Under the Eye of the Big Bird

by

Graphic novel, 255 pages

Published April 22, 2016

ISBN:
978-1-59376-620-7
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(1 review)

From one of Japan's most brilliant and sensitive contemporary novelists, this speculative fiction masterpiece envisions an Earth where humans are nearing extinction, and rewrites our understanding of reproduction, ecology, evolution, artificial intelligence, communal life, creation, love, and the future of humanity.

In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of "Mothers." Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings--but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world.

Unfolding over fourteen interconnected episodes spanning geological eons, at once technical and pastoral, mournful and utopic, Under the Eye of the Big Bird …

1 edition

reviewed Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami

Beautiful and strange, almost afraid to be quite strange enough

This is one of a few books we've read for #SFFBookClub that consists of a series of ostensibly separate stories which collectively build one world. I loved the quietly unsettling mood of a lot of the stories, and actually enjoyed how much the author keeps the reader guessing until about half way through the book. But the two stories--one about halfway through, one near the end--which do the most explicit explaining ended up doing too much of that for my taste. I think a certain amount of tying things together was needed, but making things too neat was a bit of a loss, and the big picture story doesn't work as well for me as all the facets in the individual chapters.