Reviews

The Call: A Virtual Parable by Pat Rushin

neilrcoulter's review

2.0

The Call is a short-novel version of Pat Rushin's screenplay for the film The Zero Theorem. I love the film (reviewed here), but I was disappointed by the book. In the book, the story is reduced to its loneliest, most claustrophobic sense. Gone is the ruined cathedral home of Qohen Leth--and gone, for that matter, is the name Qohen Leth, along with all of the connections to Ecclesiastes that I loved in the film. There is a Bainsley character, but she is not as significant as in the film. Instead, Bob becomes the primary character assisting the protagonist. Gone is the concept of "Management," and the drive to prove the Zero Theorem; but the "entities-crunching" work remains, here very mysterious and entirely unexplained. The protagonist still waits for his call, but in this version of the story it takes a very different direction than in the film.

There are aspects of the writing style that I like, but the almost-but-different feeling I kept having as I read (because of the connection to the film) kept me from being able to enjoy the book as I might have if I didn't know the film.

The end is very uncomfortable.