White Light

Light, fun writing style. Concepts beyond human comprehension presented in humorous and approachable style.I read it again after a couple years and liked it better than I had the first time.

This is an interesting and amusing novel. It deals with some deepthings like infinity, consciousness, and the nature of reality.As a physicist, I appreciated that the author connects the plot tosome actual mathematical truths in speculating about an alternatereality and alternate states of consciousness. In addition it is justan amusing and thought-provoking book. The plot is sort of darki.e. the characters are troubled and there is some drug use. Thismay be a reflection of the author's own experiences or just his views on modern life. I could certainly empathize with the characters andenjoy the sort of dark humor that runs through this book, howeversome other readers may not.

I reviewed Rudy Rucker's finest nonfiction work, _Infinity and the Mind_, a while back, and it's about time I reviewed this one too. I think this is probably his finest fiction. Nor is that an accident, as it was written at about the same time as _Infinity and the Mind_ and deals with the same primary theme: the soul's quest for God, the Absolutely Infinite. And Rucker's is my kind of mysticism. For this novel is about a mathematician who went to college to dodge the draft and winds up working in set theory in an attempt to (as Lord Buckley would have put it) dig infinity. At one time, Rucker himself was a mathematician who was supposed to be working on Georg Cantor's Continuum Problem while stuck teaching at a college in upstate New York; the novel's protagonist, Felix Rayman, is closely modeled on Rucker in this and other respects. (Some of the other characters are modeled on real and fictional people as well: for example, "Franx," the giant cockroach, is modeled on Franz Kafka -- author of "Metamorphosis," in which Gregor Samsa finds himself turned into a giant cockroach -- and "Donald Duck" is modeled on Donald Duck.) In fact, the original subtitle of the novel was "What Is Cantor's Continuum Problem?" -- which is, incidentally, to determine what order of infinity the points in space make up. This is thus the first novel in Rucker's series of "transreal" novels -- "transrealism" being defined as somewhat metaphorical storytelling based pretty closely on the author's own experiences. In the present case, we're talking about mystical experiences, some drug-induced, some not. At any rate, Felix Rayman does indeed get to dig infinity -- and so does the reader, although those with _no_ mathematical background may dig infinity a little better if they read _Infinity and the Mind_ either before or after this one. Rucker writes in his introduction to the Princeton edition of _Infinity and the Mind_ that he must have settled his questions about God, because he stopped thinking about them. Here, in a short afterword, he confirms that he still accepts the premises on which _White Light_ is based, and adds that he has also adopted a new belief: that far from being merely an impersonal metaphysical abstraction, God can and will help human beings overcome our spiritual difficulties if we just ask. He also gives us a bit more information about the influences that shaped the novel. Also included in this new edition is a somewhat informative but mostly irritating foreword by John Shirley, who helpfully expounds the novel's relationship to the ideals of the '60s but vastly overstates its relationship to cyberpunk. (Rucker's _Software_ and its sequels may be cyberpunk, but this one isn't.) But the main feature is still the story itself, which I happen to think is mind-blowingly cool. Check it out.

Gregory Benford once stated that he was skeptical on the literary effectiveness of math stories because "mathematical languages have such a wonderful aura of precision and controllability, which is why scientists are intuitively drawn to them; but they lack a quality I can only describe as human expressiveness." To those who concur with Benford I point out Rucker's White Light as a counterexample. White Light is hilarious, intriguing and even poignant at times. The hero Felix Rayman is actually likeable and he keeps the story grounded in the sphere of human emotions even at its most fantastical moments. What does Felix as Donald Duck think about after he has had his heart ripped out by an Aztec priest? - That he never told Hewey, Dewey and Louie that he loved them! However, I must add that this book might be confusing to someone who has had minimal exposure to math beyond calculus. The enjoyment of the book is heightened if you've read Cantor's proof that the cardinality of the real numbers is greater than the cardinality of the natural numbers, know something about the Banach-Tarski paradox and the Axiom of Choice, and have a general knowledge of the great mathematicians of the late 19th century. If you like Stanislaw Lem, are interested in higher mathematics and are tired of those space operas I would highly recommend White Light.

I read "White Light" when it first came out in 1980. I liked it so much I lent it to a friend, and of course never saw it again. Rudy Rucker has a masterpiece here, as far as I am concerned. He deals with infinity in a very interesting fashion, and makes it entertaining to us average types. Rudy Rucker deals with the soul; and the concepts of heaven and hell are approached in a very strange fashion. White Light refers to the melding of the soul with God, The Absolute, or Infinite, and in a sense, with the loss of one's ego and sense of self. While being irreverent, Rucker, a professor of mathematics at San Jose State, has very seriously written about the concept of mathematical infinity and with the absolute brain busting theory of infinity plus one. This is a novel, and you travel to the afterlife with Felix Rayman and, almost like Odysseus, embark on a journey of discovery. You will experience what it would be like to be in a place where you can change body shape, defy gravity, meet weird creatures, and deal with the infinite and eternal. But all is not groovy. You and your guide, Felix Rayman, encounter many frustrations and even sinister spirits now incorporated into bodies and who inhabit a strange place reminiscent of an R. Crumb landscape. Prepare yourself for a wild ride with "White Light". Oh, I ordered 2 copies this time, in case my loaner copy goes astray.