OH PURE AND RADIANT HEART

Ben Peek remembers a genre-spanning classic

One of my deep loves is the “What If” scenario.

It is the question that a lot of alternate history books spring from. Philip K Dick’s The Man In The High Castle, Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, Stephen King’s 11/22/63. You can continue the list not just with novels, but comics and films. Yet, my favourite “What If” book is not a piece of alternate history, but rather a book about our present world, Lydia Millet’s Oh Pure And Radiant Heart.

In Millet’s 2005 novel, Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard wake up in 2003, reborn through the dream of a librarian, Ann. One of the scientists wakes up in a hotel, one in a gutter and one beneath the table of a university cafeteria, where he is promptly kicked by a student. The last is Leo Szilard, who is the most engaging of the three as he adapts to modern life quicker than the others. But it is for all three men to learn about the future that they are in and, after consuming huge amounts of media about themselves, they settle on the only obvious answer:

– So you admit you’re deluded? – Clearly, said Oppenheimer. – What else, said Szilard. Are we supposed to believe in time machines or reincarnation or something? I like HG Wells as much as the next guy, but please. We are men of science.

At the heart of Millet’s book, however, is not the relationship that the three scientists have with each other, or with Ann or Ben, but the relationship that the three men have with their work. Millet’s novels are always political ones, each of them linked not by genre, but by conservationist concerns, and her depiction of the three scientists is no different. In this, she channels some of the important books of speculative fiction, from Walter M Miller’s A Canticle For Leibowtz, George Turner’s The Sea And The Summer and Kim Stanley Robinson’s work. Soon, Millet’s three scientists find themselves travelling to the Nevada test site, to Hiroshima, to the United Nations and a strange peace rally, all in an attempt to understand the impact of what they created.

Where Millet’s book differs from those other novels is the non-fiction, historical account of the atomic tests that she weaves between her fictional narrative. It is a contrasting device that allows Millet to provide information to the reader, but also provides a modern, cross-genre element to the book that is in keeping with the 21st century. Like the rise of other cross-genre novels such as Mark Z Danielewski’s House Of Leaves, it is part of that trend of books not easily defined, that are one thing, and another.

It has been over a decade since Oh Pure And Radiant Heart was first published, but lately I find myself returning to it. In an interview Millet gave with Matthew Cheney, she said, “I wrote it because I’m interested in the nuclear sublime – the power of the mushroom cloud as an image and a threat – and also in how we think and dream about the apocalypse.” It is a quote that sums up why I return to it. On a weekly basis you can hear about North Korea’s nuclear threats. You can hear Donald Trump tap the button of America’s arsenal as attacks against him continue. And, until recently, Iran was making progress in having their own bomb. But mostly, when I think about Millet’s book, I think about how horrified the men who helped create the future were by it.

Ben Peek’s new novel, The Eternal Kingdom, is out now, published by Macmillan.