Perhaps it's not surprising that a book set during and after an apocalypse is bleak, and this is less bleak than Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but in many ways it's still a book that I'm not sure the word 'enjoy' attaches to.
A sudden, rampant plague starts to kill people in massive numbers. Women seem even more effected than men, perhaps only a tenth as many surviving, and not a single child survives birth.
A maternity nurse recovers from the fever, waking in her apartment to witness that the ravages she had been trying to treat - or ameliorate - have left devastation. Her first encounter with another human being is an attempted rape, and she quickly decides to disguise herself as a man for safety.
Her travels to eventual safety are fraught and disturbing. ( This is not a spoiler, by the way; the novel is prefaced with a future monastery-like scene where a woman leads some boys in making copies of the Book of the Unnamed Midwife, so we know there is some sort of continuation ).
One thing that gave me pause - not while I was reading it, as the writing is of such a high quality that it wasn't until I paused that questions came - is that in the first part of the book her encounters with men portray them almost exclusively as wanting to rape and and own and control the few remaining women in the most horrific ways. I don't think the evidence of how the vast majority of people behave after disasters maps onto this (although this is of a scale unseen; I know complete devastation has happened more locally and would be interested to see if there is a difference) but then I began to see this as much of a metaphor for toxic masculinity as anything else. If this were written by a man it would probably come across as some awful rape fantasy like those appalling Gor books.
As the story progresses we get asides, mentioning what happens to some of the people the wanderer ( she chooses different names constantly, and I do like how Elison then sticks to that name while it is in use ) or just to mention what is happening in other parts of the world - all of which tend to be at least as bleak as the main narrative.
Well worth reading - but, of course, bear in mind the sexual violence warning, and general timbre - but I think I'm genuinely looking to the next volume. I'm hoping this will be less bleak.
original review on goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2485957571?
Friday 17 August 2018
Friday 10 August 2018
Friday Run: Beautiful Backroads to Bolsterstone and back
I've not been on a long run in a while and had planned one for today anyway, but after the team meal at Akbar's last night I felt the need to burn some calories. It also helped that it was much cooler, positively fresh even as the day reached noon.
As so often, I had little idea of which way I would go as I left the house - Rivelin Valley? Up over Loxley Common? Bradfield? Wharncliffe Woods? Toward Sheffield? A moments indecision and I set up Wadsley lane and the steady climb toward Worall, with that familiar view of the fields dropping down into the valley and the woods climbing the far side.
At Worrall I almost baulked at seeing how overgrown the path the Hagg Stones was, but pushed and high-stepped the couple of hundred metres through high grass, nettles and brambles before it opened onto the field beyond. I've never been entirely clear where the path goes across this field, but sticking close to the tumbledown remnants of the wall has always seemed the best bet.
Sharply down a hill then the path leads to Burnt Hill Lane which climbs for a kilometres before the turn onto Onesmoor Bottom and another couple of km of climbing. It is glorious here; it is rare to see a car, just the rolling fields and woodland stretching away on all sides. Cows, sheep and horses in occasional groups in the fields. The stiff wind whipped the dust from the back of a combine cutting back the stubble and some grouse chased in to pick over the remains
The sky is a in uneven quilt; one side different textures of grey, flat or roiling, the other gloriously chaotic stacks and rags of clouds bobbing like cotton wool or twisting up into the shapes of creatures of ancient myth. Further on it become more broken and leaks out golden light that will shower its blessing somewhere around Hoyland or Wombwell.
Here, the first spots of rain immediately fill the air with petrichor; thought it is now cool the ground is dry and hard still after these arid months.
The road crests and begins to descend, at first shallowly and then precipitously, switching back to mitigate the gradient. but I spot a path and this brings me sharply down the the edge of Broomhead reservoir by stairs and the roots of trees. The reservoir path itself I've walked and cycled, but i'm not sure I'e ever run here before, and I glory in taking its twists and turns, and, higher up, as it becomes a matter of close focus to step correctly between the gnarled roots and rough stones. It stays this way along the south bank, around the east tip, and all the way back on the north bank of the Broomhead, until a gate at the tiny Ewden Village leads out onto the road that continues the rest of the way down, past the lower More Hall Reservoir all the way down to the road at the bottom, this stretch of which is actually called Main Road.
I follow it back though Wharncliffe Side to Oughtibridge. The heaviest of the rain came down while I was in the woods around the reservoir, although it's still steady, so I decide on the cover of Hollins and Beeley Woods, running the path in the reverse of my usual direction. Surprisingly, I feel I have the energy to eschew the footbridge at Middlewood and carry on along Clay Wheel Lane, taking and extra loop down the the bottom of Hillsborough park before swinging home to bring the distance above 25k.
