Mr. g decides to create the universe upon awakening from a nap. He lives in the Void with Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva who have their own ideas about what the universe should hold. Aunt P. doesn't want her nephew to rush his creation. Uncle D. want the universe to have soul. The name of the universe is Aalam-104729.
Atoms become molecules become stars, planets, and intelligent life in this novel by Alan Lightman. Cities are built and civilizations fade away. Good and evil, beauty and ugliness exist. A stranger appears in the Void, a devious rival to Mr. g's ideas about the way the universe should work.
There are a lot of terms for those of us with unscientific minds to assimilate. Mr. Lightman is a theoretical physicist as well as an author. Be warned. My mind glided over the antics of photons, particles and antiparticles, ellipsoids, spheroids and topological hyperboloids.
The book didn't rock my world, but it had enough drama, humor and mystery to keep me reading. And speaking of mystery, here is what Mr. g has to offer the inquisitive creatures inhabiting Aalam-104729:
"The creature could never know where the First Event came from because it came from outside the universe, just as the creature could never experience the Void. The origin of the First Event would always remain unknowable, and the creature would be left wondering, and that wondering would leave a mystery."
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