52 pages • 1 hour read
Charles YuHow To Live Safely In a Science Fictional Universe
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
Charles Yu’s novel engages with some of the philosophical ideas raised by thinkers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Albert Einstein, and Kurt Gödel. Choose one (or any other thinker whose ideas resonate with Yu’s). How do Charles’s experiences echo their work?
How does Yu’s approach to metafiction differ from autofiction? How does the narrative imply or deny that the novel is autobiographical?
Discuss the conflict of the novel in terms of antagonism. Which character(s) presents the biggest obstacle to Charles’s journey? How does Charles overcome them?
What perspectives does the text offer about the use of technology?
Buddhism is referenced in the temple outside time. How do the tenets of Buddhism tie into Charles’s conclusions on the struggle between fate and free will?
Phil is depicted as a computer program that believes he is human. This belief manifests through attempts at small talk. What is Yu trying to say about the psychology of corporate middle managers with this depiction?
How does the story of the Yu family reflect the intergenerational dynamics of immigrant families in the United States?
What does the book have to say about the principles of creative writing? In what way is writing an act of reading? How might Charles’s depiction of reading speak to the process of revision?
In the novel, the invention of time travel is credited to an affluent scientist instead of Charles’s father. How does this reflect the dynamics of privilege in scientific fields?
How does time travel as a concept in Yu’s novel differ from the portrayal of time travel in other works?
