The orange gas giant, Zeus, hung low above the horizon, huge and heavy and glowing with a ruddy half-light. Around it glittered a field of stars, bright against the black of space, while beneath the giant’s lidless glare stretched a grey wasteland streaked with stone.
Just in case there was any doubt that Christopher Paolini’s move from the fantasy world of the popular series of novels he commenced with the runaway hit of the year Eragon was a full deep dive into science fiction, the opening line of the book purposely drives a nail into that uncertainty. From this point forward, the reader will wind a path through almost 900 pages fully equipped with the relief that this story takes place in a future world ruled by science, but not a fantasy world of magic and stuff. Of course, the reader may not—hopefully anyway—be familiar with an orange gas planet called Zeus, but it is still a recognizable bit of imagery that is leagues away from flying dragons.
A month in quarantine would wear on anyone.
Although not especially significant within the context, since the original publication date this particular quote certainly has taken on much great vitality relative to the average reader. This particular quote—really just a throwaway although it does reference a very significant aspect of the narrative—reveals the way that quick shifts in the zeitgeist of culture can lend a deeper meaning than intended to even the most banal of discourse. Before the outbreak of Covid in 2020, most people would have absolutely personal attachment to make to the idea of how a month in quarantine could impact the psychology of a person. All that has changed for some time to come.
“If you're looking for guarantees in life, you're going to be sorely disappointed.”
This is another quote that is interesting when taken out of context of the narrative and inserted into the context of the book. The author of this novel, Christopher Paolini, has made no secret of his desire to write imaginative fiction which inspired a sense of hope and optimism. And yet, this quote is exceeding pessimistic. Or is it? Another way of looking at this downbeat approach to existence is to view it through the perspective of simple realism. As in, for instance, “Ah, Tschetter is just being realistic.” The truth lies in the middle and within that middle can be found an interesting aspect of the novel to explore from an analytic point of view.
If one were to precisely—or, at least, more authentically—identify the philosophical viewpoint Tschetter is expressing here, it would be pragmatism. In reality, it is not entirely realistic to expect that looking for guarantees in life is bound to disappoint. This clearly is not true for everyone. Pragmatically speaking, however, most people are bound to be disappointed if they go searching for guarantees. What Paolini refers to as his desire to write optimistic fiction also seems closer to the school of pragmatism. What Tschetter here and Paolini throughout the entire 880 pages of his novel pursue—philosophically speaking—is the ideological conception that what is either too optimistic or too pessimistic should be abandoned merely as examples of the impractical. The question is whether Tschetter is successful or not in convincing the novel’s protagonist, Kira, to accept and pursue this philosophy.
