prevented the technology they tried to create and dispersed the people, confusing their language, and protecting them from the technology that would have harmed them.
As a people I think the core of this story is our story. We are often so preoccupied and obsessed with curating the perfect life or eliminating any discomfort or displeasure. Life is meant to be enjoyed so any form of pain stands in the way of that joy.
But what if the pain deepens the joy because it draws you closer to your Creator who is waiting to offer you a peace beyond understanding. A peace that wouldn’t make sense if you never knew pain. A relief that wouldn’t reverberate for years without first a sense of endurance.
No technology will be a cheat code for life. An engineered and optimized life would be an empty one.
Our memories often bring us pain, but it also reminds us of how far we’ve come.
And truly, we are more than our memories. We have to be. We don’t lose our personhood if we lose our memory. How sweet for those who live in confusion to know that the path of life in Christ leads to a restoration to a memory more vivid and complete than we could ever imagine. The loss of memory is not the end.
The characters talk about how evolution created these boundaries on our perception of reality and how time is an illusion. If we could just step outside of these limits, we would see reality for what it is. To some degree, I think they’re right. Time is a construct. God exists outside of time and someday we will too. A day is like a thousand years in heaven.
But I think it’s a little crazy to think that somehow evolution created time and perception of time. They really think evolution is the most powerful thing to create and destroy matter and affect abstract things like consciousness and morality and all that. Can’t explain something? Just say evolution created it over millions of years. Sorry but that doesn’t actually make any sense.
I’m just reflecting on the idea of time as a created thing. If God created us in the context of time, time was purposed. Without the constraint of time, we would never have to wait for anything. And I think waiting is a really important part of God’s design for us as human beings in how we view the world, ourselves, and God.
From the very beginning, God gave us the rhythm of passing time (Genesis). It reminds us of an order of operations. A designed timing. Not a random, haphazard timeless existence. Jesus even operated within an ongoing flow of time, waiting for the right moments to exercise his power.
The construct of time is also juxtaposed against the concept of eternity, which is what lies ahead for us. Knowing our time on earth is short in light of eternity, it influences how we live our lives and how we treat those within our lives. Time provides us with purpose.
The science fiction concept of time travel can be fun to explore and imagine, but if we let ourselves get stuck there wishing, we miss out on the significance of the reality of time and how we should use it.
If you love thinking about technology and its possibilities I would definitely encourage you to read Reinke’s book God, Technology, and the Christian Life. He is also intrigued by technological advancements and offers a great balanced look at how we should view and interact with new technologies.
I understand Blake Crouch did not set out to write a science fiction book that incorporated a faith or ‘God’ aspect; I can generally enjoy books for what they are; but, I can’t help but reflect on the concepts of his book in light of our actual reality and what that means for me today.
Here are two more quotes from Reinke that I really liked and feel are worth reflecting as we read Recursion:
“Human innovation satisfies human comforts but starves human hearts. Sinners are always trying to manufacture a new God-replacement.”
“Tech is a divine gift to test our stewardship.”
Recommendation
I liked Dark Matter better than Recursion because I felt like I could wrap my mind around that one a little more, but Recursion was still a good book! Definitely a book I would recommend if you like science fiction or time travel novels.
This book was compelling and quickly invests you in the story’s outcome.
If you really don’t like time travel, I think I would still recommend Dark Matter but may say to skip this one.
Also skip this one if you are triggered by nuclear warfare.
Overall Crouch is a good and creative writer and I think I will continue to read his stuff!
[Content Advisory: 29 f-words 14 s-words, 1 b-word; no sexual content]
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