# When We Cease to Understand the World

When We Cease to Understand the World (Spanish: Un Verdor Terrible; lit. 'A Terrible Greening') is a 2021 book by Chilean writer Benjamín Labatut. Originally written in Spanish and published by Anagrama, the book was translated into English by Adrian Nathan West and published by Pushkin Press and New York Review of Books in 2021. It describes the life of scientists who worked to revolutionize science and its related fields, and explores the themes of sacrifice, madness, violence, and destruction that can underlie science and its advancement.
A historiographical metafiction, numerous critics have either referred to the book as a novel or a collection of short stories in essayistic style. When We Cease to Understand the World was received with positive reviews generally, and was recognized with various awards, including the International Booker Prize shortlist, the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2021 and its 2024 100 Best Books of the 21st Century lists (ranked 83), and Barack Obama's annual Summer Reading List in 2021.

## Background

The author Benjamín Labatut has said he was inspired by the limitations and misunderstanding of science, and wanted to use fictional themes to emphasize the personal costs of early scientists.
The novel was first written in Spanish in 2020 under the title Un Verdor Terrible. It was translated into English by Adrian Nathan West, who collaborated closely with Labatut to ensure accuracy until its publication in 2021.

## Style and themes
### Style

Labatut presents the book's subjects in a less flattering light, subverting the status often given to scientists. He allows scientists to glance at "truth" only after they have proven themselves worthy of their discovery through sacrifice, for example, Heisenberg scientifically concluded that he "seemed to have gouged out both his eyes in order to see further". Alexander Grothendieck was also able to conclude that the atoms that tore Hiroshima and Nagasaki apart were split not by the greasy fingers of a general, but by a group of physicists armed with a fistful of equations." The characters prioritizes science over their families and friends, and sees it as their god and in serving it, exposes them to terrible suffering.
When We Cease to Understand the World gives the impression of a wake-up call to the followers of this god—science to "stop and reconsider" before reaching the final end. It is written with a beginning scenario of apocalypse revolving the narration of the "Night Gardener"; wavering between different opinions of world creation and its destruction. Labatut used a precise style so that it often achieves concision, cruelty and humor.

### Themes

The novel explores the themes of sacrifice, intersection of knowledge and destruction, and the philosophical mysteries underlying reality, which helps to illustrate the profound, and sometimes, catastrophic implications of scientist while laying emphasis on the theme of inscrutability of the universe, the existential consequences of scientific advancements, and the inevitable confrontation with the unknown.
Social phobia segregates scientists from living like normal human beings, for instance, Heisenberg ran to Helgoland in 1925 to escape microscopic particles affecting him, and from there, he understood the behavior, shapes and system of function of the elementary particles.

## Critical reception

According to Book Marks, the book received a "positive" consensus, based on 6 critics: 3 "rave", 2 "positive", and 1 "mixed".
It was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2021, and was selected by Barack Obama in 2021 for his annual Summer Reading List. While Labatut said the book is a "work of fiction based on real events", John Banville of the British magazine, The Guardian called it "a nonfiction novel, since the majority of the characters are historical figures, and the narratives were based on historical facts." Franklin Ruth of The New Yorker compared the novel to the works of W. G. Sebald and Olga Tokarczuk.
Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim in The New York Times Book Review praised the book as "a gripping meditation on knowledge and hubris. [Labatut] casts the flickering light of gothic fiction on 20th-century science", while John Williams wrote that the novel "fuses fact and fiction to turn the modern history of physics into a gripping narrative of obsessed scientists, world-changing discoveries, and the ultimate results—often quite dark—of our drive to understand the fundamental workings of the universe." While reviewing the book for The Wall Street Journal, Sam Sacks praised the book as "darkly dazzling", further asserting that Labatut illustrates "the unbreakable bond between horror and beauty."
In a starred review by Publishers Weekly, the book was called "Labatut's stylish English-language debut" while asserting that "it offers an embellished, heretical, and thoroughly engrossing account of the personalities and creative madness that gave rise to some of the 20th-century's greatest scientific discoveries." Constance Grady of Vox wrote "When We Cease to Understand the World is one of the most beautiful books I've read all year, and one of the weirdest, too. Its subject seems to be scientific awe: the cosmic horror of seeing what lies at the center of the universe, and how very far such realities are from our small human ways of perceiving the world."