Not on Fire, but Burning: A Novel

Loved this book! It is a cautionary tale that reminds us all that we can make a huge impact on the rising conflict between people. The conflict depicted in the book is with Muslims but it also serves as a metaphor for the prejudice we have against those not like us. I enjoyed the way in which Hrbek gives us possible paths throughout the book to illustrate that we make choices everyday that lead to different outcomes which can dramatically effect the future. Although the story can seem bleak at times, I appreciated the message of hope at the end. I would also people to check out this amazing organization which is doing the work Hrbek writes about: http://www.seedsofpeace.org/

There’s a whiff here of the post 9/11 novel. An attack. Islamophobia. Hatred. Fear of the future, and hardliners taking positions. But Hrbek, perhaps inspired by that genre of books, created a more unconventional novel—part speculative fiction, part dystopia, thriller, particles of sci-fi, cautionary tale, family drama, and part scrutiny of social bias. It’s an ambitious novel that alternates between characters, and in different realms of time—or networks of time, while also occurring in a narrow period of eight years. It’s an examination of people who attempt to reconcile their principles with their fears, and how memories play an important part of their convictions, but may not be what they seem. Moreover, it demonstrates how hatred is a toxin that spreads to future generations. The prelude opens with an attack of unknown source and composition on the Golden Gate Bridge on 8/11/2030, “something, metal or fire or a bolt of electromagnetism.” Young college student Skyler Wakefield is babysitting when it happens, while her family is tucked safely and distantly away from the resulting mushroom cloud and radiation. The reader can’t be sure of her fate, but we know that her mind is on her three-year-old brother, Dorian. Fast-forward eight years later, a very different America, whose borders have changed into provinces and territories, due to the nuclear fallout. Although nothing has been substantiated about the cause of the 8/11 attack, the official story blames radical Islam terrorists. All Muslims have been corralled into ghetto-like camps, isolated from the rest of the country, just like the Americans did to the Japanese seventy years ago. They have been categorically demonized, although some progressive people are sympathetic to their plight. Meanwhile, Dorian, now almost twelve, is having dreams about a sister, Skyler, who he doesn’t actually remember, but is ever-present in a nighttime fever of clairvoyance. His parents state that they have no memory of a daughter, and are disturbed by Dorian’s insistence that she existed. The widespread blame on Muslims for 8/11 fuels Dorian’s suspicion and naïve hatred of them, as he connects them to the fate of his sister. Does she exist? Hberk deftly structures the book so that even the reader is questioning whether Skyler was real. Or, perhaps she exists in a different sphere of time, as promoted by a keen, long-haired outlier. Are his parents lying to him? Meanwhile, the Wakefield’s 71 year-old neighbor, who fought in all Gulf Wars (most recently Gulf War III), has just legally adopted eleven-year-old Karim from one of the camps. Karim’s parents were killed in an American drone strike, which leaves him ripe for hatred against “infidels.” His presence in the neighborhood causes a stir and escalation of convictions, and an incident that unleashes extremes of behavior, and in some cases, potential heroism. The novel achieves a great resonance of feeling, but its breadth, which came on hard and fast toward the end, also obfuscated some of the key questions it raised, or dropped them altogether. Some ideas used shallow treatment, and the portrait of Muslim characters mostly lacked nuance. Dorian and Karim emerge as the main characters, and it is their actions and interior monologues that give it pace throughout the shifting perspectives. Much of the narrative is stream-of-consciousness, which was periodically repetitive, and could have been sharpened to a finer point. However, at times, such as with this quote, it accentuated the enigma of humanity. “What we have presented here is a fraction of the whole, no more representative of the total narrative than a single cell is representative of the living body of a person, just as every person described herein is, in like manner, a fraction of a whole of greater selves.” I enjoyed it for its intriguing enterprise and imagination, as well as giving us a window into a community, and how its empathy, enmity, fears, fractiousness, and convictions are built. Additionally, the story illuminates that history and memory are intertwined, and that all our actions build on previous actions, affect each other, and have consequences.

Intriguing , compelling themes run through the book. Sometimes, though, somewhat unbelievable.

I think this book would've been more interesting if I'd read it high. As it was the "reads like a fever dream" thing was just confusing and made it hard to get into the story.

There is an aspect of this novel that is worth thinking about, namely the references to a "grid" and "quantum." First, the grid may be in reference to the space-time diagrams used in physics where the x-axis is time and the y-axis is space (simplified to one dimension). An event is a trajectory in this space whether it refers to the movement of a car, a comet or a galaxy or, for that matter, a person or even a person's entire life. Second, the reference to quantum may link to the interpretation problem in quantum mechanics. There is a probabilistic aspect to QM and, for the sake of interpretation in regard to a conceptual problem (not discussed by me here), some but my no means all QM theorists postulate that all the possible values of a quantity (each with its probability in a distribution) "happen" rather than only the one that in some conventional sense is "observed." In other words, each possible path is actually taken rather than just one. So for instance, the probability distribution over the possible events in San Francisco at a certain point in time yields the explosion (observed by Skyler) but also other events such as -- there was no explosion. And so forth. I admit that the fit to the author's usage is not perfect. The no-explosion path (really an infinite number of paths) is said to be "parallel" to the explosion path and for the author is idenfified with a line parallel to the t-axis, as I understand him. In any case, I have studied QM but am not a physicist. If there is a reader who is a physicist it would be nice to get his reaction to the quasi-formalism used in the book as well as the entirety of the seeming QM interpretation that author seems to use, namely the Many Worlds Interpretation.

