When We Cease to Understand the World

When We Cease to Understand the World

Book cover
Author	Benjamín Labatut
Original title	Un Verdor Terrible
Translator	Adrian Nathan West
Language	Spanish
Genre	Historical fiction, alternate history
Published	2021
Publisher	Editorial Anagrama (English: Pushkin Press, New York Review of Books)
Publication place	Spain
Pages	192
ISBN	9781681375663

When We Cease to Understand the World (Spanish: Un Verdor Terrible; lit. 'A Terrible Greening') is a book by Chilean writer Benjamín Labatut, written in Spanish and published by Editorial Anagrama. It was translated into English by Adrian Nathan West, and published by Pushkin Press and New York Review of Books in 2021. It describes the life of early scientists who made sacrifices to revolutionize science and its related fields, and explores the themes of sacrifice, madness, violence, and destruction that underlie the discovery of science and its advancement.^[1]

A historiographical metafiction, numerous critics have either referred to the book as a novel or a collection of short stories in essayistic style.^[2] When We Cease to Understand the World was received with positive reviews generally, and was recognised with various awards, including the International Booker Prize shortlist, the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2021^[3] and its 2024 100 Best Books of the 21st Century lists (ranked 83),^[4] and Barack Obama's annual Summer Reading List in 2021.

When We Cease to Understand the World was written by Benjamín Labatut. Born in Rotterdam and raised in various places, Labatut was inspired by the limitations and misunderstanding of science. He characterised the book using fictional themes to emphasize the indepth lives and personal costs of the subjects—early scientists.^[5][6]

It was first written in Spanish in 2020 under the title Un Verdor Terrible, and was translated into English by Adrian Nathan West, who collaborated closely with Labatut to ensure the translation captured the essence and style of the original text, until its publication in 2021.^[5]

Historiographic metafiction directly confronts the past of literature by a technique of rewriting to a new context, and presenting it to the present that it may be prevented from being conclusive and teleological. This is observed in When We Cease to Understand the World, as Labatut's prose presents individuals in a less flattering light, unlike the almost hagiographic accounts of men of science. He subverts the status enjoyed by history and science.^[7]

In When We Ceases to Understand the World, Labatut allows scientists to glance at "truth" only after they have proven themselves worthy of their discovery through sacrifice. For example, Heisenberg scientifically concluded that he "seemed to have gouged out both his eyes in order to see further." Also Alexander Grothendieck was able to conclude that the atoms that tore Hiroshima and Nagasaki apart were split not by the greasy fingers of a general, but by a group of physicists armed with a fistful of equations." The novels used scientific subjects: Mathematics, physics, quantum science, which the characters prioritized over pleasure including their families and friends. He used science to show how the characters see it as their god and in serving it, exposed them and the whole of humankind to a terrible suffering. When We Cease to Understand the World gives the impression of a wake-up call to the followers of this god—science, to "stop and reconsider" before reaching the final end.^[7] It is written with a beginning scenario of apocalypse revolving the narration of the "Night Gardener"; wavering between different opinions of world creation and its destruction.^[2] Labatut used a precise style so that it often achieves concision, cruelty and humor.^[8]

When We Cease to Understand the World explores the themes of duality in scientific discovery, the intersection of knowledge and destruction, and the philosophical mysteries underlying reality; they help to illustrate the profound, sometimes catastrophic implications of scientist while laying emphasis on the theme of inscrutability of the universe, the existential consequences of scientific advancements, and the inevitable confrontation with the unknown.^[9]

Social phobia, as seen in Heisenberg, segregates scientists from living like other normal beings.^[10] For instance, he ran to Helgoland in 1925, to escape microscopic particles affecting him, and from there, he understood the behavior, shapes and system of function of the elementary particles.^[11]

According to literary review aggregator, Book Marks, the book received "positive" reviews based on 6 critic reviews with 3 being "rave" and 2 being "positive" and 1 being "mixed".^[12] In Books in the Media, a site that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a (3.33 out of 5), which was based on 3 critic reviews.^[13]

It was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2021,^[14] and was selected by Barack Obama in 2021 for his annual Summer Reading List.^[15] While Labatut said the book is a "work of fiction based on real events", John Banville of the British magazine, The Guardian argued of it better called a nonfiction novel, since the majority of the characters are historical figures, and the narratives were based on historical fact.^[16] Franklin Ruth of The New Yorker said it was a meditation in prose that bears a familial relationship to the work of W. G. Sebald or Olga Tokarczuk, while detailing a sequential biography of both.^[17]

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim in The New York Times Book Review praised the book as "a gripping meditation on knowledge and hubris. [Labatut] casts the flickering light of gothic fiction on 20th-century science",^[18] while John Williams in The New York Times Book Review says that When We Cease to Understand the World "fuses fact and fiction to turn the modern history of physics into a gripping narrative of obsessed scientists, world-changing discoveries, and the ultimate results—often quite dark—of our drive to understand the fundamental workings of the universe." While reviewing the book for The Wall Street Journal, Sam Sacks praised the book as "Darkly dazzling", further asserting that Labatut illustrates "the unbreakable bond between horror and beauty."^[19]

In a starred review by Publishers Weekly, the book called Labatut's stylish English-language debut "offers an embellished, heretical, and thoroughly engrossing account of the personalities and creative madness that gave rise to some of the 20th-century's greatest scientific discoveries."^[20] Constance Grady in writing for the American news website Vox wrote, "When We Cease to Understand the World is one of the most beautiful books I've read all year, and one of the weirdest, too. Its subject seems to be scientific awe: the cosmic horror of seeing what lies at the center of the universe, and how very far such realities are from our small human ways of perceiving the world."^[21]