The Martian Novel Can Give You Some Life-lessons

Books. As children we peered into these stacks of paper, befuddled by the scattered symbols and lines forming rows upon rows of script, these symbols seemed to be ubiquitous – appearing in mum’s recipe book and dad’s manual. Little did we know, that behind the enigma of words lay worlds of mass imagination, where you can cast spells with your bare hands, where you can lift objects with your mind and teleport using a portkey. These stacks of paper allow us to travel to distant places, sail the seven seas and soar above the highest of clouds, it is because of books that we are allowed to travel as many journey’s as we can read. 

My reading journey started off with The Martian by Andy Weir. This novel is a mix between sci-fi and drama entailing an impossible mission for one man to survive on an arid planet by himself for over a year and a half. The Martian incorporates a variety of themes that are heavily displayed in the text – the author Andy Weir makes it clear in his writing how much Mark’s emotions are affecting him. Isolation is on of the major themes in this text, Mark feels abandoned and alienated – and coupled with this prolonged isolation, he craves another human sole to talk to or see, for a sense of hope and connection. Although Watney tackles with life or death situations on a daily basis he learns to adapt to this and make changes, however being alone “[He would] give anything for a five-minute conversation with anyone. Anyone, anywhere. About anything”. Humour is another theme that Mark seems to be able to grasp on to even in his current situation – however this humour is not so much pure as it is a mask to disguise his true emotions and to pull himself up from the edge when he slips in. “Mark Watney, Space Pirate” uses humour as a sense of hope and a way of telling himself everything is ok, “when I get back home, I want all the praise to go towards me”. The audience understands that Mark is in the toughest situation possible and when he records these bad situations that occur he uses his humour to water down the fact that he is constantly being put back down to square one.

These stacks of paper allow us to travel to distant places, sail the seven seas and soar above the highest of clouds, it is because of books that we are allowed to travel as many journey’s as we can read. Reading The Martian, the story of Mark, we can at least partially experience the joy, pain and disappointment faced by the protagonist of the novel. Reading this story you can see how much isolation can affect a person. How Mark escaped to survive because he had an extremely strong desire to live. Books not only develop the imagination and teach reading, but also show real (almost) life stories that anyone can come across.