Book Review: S./SHIP OF THESEUS by J. J. Abrams, Doug Dorst, and V. M. Straka

SHIP OF THESEUS tells the story of “S,” a man with amnesia trying to discover his identity and becoming embroiled in a much larger plot along the way. He meets a woman in a tavern whom he suspects knows something about him. Before he can find out more, he is rendered unconscious and wakes up on a ship. From there he runs into a group of protesters and joins their cause, all the while hoping he will find the woman from the tavern. More than once his life is endangered, but is he willing to sacrifice everything for people he barely knows, especially when he doesn’t even know himself?

But that’s not the whole story. In the margins of the book, another adventure unfolds. Someone has left penciled notes in the text, and someone else is responding to them. Thus begins a dialog as these two annotators try to unravel the mystery of the book’s author, V. M. Straka, who nobody has ever seen. There’s also the possibility that the story contains coded messages the author was trying to communicate to a particular audience.

In the course of their dialog, it becomes apparent why Straka wanted to remain anonymous as the margin correspondents find themselves under extreme pressure to stop their inquiries…

This book first came to my attention thanks to a friend at work. It seemed to him like an interesting novel, but he was struggling over how to get into it. As soon as I opened it I understood. Not only do you have the text of the novel, but you have the multi-colored marginal notes as well as beautifully reproduced inserts (postcards, newspaper clippings, handwritten letters, photocopies, etc.). I bought a copy of the book for myself and took to the internet to see if anyone who’s read it could suggest a reading plan. I found one that seemed reasonable and dug in.

I’m happy to say that the reading plan worked. The SHIP OF THESEUS story is, itself, interesting and engaging–worth reading on its own. But when you add in the margin notes and the supplementary materials, the story gains so much more depth. This isn’t just the story of a man trying to find his identity, but it’s also the story of two young people discovering themselves and one another.

If you enjoy mysteries, you’ll love this book. J. J. Abrams (the film-maker) directed the project while award-winning author Doug Dorst supplied the words. And they did a superb job. An easy five Goodreads stars. SHIP OF THESEUS gets a PG rating from me. The language is fairly tame (the book was supposed to have been published in the 1940s, so it is very much of the style and standard of that period), though some scenes might be a little disturbing. The marginal notes get a PG-15 for occasional f-words and s-words.

If you plan to read this novel, here’s how I suggest you go about it:

1. Read SHIP OF THESEUS and the penciled margin notes. Ignore everything else.
2. Go back to the beginning and read the blue and black marginal notes (along with referenced inserts).
3. Go back to the beginning and read the orange and purple marginal notes (along with referenced inserts).
4. Go back and read the last black marginal notes. By this pass you should be able to discern the later black notes from the ones in pass #2. There aren’t as many of these, especially in the earlier part of the novel.

This way, you will read the story as it unfolds for our margin correspondents. Have fun! 🙂