Book Review : ‘Nightfall’ by Issac Asimov - “There Is Always Room for Improvement. Isn't That So?”

 

Image Credit: Wikipedia

"If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!" 

-Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay

Review of the book in a phrase - 

Loose-leafed : containing pages that can be put in or taken out one by one

Introduction

Novelette's Name - Nightfall

Author’s Name - Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg

Genres - Science Fiction, Fantasy, Novel, Short Story

Language - American English

Come on readers, quick drill!! Just imagine living on a planet, with six suns, that has never encountered Darkness. Imagine no stars in the dusk (in fact no dusk), imagine never having seen the Stars. And at that point, one by one your suns begin to set, progressively driving you into Darkness unexpectedly for the first time. 

Yet, can you really imagine a scenario where it wasn't that way? Consider the possibility that evening was not just dense and widely enveloping but in addition sudden, unexpected and surprising.

Imagine a scenario in which daylight was so inescapable, so consistent, that complete darkness was unbelievable, incomprehensible. What if there were nobody to show us how not to fear the dark?

Picturing the Fear of Such a Nightfall

Researchers in the world of Lagash find that an eclipse - an occasion that happens just like clockwork, every 2049 years - is up and coming and that a population completely new to Darkness will be pushed into madness and chaos and disarray. 

They find that their human progress will end, for people of Lagash have a demonstrated terror of Darkness, however, they can't foresee the insanity and annihilation that will accompany the magnificent magnificence of Nightfall.

Now the question is when darkness falls, what all can and will happen? 

The archaeological records show that what happens mostly is that human advancements arrive at a peak, and afterwards collapse shortly after each eclipse that hits. However, this time things will be unique. 

In the capital city,  a percentage of the populace stands by safely in an underground sanctuary with all the knowledge of Lagash, prepared to stand out the most awful and repopulate the planet, if essential. 

Book Blurb

Image Credit: The guardian

“The theory of universal gravitation is not cast-iron. No theory is, and there is always room for improvement. Isn't that so? 

"Nightfall" is a 1941 sci-fi novelette by American essayist Isaac Asimov about the approaching darkness to people of a planet commonly enlightened by sunlight until that day. It was sometime later that Robert Silverberg adapted it into a novel.

The story opens at Saro University on the eve of the first night in 2049 years, on the planet Lagash ("Kalgash" in the novel) which is continually illuminated by one of the six suns of its various star systems. Lagash has specific areas of darkness (in tunnels, caves, and so forth), however, "night" doesn't exist i.e. the planet has no concept of night or darkness.

Lagash is a planet that has never seen a sunset, never encountered stars, never lightened a lamp or fire to keep the dark of night under control. And we as readers can notice that Lagash has not just a couple of suns, but rather six suns that cross its sky and its civilization has never been in dark, never stressed over designing lights, inventing bulbs, electricity, gas lights or candles.

In the observatory, Lagash's best researchers (and one irritating journalist) are preparing themselves for a mind-blowing event of a lifetime. Some are certain this is the apocalypse, the end of the world, others are more hopeful, and there are a lot of guesses about what will happen. 

Will the world be enveloped in complete and utter darkness? Will the general population lose their brains as claustrophobia and other hidden, unrealized fears take hold? 

Will there be strange pinpoints of light in the sky? Were the cultists right, or is this just a 6-hour eclipse nothing to stress over?

Critical Analysis

Nightfall is a simple, easy to read in one sitting kind of story. The characters too aren't unimaginably deep yet, in light of the fact that the possibility of the story is more about how society responds to something they've never seen, instead of particular people, the story is much more plausible to apprehend.

So dear readers! Don't stress, there is a lot of science in this science fiction “Nightfall”: There's a simple yet fascinating conversation of the laws of gravitational energy, and the researchers even estimate how simple their numerical figures would be if Lagash just had one sun.

Yet, how senseless is that, a planetary framework with just one sun! Asimov is illuminating and educating the reader of the difficulties of heavenly arithmetic, while simultaneously gently downplaying the circumstance. You'll Smile once you read it, I guarantee. 

I really feel terrible for the inhabitants of Lagash. I mean, without darkness, they have no fanciful, mythological associations with the planets, heavenly bodies, no constellations, no thoughts about the romances of twilight rendezvouses, no views of the galaxy, nothing. They don't even have the jargon for the twilight nights that actually got me into sci-fi in the first place.

Famous Quotes

1. “So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You’d better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can’t rearrange the universe.”

2. “Science is constructed out of approximations that gradually approach the truth,”

3. ‘We must drive a sword through any hypothesis that is not strictly necessary,”

4. “But people who are capable of thinking clearly are in a minority, of course.”

The Bottom Line

The battle among science and superstition in Asimov's exemplary short story rings as obvious today as it did 70 years ago. It is this kind of mind-stretching celestial and civilization inversion that made "Nightfall" an instant classic. 

The depth of this short story blew my mind and took my breath away. And having read it now, I understand how much depth and thoughts of darkness went into every aspect of this story. And the story still hits me.  It’s worth the read.

My ratings for the book - 4 on 5

Get your copy from Amazon -  Nightfall

Written By - Prakriti Chaudhary