Eric Chevillard The Crab Nebula Reviews

dierckxjan's review has yet to be rated - Be the first!
Report this review

'The Crab Nebula' by Eric Chevillard.
Translated by Jordan Stump and Eleanor Hardin.


I love this book because I often wonder if there are any boundaries to imagination ( The English scientist and SF writer Arthur C.Clark once said that the only way for travel into space is by imagination ).
Why the title The Crab Nebula ? Modern physics tells you that chaos rules the universe and if you can say one thing for sure about Crab: he is chaotic.

This novel has no story. The Crab Nebula is comprised of fifty-two chapters that provide insights into the existence of this nebulous man named Crab.

This novel explains the possible relationships between a writer and his character.
On the cover the publisher says: " A postmodernist novel par excellence, The Crab Nebula, parodies literary conventions, deconstructs narrative and meaning and brilliantly combines absurdity and hopelessness with irony and humor."

Yes, Crab is a very strange man. In fact he doesn't exist. Well maybe he exists but only through language. Language is the essence of his personality. But if language is his essence he can only exist in the mind of the writer.
You see, the writer is in control of everything: he invents his own laws of nature and logic, in his mind the Earth can be flat or square.

He can toy with Crab as much as he likes, he can send Crab this way and at the same time the opposite way.
Therefore to us readers, Crab acts like a man who cannot make up his mind, he's a victim and an evildoer at the same time.

When you read this novel you have to keep one thing in mind and one thing only: language and imagination are in control