Monday, 6 February 2023

The Wall - John Lanchester

The Wall: LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019: Amazon.co.uk: Lanchester,  John: 9780571298730: Books 

Over the last three years I haven't become illiterate and I haven't lost the ability to connect to the internet. I just didn't update this blog, but I'll now try to make amends. Now that most of my reading is done on my iPad, and now that my iPad stays in the office on Monday and Tuesday nights I'll hopefully be able to find some time to play catch-up with the novels that I read through multiple lockdowns and the birth of my second daughter...

Over the last three years I've discovered the joys of library ebook loans. Southwark gives me some, Westminster gives me more, and, incredible as it may sound, my small Italian hometown gives me the best service of all three.

Over the last three years I've read almost all the novels from the Southwark Library that I found somewhat interesting. The Wall was something that I wouldn't have picked by its synopsis, but I decided to read it because all the John Lanchester books I had read I had found to be somewhere between "easy and cute" and "brilliant".

Over the last three years I've read a number of dystopian novels, like this one, and remained ambivalent to most of them (though this one has the advantage of making me ask myself "would I survive in a similar situation, and if so how?).

Over the last three years, dystopian novels haven't changed that much in tone. But that's probably true of dystopian novels over the last century. And in the real world the climate threat hasn't changed that much either probably, but now it feels much more real, and this novel makes it scarily so.

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