The Martian is Damn Happy

A term I have heard from my peers reading the book “Oh it’s not science-fiction, it’s a survival story.”  I won’t address in detail how the Martian is “Hard Science-Fiction” (The common description of Science-Fiction is in the end a prediction of future science using established facts of today) but I have a definite bone to pick with the description of The Martian as a survival story.

Part of it is my own reading.  Lord of the Flies, a story about boys trying to survive on an island, is all about their inability to maintain “reasonable’ law on an island (A little war starts and innocent kids are murdered).  Into the Wild, a book about a true to life story about a young man who tries to survive in Alaska and died isolated from help, also comes to mind when I think of a man stranded in a scenario with the focus being his own survival miles from wilderness.  Perhaps film holds the answer here, with the movie Cast Away being about a man’s degenerating mental health as he is stranded on an island himself trying pitifully to cope being alone.  This is what I think of survival and frankly, The Martian is a pretty happy book for a story about a man teetering close to death in an unforgiving environment.  I’ll explain this in a moment because I think what needs to be explained first is why this book sold so well, why it filled a gap in what audiences wanted so much that it warranted its own movie that will come out this week.

In a recent Pew study (in 2013) Americans rated their approval of Nasa  at 73% (http://www.people-press.org/2013/10/18/trust-in-government-nears-record-low-but-most-federal-agencies-are-viewed-favorably/)  The message, Americans love their space.  Another Pew research poll (in 2014) cites that a third of Americans believe that we will have a living presence on mars by a half-century.  (http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/04/17/us-views-of-technology-and-the-future/)  So there’s a rather large population who not only think favorably on our efforts for space travel, but also are optimistic to what we are able to accomplish.  And given that the public wants it it’s no surprise that the Martian found an audience.

So although Mark Watney, our protagonist, is alone on Mars with little hope…his case is actually optimistic.   Taking directory from his Log Entry : Sol 26 “It was a backbreaking yet productive day.  I was sick of thinking, so instead of trying to figure out where I’ll get 250 liters of water, I did some manual labor…It was bout time for another dirt-doubling, so I figured I might as well get it over with.  It took an hour…I cut each potato into four pieces, making sure each piece had at least two eyes.”  There is of course some griping “I am one lucky son of a bitch [the potatoes] aren’t freeze-dried or mulched”  but even when Watney gripes he seems to be thanking…not his fortune, but his skills and the options he has.  If a problem occurs “Like the lack of water to grow crops mentioned here” he finds a solution even if it takes a second.  Watney is the archtype of the NASA audiences want, an engineer who through hard work and perseverance makes what seems impossible doable.  In the end Mars is a proving ground for Watney to show his skills, not a background for nature to destroy him, which runs contrary to the “survival” tropes I am familiar with.  Even if something terrible happens there is always hope for Watney, which is what makes The Martian one happy book, proof of success rather than inevitable destruction.