Why Dark Matter by Blake Crouch Matters to me

Not entirely a book review by Gaurav Parab

If you are reading this for a book review on Dark Matter, then here is a warning. This is only partly one. And I will get that bit out of the way with a special bonus of zero spoilers.

Dark Matter is about a kidnapped physicist who gets packed off to another universe where a different version of his life exists due to a choice he made a long time ago. As he gets into universe nomad mode, he has to deal with the price of every choice he made and makes while trying to get back to the world and his family.

So, buy or not buy?

Dark Matter is an engaging sci-fi thriller with pace the sorts I have not come across in a long time. Now, the world unputdownable is in the marcom of every sci-fi thriller, with most being very putdownable for forced world building, cooked/uncooked science angle, story going nowhere, and a gaping hole where the soul should have been.

But Dark Matter, well, it is as close to unputdownable as a brown eyed puppy with a slightly tilted head rubbing his black nosey in your palms. But in a very edgy, man wearing Guy Fawkes approaching you in a andhera waali Andheri street way. The book catches you by your neck and makes you read right to the end. Reminded me of Fight Club, this one. And Inception.

Is it perfect? No. It has its share of issues like some characters being discarded/ forgotten/ignored brutally along Jason's journey like fruit flavored condoms being flung through car windows for you dont know whether to put them in the degradable or the plastic bin. The multi-verse science is also sketchy at some places, but hey it never pretends to have been vetted by PhD professors in brown suits who add Dettol to their bucket of bathing water everyday.

Give it a read. Thank me later. And for those young readers who need validation through the adaption into a movie/web show - then yes. This is also available on Apple TV. Although I have not seen it since I forgot my Apple tv password. It had 123 somewhere. Anyways, I digress.

So that's the review out of the way. Lets get to the second part which is personal to me and maybe something some of you can identify with.

You see, I wrote a sci fi thriller a few years ago. It was not a labor of love. It was a labor of grinding your mind through a grimy, rusty crusher previously used in stone quarries run by Amrish Puri types Zamindars. To get the narrative structure right, I remember long walks with nothing but the book on my mind, mumbling to good self, running into Dada Happy Birthday flexboards. I remember sleepless nights, that seamlessly ran into days. It was the hardest thing I ever wrote, or for that matter did - and once the seventh draft got over - I did not cringe on reading it. Writers will know what I am talking about. So, I was happy. I slammed the whisky glass on the table, rubbed my hands, and packed off the MS to the agent who sent it to the raaja raanis of the publishing world.

And a publisher quickly came on board. And then the editor, not so quickly sat on the book for 2 years. And me being me, got distracted instead of following up. When I went, hello what's up - covid stuck and the publisher said, ehhhh....I think we will drop the book. You can keep the advance. Goodness gracious, thank you me lords.

Surely, the others will want it now that the book is back with me. But no one did. Restructuring, slow sales, book needs a lot of work. It is too confusing. Too sci-fi. Hocus Pocus. Ja, tu wada pav kha.

Yeah, Covid was now blooming. Health became a priority, and then the movie, webshow bug hit with most of what I wrote with my writing partner being optioned by the movie moghuls. Who wants to write a novel, when you are meeting these stars and they are asking you for feedback on their own little projects. So middle class Monisha. The book was forgotten. Very very forgotten.

Up till yesterday when I finished Dark Matter. I once wrote a damn fine book. I suffered while writing it. I made those around me suffer. I did research about the dark underbelly of society, slipped into places I would never go to, studied all I could about narcotics and the human mind. Studied. Yes. Studied. I gave it all. And I forgot about it.

Just like that.

It will soon by 10 years since Rustom came out. 10 years. When did I start believing I am Guns and Roses and time is my slave and I will be around forever? Chinese Democracy can wait. The Dark Matter cover taunted me. And so I decided to pick up what was once called Stealing Chuck Berry again. Where did all those years go? Never mind that, there are a few left.

Please tell me that you too have not abandoned passion projects like that. And if you have, it gives me untold joy that others do the same ucksf up like me. But what is done is done. I hope you too return to whatever gave you joy. Write. Sing. Paint. Run. Collect empty Tequila bottles with little hats for the botte cover.

Our choices are but the dark matter in the universe, invisible, unexplainable, emitting no light or common sense. Undetectable to reason. Our choices, especially around abandonment, like in the novel, take our lives into different universes and away from whatever made you YOU.

I hope as you wander along, you too once again find your universe and home like it seems I have done after reading Dark Matter. And that's why the book matters to me.