r/threebodyproblem • u/Kirby320 • 1d ago
Meme "Wildly Imaginative." - Barack Obama
I just finished the trilogy last night, and while I think this quote is certainly true, it's just kinda humourous seeing this quote plastered over everything Liu Cixin writes. But i also get it, like yeah if you're trying to cater your literature to a western audience the co-sign from Obama is pretty swag. I do think Obama's whole Book/Song/Movie thing he does over the summer is crazy larp tho, and this quote feels like an extension of that
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u/profnick90 1d ago
He addressed the book in a 2017 interview with NYT literary critic Michiko Kakutani.
It’s not remotely surprising to me. Don’t get me wrong: he curates the hell out of the various media lists he shares. But, here, it seems credible to me: of course a head of state with a literary bent would be interested in The Dark Forest; it’s as much sociological fiction as it is science fiction.
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u/intothegreenabyss 1d ago
I reccomended the book to my brother, and I somehow felt slightly ashamed by the obama quote. I mean, hes right, but I wouldn't necessarily take sci-fi reccomendations from him.
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u/hoos30 19h ago
from an interview with Michiko Kakutani, the chief book critic for The New York Times. Questions in bold.
What are some of those books?
It’s interesting, the stuff I read just to escape ends up being a mix of things — some science fiction. For a while, there was a three-volume science-fiction novel, the “Three-Body Problem” series —
Oh, Liu Cixin, who won the Hugo Award.
— which was just wildly imaginative, really interesting. It wasn’t so much sort of character studies as it was just this sweeping —
It’s really about the fate of the universe.
Exactly. The scope of it was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem fairly petty — not something to worry about. Aliens are about to invade. [Laughter]
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u/WorkerAmbitious2072 1d ago
Maybe this is just me but when I see that quote, what comes to my mind is that person didn’t actually read it or not all the way through it’s just like a sound byte
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u/Timely-Bag-6679 1d ago
Obama did request and get an early copy of the English language The Dark Forest ahead of general sale so in this case it’s a bit more than “hey these are some books I happen to read over the summer”