Deluge - Stephen Markley

Wowzer. 

One, at the very least, has to appreciate the audacity of Markley in even contemplating writing a book like this. I had to renew my library loan, as I couldn't quite finish it within the canonical two-week loan period. 

What makes this book different from so many other dystopian novels (and then again, is the best term really "dystopian"? the reality of the book feels like an increasingly possible near future) is that it doesn't start with the world being in a state of absolute chaos recognizable even by the most distracted readers; rather, it starts with our current world and our utter inability to understand how badly we are messing it up, and the descent into absolute disaster is gradually described by Markley. 

Of the various plots that run in parallel, some are obviously more compelling than others, and some are more original than others (and within them, there are some passages that are not particularly surprising, and others in which you see the author and humanity unleashing their creative and destructive potential at its finest - the Weathermen being a perfectly fitting example). 

It would have been an almost perfect book had it not been for the almost Hollywoodesque ending. I understand the author needed to sell a few more copies, but the final chapter felt a bit too hopeful and optimistic after all the drama of the previous 1000+ pages. 

The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick

 

On the one hand, I didn't like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and was sceptical of the literary value of something that in my head was inextricably linked to an Amazon series. On the other hand, The Plot Against America is one of the best books I've ever read, so I figured I should give The Man in the High Castle a chance. 

For me, it was a story of two halves (well, not really two halves, more three quarters vs one quarter): until Dick starts to play with the readers' minds and their perception of this alternative reality, it was a great read, compelling and scarily plausible. 

And then Tagomi saw the Embarcadero in San Francisco, my head went for a spin, I got way too confused and started to lose interest in the novel and its direction (though luckily I did still remember with certainty how WWII ended, at least in our world, otherwise my teaching on the early Cold War the following week would have been a bit too wild...). 

Prophet Song - Paul Lynch

Every now and again I have to read a dystopian novel. And every now and again I have to be reminded that I don't really love them. Unless they are The Road. 

Prophet Song is undeniably good, but the fact that the dynamics of the frictions between the two warring factions are never discussed (the novel begins as the situation is already beginning to spiral out of control, with almost no explanations) made it quite hard for me to "buy into" the book. 

That said, I really was impressed by how the author makes the reader realize that so many of the main characters' decisions are, ultimately, wrong, yet dramatically understandable and justifiable. 

Anna - Niccolò Ammaniti

 

Every now and again, Ammaniti writes a good book. Most of the times though, as my high-school teachers would say, his remains a story of "unfulfilled potential". A promising start with some fairly pleasant pulp novels, flirting with very-good literature with Ti Prendo e Ti Porto Via, actual (inter)national recognition with Io Non Ho Paura and the subsequent movie (a blessing and a curse) and then so many "meh" books. 

Anna is, at the very best, another "meh" book. The dystopian race to the sea and the search for what's "on the other side" is old and stale. This is not The Road, but not even the Italian L'Uomo Verticale. This is actually just a cheap shot, trying to sell a few more copies by looking at children and their resourcefulness (and savagery) when adults are not around (and since we're at it, this book isn't Lord of the Flies either, needless to say...). 

The only redeeming feature of the book is that, at the very least, it was written before the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning that at least the mysterious virus that kills all adults but spares children can be credited with some originality. 

The Heart Goes Last - Margaret Atwood

I guess when you publish with the speed of Margaret Atwood (though I wonder how much of that speed is cause by publishers' pressure to get as much out of her as possible while she's still alive!) every now and again you hit a small bump in the road. 

This is obviously not a bad book. I don't think Margaret Atwood would be capable of writing a bad book (famous last words?!?), but this is really just alright. For all the death and violence around, it's not enough to make the reader terrified of what kind of future awaits us. And the attempts at humour are simply not funny enough. 

The pretty sappy final couple of chapters are also something I could have done without. The "no harm done + happily ever after with a hint of faint surprise" really left me unconvinced. 

The Testaments - Margaret Atwood

 

Perhaps I should go back and read The Handmaid's Tale, as I recall liking it, but not as much as its sequel. 

From what I can recall, the former is a book about persecution, and the latter is a book about an escape. Both have tortuous attempts at rebellion at their heart, but the first novel is an agonizing one in which every page adds another layer of cruelty, while the second one is an action-packed page turner. 

In The Testaments Atwood doesn't seem to dwell as much on human cruelty - that was already explored more than enough in The Handmaid's Tale and often a quick hint to something allows even forgetful readers like myself to remember the sensation of oppression left by the first book. 

All in all, The Testaments is most likely the more enjoyable read, but The Handmaid's Tale is the better book. 

L'Uomo Verticale - Davide Longo

 

What a great dystopian novel. I'm increasingly persuaded that Davide Longo is one of the very few Italian writers able to both write well and actually interest me. L'Uomo Verticale shows us a country literally going to the dogs (unlike many other similar novels that seem to start in a setting already looking post-apocalyptic) and the quest for survival of a father and his improbable extended family. 

Or, if you are familiar with McCarthy and The Road: been there, done that. Half of the ideas of this book are more ore less openly borrowed (and/or they are a tribute from Longo to one of his favourite authors), including the relationship between a father and his child and the desperate attempts to get to the sea at all costs. 

A really good read though. Just not an original one after all.

Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

  

Just because one wrote Never Let Me Go one doesn't necessarily need to write something that often reads like its rip-off. 

I guess dystopian novels sell, in particular in the current climate. And I guess once you win a Nobel prize you can pretty much do whatever you want. But in this case I'll do what I want too, and openly declare that I found Klara and the Sun to be as cold as its titular character, and I felt as detached from the plot and its twists as the Artificial Friend is detached from the reality around her (I wanted to like the novel, and Klara wants to understand and be part of the human world, but neither of us could).

