#The Museum of Human History

[anosrepasi]

Book Review: The Museum of Human History by Rebekah Bergman

The Museum of Human History is Bergman's debut novel, having been released only a month ago as of Sept 2023 and is a relatively quick read at 241 pages. Summarized in a few words: it's strikingly similar to being unintentionally hit on the mouth, no harm intended but the impact is there nonetheless. I'd give it 4.5/5.

in a few more words:

This is a novel where you don't love the characters, but you'll still cry for them. There's no purely favored characters here and they are all ugly in their own ways, but its the flaws of the characters and the personal tragedies they experience that really drive deep the impact of their story. This is a book about grief. It's a book about remembering and knowing your loss, rather than forgetting the loss.

At it's core, its a very simple book. The cast of characters extends to roughly 15-20 at most, they cycle in and out of book from start to finish. The breadth of individuals scenes and moments in the book is also strikingly limited. Bergman builds up her story through palimpsest, revisiting the scenes from earlier chapters in later chapters from another characters view point. She builds up the emotion of the story through the precise use of poetic prose, packing more punch with some of her two sentence lines than many of her paragraphs.

This is not a book you will "like" or feel good about having finished, it ends leaving many characters feeling unresolved, but much like the central theme of grief- that's kind of the point and should not be seen as a flaw to the narrative.

For a debut novel it's impressive, clunky, definitely clunky in some spots that don't hold the same attention as other chapters, but over all it's a great example of writing a harrowing story that can cause tears with a very very simple toolbox of scenes and characters.

It is also, in my opinion, one of those novels that demands a reread at a later point in time once you've seen the complete story. Spoilers following, but there's two specific narrative threads that make a reread make the cohesive story all the more impactful.

The first is that Bergman has enough clues for the reader to know exactly what the algae is and what it'll do from chapter 4. The clues are all their and in my first reading I completely glossed over them all until later in the book when Bergman starts making the connections far more explicit. But when you do connect them, it completely changes the scope of the book. Naomi spends one paragraph wondering about "how much destruction she helped bring in, unwittingly," and at the time of that sentence it's played out as being overblown, an overzealous statement of an environmentally minded person before she realizes the truth. Then you read the whole novel and realize that she actually did exactly what she feared- but if she lived to see it might not have cared? Because the impacts were mostly human centered rather than the literal destruction of the environment she cared about. Which is awful, but is a pretty consistent theme in the entire novel. The characters care and they love, but that love constantly seems to be overshadowed by their apathy or their pain, and how in being unable to accept what they love with pain they lose it completely instead.

The second narrative thread of interest is Evangeline and Mauve and their shift from mirror images/defined set of twins to being considered an individual and the individual's ghost. Especially considering that the title of ghost seems to get passed back and forth between the characters. I got caught in this thread with one of the side character's Dr.Dean mentioning running into Naomi on the beach and "She was with her daughter." Both girls were present in that scene, but in memory they've already been reduced to one. I'm sure there's multiple occasions where this happens in the book and I find the tension between one very living child who is a shadow to her comatose static sister and vise versa over and over to be incredibly captivating.

Overall, if you enjoy poetic prose, lots of grief, and a healthy dash of environmental and medical science fiction? Chances are you'll enjoy this book, even if enjoy feels like the wrong word here.

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

2,300-Year-Old Plush Bird from the Altai Mountains of Siberia, c.400-300 BCE: this figure was crafted with a felt body and reindeer-fur stuffing, all of which remains intact

This plush bird was sealed within the frozen barrows of Pazyryk, Siberia, for more than two millennia, where a unique microclimate enabled it to be preserved. The permafrost ice lense formation that runs below the barrows provided an insulating layer, preventing the soil from heating during the summer and allowing it to quickly freeze during the winter; these conditions produced a separate microclimate within the stone walls of the barrows themselves, thereby aiding in the preservation of the artifacts inside.

This is just one of the many well-preserved artifacts that have been found at Pazyryk. These artifacts are attributed to the Scythian/Altaic cultures.

Currently housed at the Hermitage Museum.

[judgingbooksbycovers]

​The Museum of Human History: A Novel

By Rebekah Bergman.

[amnhnyc]

It’s been 50 years since the discovery of “Lucy,” a 3.2-million-year-old hominid whose skeleton opened a new window into human evolution. Why was Lucy big news in 1974—and how has technology unlocked new possibilities for analyzing fossils today?

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Bundle of Hair Extensions.

Date: ca. 2114-1502 B.C.

Period: Old Kingdom-early New Kingdom; 16th-18th Dynasty

Medium: Human hair, linen

▪︎ From the source: These hair extensions would have been placed in a tomb for use in the afterlife. In this world, Egyptians used extensions to make their wigs or natural hair thicker and more attractive, just as people do today. The reliefs in this case show hairdressers adding extensions like these to the hair or wig of Queen Neferu.

[canisalbus]

Who's taller machete or vasco

They should be about the same height. If you take away his heels (and I advise against it), Machete is a tiny bit shorter than Vasco, but then again he has those antenna ears and Vasco doesn't.

In their setting they're slightly above average height at roughly 6'0/180 cm.

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, 2023)

[thatshowthingstarted]

Sculpture of the Minotaur, Found in Plaka, Athens, Greece, 1-300 CE, 

Marble, H 73 cm. 

© National Archaeological Museum, Athens

[perplexingly]

Me and who

[entropy404]

Parmiggiani, Claudio. 1999. Venere Di Montreal (Venus of Montreal). Sculpture. Montreal, QC. Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

[tom-tom-art]

Can’t believe that it’s already my second year anniversary for posting on this blog, anyway here is a complete lineup of the main characters

[andrewckeeper]

LIDMF AI "Predator, asistiendo a un acuerdo planetario junto a los representantes del planeta tierra en Flandes, 1412. Este acuerdo implica la libre circulación de Predators en el planeta tierra, así como la obtención de trofeos humanos de cantidad limitada y estipulada en este contrato. Los Predators prometen no destruir el planeta tierra a cambio, con la posibilidad de suministro propio de tecnología alienígena en un futuro"

[thefunnythingaboutpeople]

the mortifying ordeal of admitting you do want to be loved vs. the mortifying ordeal of not wanting people to pity you or feel bad for you vs. the mortifying ordeal of wanting to reciprocate affection but being useless vs. the mortifying ordeal of being careless with others and actually feeling bad vs. the mortifying ordeal of being perceived as vulnerable at all.

[geraldofallon]

Fallen London Travel Guide:

The Museum of Prelapsarian History

The Museum of Prelapsarian History is London’s preeminent historical institution. The past is best known as that segment of time that is entirely more popular, yet no less treacherous, than the shrinking future or the ever-stretching present.

[ghostopossumlives]

i miss when restaurants had a bunch of old objects and posters, and plaques all over the walls. It was like eating in a museum and was so inspiring

[semiotomatics]

think i found a fake georgia o'keeffe painting lol