Commentary on America in When the Moon Hits Your Eye

When the Moon Hits Your Eye

This book’s premise is ridiculous. It completely embraces it. It doesn’t try to explain it in a way that makes any kind of rational sense. What it does is examine how people respond to a world that suddenly doesn’t make sense to them any more.

“I’m not going to lie, I did not see that one coming.”

I love the fact that the story starts in rural Ohio. John Scalzi lives in rural Ohio and I have done my time in the rural part of the state. He writes about a couple having a date night in a small town where you watch whatever is playing on the one screen in the movie theater and loving it. He also talks about people getting excited about having an eclipse party. This would have been written during the time of the 2024 Eclipse when the totality took place right over us. The book is like a nice nod to Ohio.

I really loved a scene where a reporter comes to town to do one of those diner interviews. You know the ones where they want to find the stupidest yokels they can to get some quotes from. You see her approach three retirement-aged men who meet for their daily coffee. It isn’t until she starts her potentially insulting questions that you find out that she’s interviewing a retired university professor, a radiologist, and a history-obsessed bus driver.

“Don’t make me go into a history of the idea of universal causation in Western thought, my friend. I will explain Mill and Hume to you all day.”

“Not to me, I have a haircut scheduled at noon.”

“It’s true that humans generally, and Western thought in particular, crave explanation,” Clyde said, turning his attention back to Connor. “We are pattern-seeking animals, and we want and expect things to happen for a reason. When no reason is available, we will still provide one.”

“‘It’s God’s will,’” Dave said.

“That’s one way we say it, yes.”

I love these guys. They spend their coffee time alternating insults and philosophy.

“I never believed the universe was rational,” Clyde said. “I’ve lived in it too long for that.”

“If God exists, he has better things to do than turn the moon to cheese.”

“He turned a woman to salt once,” Dave observed.

“Old Testament God,” Clyde said. “Whole different era.”

The story follow different groups of people affected by the change in the moon. There are astronauts who have trained for moon landings who now can’t go because who knows if you can land on cheese. They are sidelined by a private billionaire who uses his pet project to try to get to the moon first. Safety protocols be damned.

“And Davis Baruch, like every other actual astronaut who had spent decades of their life working tirelessly to get to where they were, was back here on Earth. Watching as a fool with money jumped, dangerously, to the head of the line of history.”

There are the politicians who are trying to explain what has happened to the rest of the people.

“I have a briefing with the president in exactly half an hour, and because we all know he doesn’t bother to read the daily intelligence briefing, it will fall to me to explain what the hell is going on. So explain it to me. Use small words on me so I can use smaller words on him. Somebody start.”

There are random people trying to vent their fear.

“People are gathering to flip off the moon. It’s mostly a student thing. I read about it on Reddit earlier today.”

“Why are they flipping off the moon?”

“Because it’s making them question the nature of reality and confront their possible mortality, mostly.”

“We used to take shrooms for that,” Ted said.”

Of course there are also scammers who want to steal and sell pieces of moon rock on Earth that have also turned to cheese. These poor criminals got caught faking cheese moon rocks. As a fellow Mom of a cheese-obsessed Pomeranian I felt this story in my bones.

“Do you still have it?”

“No.”

“What happened to it?” McCarthy fell back into silence.

“His dog ate it,” Gutter said.

Lopez tried very hard not to laugh. “The dog, you say.”

“It was only out of the fridge for six fucking seconds,” McCarthy said. “Ginger was on it like it was steak.”

“Ginger the dog,” Lopez said.

“She’s a Pomeranian,” Gutter said.

“Dude, stop telling them shit!” McCarthy said.

“Which is why he couldn’t take it from her,” Gutter continued. “She grabbed it and ran under the couch, and by the time he moved it, she’d eaten the whole thing.”

In the end it doesn’t matter what the moon is made out of. Part of our population won’t believe what anyone tells them anyway. They have their beliefs and no facts will alter them. Others believe that if facts change that means that all science can’t be trusted.

“I understand the skepticism, because so much of science can feel unbelievable when you first encounter it, from heliocentrism to quantum theory.”

How do you react when things around you test everything you’ve known? I’m going with this guy.

“I go to work every day because I don’t know what the hell else to do right now. But I don’t trash someone else’s life. That won’t make my life better. It just makes someone’s else’s life worse.”