I’ve decided that the “Book Review” tag on The Lafayette’s website needs to diversify its ratings a bit more. It’s book “review,” not book “recommendation,” after all – not that there wasn’t the occasional novel that did not achieve the coveted Maddie Stamp of Approval – but the tag ought to have a little more publication panning.
This summer, I could not make it through Andy Weir’s 2011 science fiction smash hit “The Martian.” It was the only book out of 13 that I rated under three stars – 2.75 – in contrast to its impressive 4.42 Goodreads rating.
Don’t get me wrong: I completely understand why this book is so widely adored. What premise could be more suspenseful and entertaining than a survival story of a man isolated on Mars? I loved the movie when I watched it a few years ago (before reading the book, I know). However, as the novel progresses, Weir’s execution of his brilliant premise becomes tiresome, repetitive and flat.
Let me boil down the plot for you – without spoilers. Mark Watney, our protagonist, is a mechanical engineer, a botanist and, most recently, an astronaut. We meet him in a catastrophic situation: he was injured and assumed dead during an emergency evacuation just days into his team’s mission; now, he’s stuck and all alone on the Red Planet with finite resources. Scary!
But, never fear – as the book emphasizes over and over again like you might forget, Watney is a “clever son of a bitch.” Faced constantly with unpredictable, life-threatening obstacles, he finds ingenious ways to survive, using the power of complicated science and problem-solving skills. Again. And again. And again.
Here is my formal apology to any fans of “The Martian” reading this. I can appreciate Weir’s well-researched, meticulous explanation of the science that Watney uses to survive, but even this biology major was bored reading yet another page detailing how our hero wiggled himself out of another hiccup in his plan to stay alive.
Obviously, isolated Mars survival will have a lot of hiccups. They just become very repetitive and uninteresting. The stakes are lowered because you know your protagonist will somehow finagle himself out and an intensely in-depth scientific explanation isn’t the cure-all to suspend disbelief, anyways.
The main character himself was barely believable as a person. There was little, if any, exploration of the psychological impact of isolation on an alien planet. You’d think that would do something to a guy. The novel employs Watney’s use of humor as a coping mechanism to make itself a comedy but loses all emotional depth and humanity in the process. We only see glimpses of despair behind a mask of jokes – even the world’s most positive optimist is bound to have a mental breakdown in Watney’s large astronaut shoes. I found myself longing for the perspectives of the characters from NASA and Watney’s fellow astronauts; they were one-dimensional, but at least they had feelings!
It’s also only an entertaining comedy to a certain extent: Watney is funny but funny like the author’s target audience was middle schoolers, and the swearing makes me assume that wasn’t the case. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good bad joke, but “The Martian” is unfortunately oversaturated with a lot of forced bad jokes.
I know that this was Weir’s first novel, and what a feat to receive the acclaim that he did for his debut! Unfortunately, I found myself isolated from the rest of his audience. I hate to say the movie was better, but … I’ll be rewatching that and not rereading this.
