The Years of Rice and Salt [Mass Market Paperback]

Robinson sketches the answer in ten chapters that deal with a period of approximately six centuries, describing the development of predominantly Musulman and Chinese empires through the experiences of a number of central characters whose fates are intertwined during succesive reincarnations.

In Robinson's hypothetical world history two major powerhouses come into being : the Chinese through sheer numbers are set to dominate a large part of the world, whereas Islam forges a far more fractitioned counterweight. In the end both world powers exhaust themselves in a long world war, setting the scene for a flourishing of other hitherto minor powers, India and - more surprisingly - the Hodenausaunee league of North American prairie indians.

In this thematically rich novel, Robinson meditates about a large number of themes : the influence of religion on state and culture, the optimal organisation of society and government, the development of science and its relation with religion and its impact on the balance of power between nations, the degrees of freedom in historical developments, the importance of women taking their place in society as the equals of men, the importance of the development of supranational scientific and governing bodies.

Quite a mouthful. Does Robinson pull it off ? Ambitious novels like these are bound to fail : their scope is simply to wide and in this case even 772 pages can hardly suffice to provide all the required answers. The quality of the different chapters is pretty uneven. Some eras are better worked out than others. Robinsons is however clear on at least three issues.

In order to survive humankind needs to forge crossborder and crosstribe alliances or leagues that foster cooperation and understanding.

Scientific progress is inevitable. Discoveries by Western luminaries like Galileo, Newton, Einstein, e.a. would have been made in other cultures anyway, even though local circumstances can have a far ranging impact on the dissemination and practical application of these insights. What matters is if and how the international community manages to deal with the challenges offered by new scientific developments.

Religions do not have timeless answers to timeless questions. They each have their own roots and genesis, which determine in turn the nature of the answers they provide. When society however moves too far away from the origins of a specific religion, the answers provided by that religion may no longer be relevant.

As already said, all this and more is packaged in ten chapters covering 600 years and 772 pages. In order to get some continuity in his story the author chooses to re-use a number of characters in different reincarnations. This allows him to jump from one era to another, from one continent and culture to another. In the end this may not have been such a happy choice as it sidetracks us from the main storylines, it fails mainly to create a sense of unity in the novel anyway and moreover it unnecessarily alienates readers who do not believe in reincarnation, thereby undermining the credibility of the rest of the story. The author includes even a number of scenes "in bardo", the buddhist limbo where souls await reincarnation and meditate on previous lives, the unfairness of the gods (so they exist anyway ?) and the sense of reincarnation if one cannot remember past experiences in a new life. The reincarnation approach even lands a character in the body of a tiger in one chapter...

At the end I remained with mixed feelings. On the one hand one is to consider this book a tour de force that often succesfully attempts to give valuable insights in the questions raised above. On the other hand it fails as a novel through lack of unity and the fact that the stories in themselves are very uneven in quality. I dread to say it, but maybe Robinson should have refrained from cramming all his ideas in a single book and have treated is as a - aargh - trilogy...

Alternating workman-like prose with prose "poems" and, occasionally, stories and legends, Robinson crafts a fast-paced history of a different world, creating two characters who appear and reappear in different incarnations from 783 a. H. (after Hegira), roughly the late 14th century, to the present day. Keeping basically the same personalities, regardless of their incarnations, Bold Bardash (Bihari, Bistami, Butterfly, Bahram, etc.) and Kyu (Kokila, Kya, Katima, Kheim, etc.) travel through time, experiencing life under the Mongols, Indians, early Chinese emperors, Muslim leaders, and Japanese sailors during their discovery of the New World.

Some episodes are much more vivid, and ultimately more enlightening, than others, and as the cultures are brought to life, along with their different views of man's place in the universe, Robinson shows how the desire to impose one's own religion or beliefs on the outside world is the basis of some of the cruelest violence throughout history. Ultimately, the Great War, lasting sixty-seven years and costing one billion lives, pits the rulers of Dar al-Islam against the Travancori League (India), China, and the Hodenosaunee League (Native America).

While it is intriguing to contemplate alternative history, Robinson's goal--the alternative history of the entire world for the past six hundred years is an enormous subject, one which, because of its breadth and scope seems to lose focus and pace as the book progresses. And while the reincarnations of Bold and Kyu help to bridge many gaps and avoid some problems of character development, the device becomes a bit tired by the end. Still, in showing us how all aspects of our current knowledge might have developed in other societies if western civilization had not existed, Robinson goes a long way toward reducing intellectual arrogance and increasing empathy for other cultures. Despite the book's limitations, Robinson succeeds in creating an alternative history which offers much food for thought and considerable narrative excitement. Mary Whipple