Ask Charles Yu! discussion

Any questions about the book itself and characters and specifics could go here. That will be nice.

That will be nice!

If someone doesn't ask a question here, I may have to ask myself some questions.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe reminded me a lot of Slaughterhouse-Five. I read the two books around the same time, so the comparison really stuck out. Were you inspired by Vonnegut?

Hi Sandi,

Absolutely. Slaughterhouse-Five is one of my favorite books. Maybe my favorite. Probably. Yeah, who am I kidding, it's my favorite. That book was heavily on my mind while writing HTLSIASFU. The idea of a protagonist who is not bound by time (but also one who is not necessarily interested in changing things so much as viewing history, at a smaller or larger scale), that was something I could not get away from.

Thanks for your question.

Best,
Charlie

I loved the meta aspects of your book, like the description of what it takes to be a protagonist in the "attachment coefficient" section as a job description/variable breakdown.

Was it difficult or challenging to break down emotional assessments, like what it takes to be a "hero" into specific measurable terms?

I also really enjoyed pouring over things like the "Partial Map of CY's Time Loop."

When you include things like that in books do publishers threaten to break your kneecaps, or did that only happen back before computers were in charge of printing things? How much research did you put into creating your charts?

Kevin wrote: "I loved the meta aspects of your book, like the description of what it takes to be a protagonist in the "attachment coefficient" section as a job description/variable breakdown.

Was it diff..."

The meta aspects were the most fun to write, and so in that sense they came relatively easy (easier than the father-mother-son scenes, for sure). They were more like play, where I felt more free to explore some of the aspects of this Minor Universe 31. And they also did double-duty: even while I was sort of messing around and having fun writing these meta-sections, I was also figuring out the heart of the non-meta-meat-of-the-story. Especially with the diagram of the time loop. Drawing that picture helped me keep track of CY's path. (Although strictly speaking, it was more of a tool I used rather than meta- on its own, I suppose putting it in there is a pretty meta- thing to do.)

My editor (Tim O'Connell at Pantheon) loved the meta- stuff, for the most part. Some of it got cut, not because it was too meta-, but because it just wasn't as strong as some of the other stuff that made it in (or as essential to the story/world). In general, I don't think I could get too meta- or weird or experimental for them. I mean, Pantheon published Mark Danielewski's HOUSE OF LEAVES, for Pete's sake. Compared to that book, HOW TO LIVE SAFELY is about as experimental as a J. Crew catalog. I did some research on science and math, but not so much to incorporate it into the book as to steal the language and the diction and use it for my own very un-scientific purposes.

And to call back to Aviva's question from a couple days ago: I am not a musician, but I do someday want to learn to play drums so that I start a cover band called Heavy Meta.