The lack of perspectives and attitudes about the circumstances felt by the participants feels like a big void in and of itself.ĭespite the vivid visualization of the banality of human life under such conditions, one is left with little with which to engage. Other than for Mr and the captain, there are no characters worth mentioning, so it might have behooved the writers to introduce a few people of different stripes, backgrounds and religious/philosophical outlooks to comment on the existential journey on which they now find themselves. The situation quite effectively sums up the meaningless of life without destination, hope or belief in something greater.īut while the themes are clear, drama is perilously missing. There is mention of suicides and the growth of cults, but none of this is dramatized. Largely ignored at first, this attraction suddenly becomes more popular now that the future appears so bleak, and it’s eventually followed by orgies and other distractions, anything to fill the endless time.Įlements of intrigue and lying by those in command briefly surface, but in the long run the captain cannot deny the truth, so there is not a thing to alleviate the boredom and no way out of the bleak nothingness that faces the passengers on their journey to nowhere. The main character may be named Mr but is, in fact, a woman (Emelie Jonsson), a rather agitated redhead who’s in charge of a room where, by placing your face down into a bowl-like sphere, you can recapture memories of your former home planet.

Even the mall can’t distract people from the prospect of an empty eternity, one, moreover, where the only food available will be processed algae that can be grown onboard. It’s the ultimate existential condition, a genuine confrontation with the great void. But before the 23-day voyage is over, the ship is knocked off course and heads out of the solar system, irreversibly on a trip to nowhere.

Aniara by Harry Martinson