This novel sticks with me. I was disappointed when it ended, and I will likely read a future book by this author. I found this premise intriguing and the mechanisms Hrbek used to advance the story were nicely done. I am being purposely vague because I do not want to ruin the story for anyone else. As a fan of post-apocalyptic/dystopian/futurist fiction, I am happy to recommend this.

I have to admit, I was disappointed in this book. The description did make it clear that the story would focus on racial tension and individual growth in the aftermath of an event. Unfortunately, the event - which was never explained - was much more interesting than the rambling, tense story of this family. I wish that the story that was in the first chapter was the story the book wanted to tell. It would have been more interesting and it also would have made the social and individual stories more impactful if they weren't the focus

Couldn't keep track of story, hard to follow, I didn't feel anything for the characters, Totally disappointed, i don't know why this book got such a good rating

I'm not sure how I feel about this novel. For a few days I had no idea what to rate Not on Fire, but Burning. I'm not 100% sure I know how I feel even now. There's so much in so few pages and I have so many questions that weren't answered, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I feel like there's so many important discussions that were started in this novel; extremists, religion, terrorism, the way kids blindly follow what they're told by their peers, how countries handle it all. I know I'll be thinking about this for a while, and I might read it again to see if that helps me to gather my thoughts. I will say this: the prose in this novel is beautiful. It's very lyrical and it switches between 1st, 2nd and 3rd person seamlessly, as well as between perspectives. I felt like every time I was confused it was intentional on Hrbek's part. Like he wanted me to be thinking, he wanting to start a discussion or train of thought. The only thing I disliked was the amount of talk of parallel worlds. Here's the thing: it would have been fine to play around with what ifs and what Dorian and Skylar and the rest of their family might be doing in another world. The bits of maths threw me off a bit, and I didn't understand any of it so if that was meant to impact me in any way it was wasted on me. The whole parallel dimensions thing just got a bit meh for me by the end. Overall this was a thought provoking, beautifully written novel. It was by no means a great novel, but definitely a good one. I'll definitely be giving this some thought and a reread in the future.

O subgênero do apocalipse beira a saturação porque praticamente todos os romances – até os bons – seguem mais ou menos a mesma cartilha, com poucas variações. Quando aparece algo como NOT ON FIRE BUT BURNING, de Greg Hrbek, é algo a se comemorar. Embora cumpra, de certa forma, com as obrigações do fim do mundo moldado pela literatura recente, o americano traz uma delicada subversão que coloca seu livro uns degraus acima da maioria. A trama começa com um objeto – um corpo celeste, um avião, terroristas, uma nave alienígena? – atingindo a famosa ponte em San Francisco, o que a faz derreter, e partir daí o caos é instalado. Descobrimos tudo isso pelo olhar de uma jovem babá, Skyler, que trabalha para pagar os estudos – sua família mora em outra cidade – e precisa salvar a vida do garoto de 5 anos de está tomando conta. Poucas páginas depois, nada deu certo, e o primeiro capítulo apresenta os Estados Unidos, anos depois, diante de uma nova ordem interna e externa. Por enquanto, ponto de vista passa a ser de Dorian, garoto de 11 anos, irmão da babá do começo, que tinha apenas 3 quando o 8-11 (assim que ficou conhecido o dia fatídico). Ele é assombrado por sonhos de uma irmã de quem nenhum membro de sua família recorda. O que aconteceu que todos apagaram as lembranças de Skyler? Ou ela é um delírio do garoto? É uma ruptura no centro dessa narrativa que intriga por muito tempo – os personagens e o leitor. Ao mesmo tempo, Dorian precisa lidar com sua xenofobia – ele já foi pego pichando uma mesquita – quando seu vizinho adota um órfão árabe, e quer que todas outras crianças fiquem amigas dele. Depois de, certa forma, apresentar a narrativa e os personagens, Hrbek faz os motores da narrativa se mexerem sem parar, transitando a voz narrativa entre 1a, 2a e 3a pessoa; e o tempo entre presente, passado e futuro. Não apenas isso, o espaço e o tempo começam a se alterar, e uma vez que as contas (das idades de Dorian e Skyler) não somam direito, percebemos estar diante de duas realidades. Mas são dois mundos? Uma fratura nesse? Realidades paralelas? É uma audácia do autor, que funciona bem na maior parte do tempo – embora talvez se explique demais em alguns momentos. O autor combina um drama familiar, com estudo de personagens, com um mistério envolvendo física e questões políticas, tudo emoldurado numa linguagem poética e no desafio de combinar a ficção com a ciência, sem alienar seu leitor. O título – que pode ser inspirado no poema “Not waving but drowning”, de Steven Smith – aponta para a discrepância entre aparência e essência, entre o que se vê e o que está acontecendo realmente. Mas, no fundo, também não há uma única interpretação ao que se vê, pois cada um vê de seu próprio ponto de vista. Por isso mesmo, o fim não é o mesmo para todas as pessoas. Para algumas, nem é mesmo o fim.