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City Question 5: Parallel Universes and the Cobblies
How did the cobblies and the parallel universes fit in with Simak's themes and ideas in the story? Did they work well to flesh out his ideas or did they fall a little flat?
Are they even really tied into the main themes or more of a lighter plot device?
Comments
I have to admit I got confused by the cobblies when they first appeared, and it took me a long while to realise that they were kind of parallel universe figures. I never did really understand what Simak was trying to do with them. On the other hand the whole concept of moving sideways through a sheaf of worlds made sense (and has of course been explored by lots of people - my favourite is probably The Long Earth series). But what were the cobblies and what was their point?
This could have been interesting if Simak had any clue what to do with it.
Yeah, I agree with Clash and Richard. I actually loved the idea of the cobblies, but think this aspect of the book could have been handled more coherently. On the other hand, I found the treatment we got strangely compelling - as if the bit about the cobblies was written by someone who himself was only partly in this dimension.
The explanation of the different worlds is very similar to South Asian cosmological ideas, right down to the moments of time as beads on a string. So I didn't find it hard to follow, but it has several holes. I think that now it is hard to see why these ideas work because our psychology and medicine have become grounded on determinative analyses of the material basis of mind rather than the emergent properties of mind itself as being the ground of "reality."