The Wall - John Lanchester

 

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.

London Fields - Martin Amis

Another of those books that remained on my bookshelf for century because of their intimidating size. And another that I thoroughly enjoyed in the end.

I have to say I was actually kind of happy to find out that London Fields was not actually set in London Fields, as I struggle a fair bit with how fashionable the "hipsterland" between North and East London is.

The premise of the novel (a narrator, a murderer, a murderee and a foil) is genial, at least in my humble opinion. The prose is virtually flawless, and some passages might be among the best in recent British literature.

Sure, Nicola Six is an improbable character (to say the least!), and I could have done without the dystopian elements (not quite sure whether they really need to be there, to be honest), but London Fields remains a great book.



Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick

Well, I thought I was going to like the book because of its absolutely amazing title and because, after all, it is the one that inspired Blade Runner (though the decision of the publisher of my edition to even change the title into Blade Runner is just offensive).

But I didn't enjoy it all. I can live with the dramatic differences in Rachael's character and there are plenty of interesting things that the movie does not touch upon (the importance of animals, for instance), but can i say that the book is just not particularly well-written? Do I sound like an obnoxious snob if I say that Dick's prose is underdeveloped?

Expectations were high - despite my lack of interest in sci-fi I was more than happy to give one of its greatest authors a try, but said expectations were not met. Not even remotely.

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

Luckily, even in my new job, there is a colleague who reads as much as me. This is the first of five books that she has lent me recently, and one that I enjoyed a fair bit (if one can actually "enjoy" this book).

I'm not excessively fond of dystopian novels, but I have to recognize that this is one of the finest examples. That said, never having been a woman, I'm afraid that a lot of its most disturbing passages don't really hit me as much as they would hit someone of the opposite sex (the ones about the loss of Offred's child, on the other hand, resonate a lot more with me).

I think the greatest demonstration of the fact that I'm not one for dystopian books (despite the fact that every instance of oppression the author describes has happened in history at one point or another) is the fact that, despite liking this book, I'm really in no rush to watch its TV adaptation.

Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

A 30p investment at the Barbican library worth – at the very least – every penny!

Jokes aside, Cloud Atlas was a rather enjoyable read, but also a very uneven one. Some of its chapters were brilliant (Timothy Cavendish and his misadventures in the nursing home, Massa Ewing sailing in the Pacific and facing death, Robert Frobisher writing the Cloud Atlas Sextet), while others were, well, not so brilliant.

Luisa Rey’s story reads like little more than a Tom Clancy novel (if you are looking for Californian greed and corporate aggression I think you are much better off opening a token Ellroy novel), the interview to Sonmi-451 would probably leave Vonnegut of Dick rather unimpressed, and I’m not exactly sure of where I stand on Sloosha Crossing as, despite me being a pseudo-bilingual (if not trilingual) reader, I really struggled with the imagined dialect of the future…

It is a best-seller after all, but one that I’m really glad to have read (although it’s not going to enter my list of favourite books anytime soon).

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

One of the many books that I have picked up from the local (very urban) farm. Yet another solid 50p investment!

Being ultimately ignorant, I always assumed that Ishiguro just wrote novels like The Remains of the Day. As most literate people will be able to confirm, however, that’s not the case. Throughout the book I felt as if Hailsham was actually Homerton College in Cambridge – something that probably says a lot about my memories of the place!

I honestly can’t say that I loved the novel – I really enjoyed the parts about the relations between the clones (this felt mostly like a very dark and fundamentally humour-less campus novel), but when Ishiguro turns too science-fictionesque he starts to lose me (and my interest) a little bit. Never Let Me Go is a very well-written dystopian novel, but so are countless others (not McCarthy’s The Road – that’s a work of art!) 

In the Country of Last Things – Paul Auster

I don’t even know how I got this book. A fairly typical Auster novel. And the issue with fairly typical Auster novels is that, well, they are a bit too typical. And when they’re not works of art (to me Sunset Park still tops the list, together with the slightly more atypical Mr Vertigo) they’re just more of the same. And when you have read a lot of them, well, you get the idea.

The entire book/letter reads like an extended introspective anecdote from one of Auster’s bigger novels, and while there is nothing wrong with that in itself, it just doesn’t excite me anymore.

Ah, and I think that McCarthy does American dystopia so much better (although the preparations for the final uncertain trip remind me of the tension of the final scene of The Birds). 

Man in the Dark – Paul Auster

An Auster book that encountered mixed reviews (at best) from critics and was quickly forgotten by readers, and one which I actually really liked.

Dystopia is boring, dystopia is overdone, dystopia is so very often the same old story. But Auster writes it differently: Auster is supremely talented, Auster is (nearly) always interesting, Auster is cynically critical of everyone (including himself, I believe).

And Man in the Dark is not just about a supposed dystopian future, it is about a man facing his own fears, the pain of fixing a shattered family, the dynamics between a father and grandfather and his daughter and granddaughter, the long – and possibly impossible to complete – process of recreating a life after a massive loss.

This might not be Auster’s best book, yet it is still better (or, if not better, at least way more interesting) than 96.7 % of the books published over the last 10 years.

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

I reacted to this book like I reacted to 1984: I am glad I’ve read it, but that’s pretty much about it. Dystopia is probably just a bit too grim for me, in particular if you add ideas about noble savages etc. At the end of the day I probably just tend to believe that the human race isn’t going to end as badly as many writers have foreseen (at least, not in the relatively short run) and that life in the wilderness and far away from “civilization” isn’t that idyllic either. That said, I do have a very low opinion of mankind. And, much like for 1984, I’ve got nothing left to add...