The Three Body Problem is the first part of Liu Cixin’s Remembrance of Earth’s Trilogy which has become the most recent addition to literary science fiction canon. Translated from Chinese it immerses even the foreign reader into the cultural heritage of historical China and a frighteningly realistic modern world. On it’s own this first novel is both complex, expansive and gripping.
At a 400-page tear it spans from the Chinese Cultural Revolution to present day, while encapsulating the arc of civilization and the universe. Three Body Problem manages to excel in multiple levels as a political thriller and deeply philosophical science fiction. It checks every single box of well-crafted, well written sci-fi.
It also manages to be educational and historically insightful. Going from no familiarity with the Cultural Revolution other than its existence, I learned enough about it to understand the history of China and perspectives of characters living in that history. The first part of the book is as informative and interesting as a well written history book.
The translation by Ken Liu is not unnoticeable, but its presence enhances the power of the novel. It takes learning to read in a way, a way that delivers information most efficiently, even in existential and personal narrative moments. But in doing so the book is engrossing and powerful, at times difficult but rewarding.
The main complaint I’ve seen by readers is for the lack of realistic characters, or relatable characters or development. I’d say if anything it fails on subtlety because it does deliver information bluntly and accurately, even about the trope-ish personalities of its characters. For some readers that may make it more difficult to make an emotional connection with characters, they are all more removed, even as their very thoughts and motivations are stated directly. But there is absolutely no lack of depth or complexity to these characters. From ones who receive no more than a single chapter, including Ye Zhetai, a mathematician living and dying the way many real-life professors did in the Cultural Revolution, or a member of a completely alien race. We feel these characters as people and understand them on a personal level.
Because of the span of this book over generations, we see the growth of characters throughout the lifetimes, the arc of entire lives. Though she is not the protagonist for most of the book, Ye Wenjei is possibly the main character, because we see her entire life from her father’s death before her eyes as a young student, through young adulthood in exile and a career as a physicist, to an old woman who cares for her grandchildren after her daughter dies.
Layered over the narrative scope of a lifetime, is another that shows the breadth and arcs of entire civilizations in incredibly surreal and historically insightful depiction. We see these characters witness the history of fundamental physics and the universe occur before their eyes, and understand the scope of existence through them. Many books attempt to capture this vastness of the universe, fundamental physics, and the existential questions those raise, but there are very few in the history of literature that have ever pulled it off in such a resonant manner.
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