That was joyous. It took me perhaps 4 km to find my legs but it is far too long since I had a long, meditative run like that. And I think I burnt off *most* of the curry, too.
https://www.strava.com/activities/1762607185
As so often, I had little idea of which way I would go as I left the house - Rivelin Valley? Up over Loxley Common? Bradfield? Wharncliffe Woods? Toward Sheffield? A moments indecision and I set up Wadsley lane and the steady climb toward Worall, with that familiar view of the fields dropping down into the valley and the woods climbing the far side.
At Worrall I almost baulked at seeing how overgrown the path the Hagg Stones was, but pushed and high-stepped the couple of hundred metres through high grass, nettles and brambles before it opened onto the field beyond. I've never been entirely clear where the path goes across this field, but sticking close to the tumbledown remnants of the wall has always seemed the best bet.
Sharply down a hill then the path leads to Burnt Hill Lane which climbs for a kilometres before the turn onto Onesmoor Bottom and another couple of km of climbing. It is glorious here; it is rare to see a car, just the rolling fields and woodland stretching away on all sides. Cows, sheep and horses in occasional groups in the fields. The stiff wind whipped the dust from the back of a combine cutting back the stubble and some grouse chased in to pick over the remains
The sky is a in uneven quilt; one side different textures of grey, flat or roiling, the other gloriously chaotic stacks and rags of clouds bobbing like cotton wool or twisting up into the shapes of creatures of ancient myth. Further on it become more broken and leaks out golden light that will shower its blessing somewhere around Hoyland or Wombwell.
Here, the first spots of rain immediately fill the air with petrichor; thought it is now cool the ground is dry and hard still after these arid months.
The road crests and begins to descend, at first shallowly and then precipitously, switching back to mitigate the gradient. but I spot a path and this brings me sharply down the the edge of Broomhead reservoir by stairs and the roots of trees. The reservoir path itself I've walked and cycled, but i'm not sure I'e ever run here before, and I glory in taking its twists and turns, and, higher up, as it becomes a matter of close focus to step correctly between the gnarled roots and rough stones. It stays this way along the south bank, around the east tip, and all the way back on the north bank of the Broomhead, until a gate at the tiny Ewden Village leads out onto the road that continues the rest of the way down, past the lower More Hall Reservoir all the way down to the road at the bottom, this stretch of which is actually called Main Road.
I follow it back though Wharncliffe Side to Oughtibridge. The heaviest of the rain came down while I was in the woods around the reservoir, although it's still steady, so I decide on the cover of Hollins and Beeley Woods, running the path in the reverse of my usual direction. Surprisingly, I feel I have the energy to eschew the footbridge at Middlewood and carry on along Clay Wheel Lane, taking and extra loop down the the bottom of Hillsborough park before swinging home to bring the distance above 25k.
That was joyous. It took me perhaps 4 km to find my legs but it is far too long since I had a long, meditative run like that. And I think I burnt off *most* of the curry, too.
https://www.strava.com/activities/1762607185
Monday 6 August 2018
Book review: Gnomon by Nick Harkaway: Catabasis for Democracy, with Shark
I'll admit up front that Harkaway's debut, The Gone-Away World, is one of my favourite books and his subsequent novels aren't too shabby either, but his fourth is quite remarkable. It is set partially in a near-future Britain run by the System, a data network that both organises the citizenry into an active direct democracy and keeps their lives efficient and safe. Data privacy is a thing of the past; you can query someone's identity and life by direct access to the System and Harkaway skillfully shows how this affects social mores.
This set up, of course, immediately makes the hairs of discomfort prickle on the napes of our necks; whether liberal or conservative or whatever mix, such phrases as "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear", "Those who give up liberty for safety, deserve neither" and "Panopticon" cannot help but spring to mind, thought the author does an excellent job of being even-handed in his presentation of the view.
The book starts with a death of a subject in interrogation by the Witness, the security arm of the System. This is presented as a unique occurrence, and immediately taken seriously and handed to the talented and driven Inspector Mielikki Neith. The manner of the interrogation is disturbing and reinforces fears about the ubiquitously invasive arm of the state, but this is leavened over time by the seriousness with which this event is treated and, well, by the fact that the System seems to work, and seems to be benevolent and effective.
I had said the book is set partially here. We soon are introduced to narratives which seem entirely unrelated - centred around a brilliant Greek mathematician who, following personal tragedy, has turned his skills to the stock market; the former lover of the 4th/5th century Bishop Augustine of Hippo, herself a philosopher and alchemist; and a talented Ethiopian artist who (barely) escaped his country for England in the political chaos following the fall of Haile Selassie.
