First, let’s get some things out of the way: sonder is part of a trilogy, called syzygy, and its narrative leads directly to the previous two parts, or acts: lunacy + the second naïveté, and entelechy.
sonder is about the destruction of life on the moon, and involves, in no particular order, the overwater, the undersky, the allmaker, tsukians, supermarines, and the unerring. (Don’t worry: the first track, the moonset, sets the stage – the moon – for all of this.)
tsukians (people who live on the moon) live in cylindrical cities above a world covered in water. It’s said the moon, and everything on it, including tsukians, was put there by “the allmaker”. This is the moon-version of a Creator god, who has, since creation, refused to interact with the tsukians, opting, instead, to sit back and chill. Of course, the allmaker could provide evidence that he exists and created the moon and the universe and everything in it, but he – I’m assuming the allmaker is a he; it always is – doesn’t. (Sound familiar?)
With the allmaker refusing public comment, the task of ordering society is left to the tsukians, and quickly – surprise, surprise – power imbalances arise. Those tsukians who came out on top were the undersky, those that didn’t were banished and became known as the overwater or the supermarine. Despite banishing their opponents (to Earth; we could be the spawn of the overwater’s survivors), the undersky tsukians kept finding new differences to fight over. New wars, new schisms, new enemies were created. A result of these new disagreements was the formation of “the unerring”, whose brutal religious regime ultimately resulted in the death of all life on the moon. (They did it by poisoning the moon’s water.)
Only after these destructive acts (which could be the tsukian equivalent of a nuclear war on Earth) does the allmaker act. And what does he do? Tries to wipe out all life on Earth as some sort of sadistic punishment. And, I guess, tries again with humans on lunacy + the second naïveté and entelechy. And you know how that went. (Spoiler: not well.)
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To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
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Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
