Mr. g
A Novel about the Creation

Name: Mr. g
Brand: Blackstone Audiobooks
Availability: InStock
Author: Alan Lightman
ISBN: 9781481555074

Author: Alan Lightman

Narrator: Ray Porter

Unabridged: 4 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Published: 01/24/2012

Categories: Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

With echoes of Calvino, Rushdie, and Saramago, this is a stunningly imaginative work that celebrates the tragic and joyous nature of existence on the grandest possible scale. “As I remember, I had just woken up from a nap when I decided to create the universe.” So begins Alan Lightman’s playful and profound new novel, Mr. g, the story of Creation as narrated by God. Bored with living in the shimmering Void with his bickering Uncle Deva and Aunt Penelope, Mr. g creates time, space, and matter—then moves on to stars, planets, consciousness, and finally intelligent beings with moral dilemmas. But even the best-laid plans can go awry, and Mr. g discovers that with his creation of space and time come unforeseen consequences—especially in the form of the mysterious Belhor, a clever and devious rival. An intellectual equal to Mr. g, Belhor delights in provocation: he demands an explanation for the inexplicable, requests that intelligent creatures not be subject to rational laws, and maintains the necessity of evil. As Mr. g watches his favorite universe grow into maturity, he begins to understand how the act of creation can change the Creator himself.

About Alan Lightman

Alan Lightman—who worked for many years as a theoretical physicist—is the author of six novels, including the international bestseller Einstein’s Dreams, as well as The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the author of a memoir, three collections of essays, and several books on science. His work has appeared in the Atlantic, Granta, Harper’s Magazine, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, Salon, and Nature, among other publications. 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 currently professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT. He lives in the Boston area.

About Ray Porter

Ray Porter is a prolific voice actor that has recorded for over 100 audio books and dozens of television series, video games and video shorts. Among his wide variety of audiobook credits are The Silver Linings Playbook, The Black Hole War, and the Joe Ledger series. He claims, “With every book I’ve done, I have found that the author has a voice and if I can just do my best to stay out of the way of that voice, then the writer will convey what he’s trying to put across. So for me, it’s really more about enabling the text and what the author is trying to say.”

Reviews

There are currently no user reviews for this audiobook.

Quotes

“Here is the creation of the universe and the young creator who grapples with what he has made—and ultimately with responsibility and loss…A gem of a novel that is strange, witty, erudite, and alive with Lightman’s playful genius.” Junot Díaz, New York Times bestselling author

“A soulful riff on the birth and eventual demise of our universe…Lightman the humanist allows room for the compatibility of rationality with spirituality and mystery, while Lightman the scientist plays devil’s advocate with the partisans of Genesis, blinding them with logic.” New York Times Book Review

“This delightful novel takes the reader on a lighthearted romp through the development of the universe from the big bang to its cold, dark end, addressing along the way some of the big questions that inevitably arise from the development of intelligent life.” Jerome Friedman, Nobel Prize–winning physicist

“A scientific vision laced with the mirthful aura of divinity…Aglow with wonder.” Washington Post

“Just as he did with his incomparable Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman again surprises us with a work that is utterly original in both form and content. Mr. g is a philosophical fable which is at turns hilarious and moving, rendered with a literary hand so deft that the weightiest metaphysical topics levitate into pure delight.” Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, philosopher and author

“It would not seem possible for Alan Lightman to match his earlier tour de force, Einstein’s Dreams, but in Mr. g he has done so—with wit, imagination, and transcendent beauty.” Anita Desai, Indian novelist

“With iridescent precision, fairy-tale wonder, and brainy humor, Lightman crafts an enthralling and provocative cosmic parable that offers a startlingly fresh perspective on the mysteries of the universe and the paradoxical human condition.” Booklist (starred review)

“A touching, imaginative rendition of God’s creation of the universe…The immortal characters are changed by their brush with the enterprising, however doomed, mortals, bringing this elucidating treatment of quantum physics to an affecting, hopeful conclusion.” Publishers Weekly

“Though Lightman’s clever irreverence recalls Salman Rushdie and Kevin Brockmeier, his plainspoken style lends the book a fitting earnestness…Readers who don’t mind the liberties the author takes with the sacred might enjoy this scienced fiction.” Library Journal

“Lightman is able to write with the keen insight of a scientist and the lyricism of a poet…He brilliantly conveys a sense of the awesome power and mystery of the universe’s origins. Whether you are a believer, an atheist, or occupy some position in between, if you approach it with an open mind you are certain to find something worth pondering in this delightfully original novel. Who knew cosmology could be such a blast?” Shelf Awareness