The ideal novel is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness where a constant single theme — moral decay — is continually aligned with the image of a constant single thing; the river/the river-journey. The content of this great novel does not have to be hammered in by narrative or characterisation but instead seeps into consciousness through its unity of image, feeling and theme.


In Lines of Light instead of the river there is the Cyclotron, a huge circular tunnel under the Genevan countryside, itself the very image of rationality and in fact Voltaire’s Castle stands (above ground) nearby. In this cool futuristic environment a scientist and a writer enter a dialogue. A dialogue reminiscent of good Science Fiction (Brian Aldiss, J.G.Ballard, Stanislaw Lem) because it touches on the philosophical rather than the emotional, moral or political realm. This is perhaps a very masculine book, celebrating, in a clean calm prose, the attempt to have dominion over the universe, by investigating, observing and shaping it. A dominion to be won through concentration and work, through involvement in a large project reaching into the future.


The dialogue of writer and scientist takes place substantially around flights in small planes, both men aspire ‘to be above it all’, both are exponents of an élite (and therefore spiritual?) consciousness. There is definitely a connection here to Herman Hesse’s argument in his books Steppenwolf and Journey to the East. Like Hesse’s best work Lines of Light is deeply refreshing and subtly mind-altering.

‘Brahe gave a little nod. He thinks of their friendship, of that strange intimacy that comes from working together in isolation like this, through nights like this, in vast silent rooms like this, among huge machines, and insulated from the radiation by thick concrete blocks. They do not talk about their work except when absolutely necessary... In the tunnel that crossed the ring there were zones more roughhewn and zones where the floor and wall panels made interiors of blue-white light, with the background noise of the air conditioning, the coolers for the magnets, the fans. In the tunnel, the air was not air, and thoughts like «two in the morning» or «four in the afternoon» were totally irrelevant, time being represented only by sequences of numbers, numbers no different from those that indicated, on the screen, the birth and death of the lines.’ p20