Each thread is superbly written, capturing the differing voices and setting and moods. The writing contains a density of allusion and meaning and texture - yet with a lightness of touch - that immediately brought to mind Umberto Eco or Neal Stephenson at his more focused, and Paul Auster. It seems clear that these stories cannot be divergent and Harkaway indeed begins to weaves threads between them, though some of the clues turn out to be fish that, at the least, seem to be scarlet in certain light.
In weaving the threads together we are treated to an exploration of liberty versus safety and convenience, public transparency and the dangers of the malicious hacking of the democratic process (I cannot possibly imagine where that last idea came from...) but, as well as the clues to the central mystery, the nested narratives also show real human stories of tragedy and love and loss and betrayal and reconciliation and hope. There are also some beautiful metaphors about books, and the power of good ideas and arguments to succeed by literally changing the person who hears them.
This novel is a tour-de-force, brilliant and important and a bloody fantastic read. It could be argued that, toward the end, Harkaway explains things a little too clearly and leaves less ambiguity than Eco or Auster would, but this is, I think, due to the wider audience for whom he is writing; frankly, this book already asks a great deal of the reader and such ambiguities on top of that are not to the taste of a lot of people. However, this book deserves plaudits and huge sales and awards scifi and literary alike. It will stay with me for a long time and I am sure that, when i re-read it, I will find layers I missed this time around.
A word on format. I read this on my Kindle, partly as the 700 page paperback appears to be printed in 8-point font (yes, the info page says 11.5-point, but I suspect that to be the System gaslighting me) and found this all the more useful as I could immediately check unfamiliar words and references. If you are reading a hard copy and don't have a thorough knowledge of Greek mythology, I suggest keeping close to wikipedia.
( originally published on goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2059658585?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1 )
This set up, of course, immediately makes the hairs of discomfort prickle on the napes of our necks; whether liberal or conservative or whatever mix, such phrases as "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear", "Those who give up liberty for safety, deserve neither" and "Panopticon" cannot help but spring to mind, thought the author does an excellent job of being even-handed in his presentation of the view.
The book starts with a death of a subject in interrogation by the Witness, the security arm of the System. This is presented as a unique occurrence, and immediately taken seriously and handed to the talented and driven Inspector Mielikki Neith. The manner of the interrogation is disturbing and reinforces fears about the ubiquitously invasive arm of the state, but this is leavened over time by the seriousness with which this event is treated and, well, by the fact that the System seems to work, and seems to be benevolent and effective.
I had said the book is set partially here. We soon are introduced to narratives which seem entirely unrelated - centred around a brilliant Greek mathematician who, following personal tragedy, has turned his skills to the stock market; the former lover of the 4th/5th century Bishop Augustine of Hippo, herself a philosopher and alchemist; and a talented Ethiopian artist who (barely) escaped his country for England in the political chaos following the fall of Haile Selassie.
Each thread is superbly written, capturing the differing voices and setting and moods. The writing contains a density of allusion and meaning and texture - yet with a lightness of touch - that immediately brought to mind Umberto Eco or Neal Stephenson at his more focused, and Paul Auster. It seems clear that these stories cannot be divergent and Harkaway indeed begins to weaves threads between them, though some of the clues turn out to be fish that, at the least, seem to be scarlet in certain light.
In weaving the threads together we are treated to an exploration of liberty versus safety and convenience, public transparency and the dangers of the malicious hacking of the democratic process (I cannot possibly imagine where that last idea came from...) but, as well as the clues to the central mystery, the nested narratives also show real human stories of tragedy and love and loss and betrayal and reconciliation and hope. There are also some beautiful metaphors about books, and the power of good ideas and arguments to succeed by literally changing the person who hears them.
This novel is a tour-de-force, brilliant and important and a bloody fantastic read. It could be argued that, toward the end, Harkaway explains things a little too clearly and leaves less ambiguity than Eco or Auster would, but this is, I think, due to the wider audience for whom he is writing; frankly, this book already asks a great deal of the reader and such ambiguities on top of that are not to the taste of a lot of people. However, this book deserves plaudits and huge sales and awards scifi and literary alike. It will stay with me for a long time and I am sure that, when i re-read it, I will find layers I missed this time around.
A word on format. I read this on my Kindle, partly as the 700 page paperback appears to be printed in 8-point font (yes, the info page says 11.5-point, but I suspect that to be the System gaslighting me) and found this all the more useful as I could immediately check unfamiliar words and references. If you are reading a hard copy and don't have a thorough knowledge of Greek mythology, I suggest keeping close to wikipedia.
( originally published on goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2059658585?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1 )
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