Money is scarce for Dr. Nicholas Slopen, the witty, melancholy English academic who narrates most of Marcel Theroux's page-turning, thought-provoking, exhilarating novel"Strange Bodies" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 292 pages, $26). A noted Samuel Johnson scholar, he is pleased (and flattered) when a glib, well-heeled music-industry figure pays him to evaluate some pages said to have been written by Johnson. But though the style and signature look identical to the 18th-century master's, the paper was manufactured after the time of the great conversationalist and dictionary-maker, causing Slopen to declare the documents forgeries. "Not forgeries," insists the client, who soon enmeshes the academic in a bizarre, globe-spanning scientific conspiracy that raises mind-altering questions about personal identity and the nature of human consciousness.
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"Consciousness is preceded and constructed by language itself": So claims one of Slopen's new acquaintances in this well-funded, strong-armed endeavor to sunder "the false dichotomy between art and science." It's a cabal the unraveling of which takes the scholar-turned-sleuth from tony London manses to seedy Moscow monuments to the ward of an English mental hospital. He encounters Russian security thugs, rogue East European scientists and loving psychological caregivers—all serving (or struggling to wrest control of) a movement whose founding father wrote: "The most general evil affecting all—a crime, in fact—is death. . . . What we are talking about is universal resurrection." And its proponents are willing to kill to unlock the secrets of eternal life.
Slopen proves the perfect detective for a mystery that revolves around language, where books contain clues, and the novel is told through Slopen's lively, literate prose. "Thriller" may be a somewhat misleading label to fasten on a modern fable that also has elements of science fiction, dystopia and domestic comedy. But without a doubt, "Strange Bodies" is a thrill to read.