Customer Reviews

Divided Kingdom

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In Divided Kingdom society has become troubled and fragmented - obsessed with acquisition and celebrity, it is a place defined by misery, envy, and greed. Crime is rampant; the courts are swamped, the prisons overflowing, the divorce rate following marriage quickly and predictably. Faced with lawlessness and chaos, the current government - hidden in an underground bunker - is forced to make a radical decision.

The Kingdom is to be divided into four countries, this political solution, or "rearrangement" comes with considerable risk, but is seen as the only alternative to avert certain anarchy. Each citizen is psychologically assessed and placed, sometimes with force, into four administrative units, each corresponding to one of the medieval "humours."

There's the Red Quarter, inhabited by the cheerfully sanguine, and where Matthew Micklewright, our main protagonist, then aged eight, lives; the Yellow Quarter, where the choleric rage and beat each other up; the Blue Quarter, populated by the stoically phlegmatic; and the "Green Quarter that harbors melancholic depressives.

Concrete boundaries are thrown up, rigidly controlled by the border police, and each country is sealed, fearful of the threat of psychological contamination. The rearrangement deliberately manufactured to create a climate of suspicion and denial between each country - people burying parts of their personalities that don't fit, and hiding their secrets that could now be judged and condemned.

One night, as the roundup begins, young Matthew is cruelly separated from his parents and taken to an immensely sinister boarding school, where he is lectured on the Rearrangements political rationale. The country had become "a troubled place," an enthusiastic Miss Groves tells the class, and this resolution was seen as the only alternative. Subsequently our hero -now renamed Thomas Parry- is given a new family and groomed for advancement in the Red Quarter regime as a civil servant.

After years of studying and career diligence, Thomas is finally given the senior administrative job he has been aiming for; this involves the ongoing process of psychological testing and relocation of members of the population who fail to meet the demands of his quarter. Now he is able to attend commissions and attend cross-border conferences, a privilege available only to the autocratic elite.

Dispatched to a cross border conference in the Blue Quarter, Thomas clandestinely visits a nightclub, the Bathysphere. Shocking images of his past come back to haunt him, of his mother, and of his first true love. He isn't sure what to make of these memories, all he knows is that he has experienced something so totally profound and addictive that it skews his sanguine nature, setting him on a course of self-discovery as he travels through the divided kingdom's four quarters.

Thomas becomes caught up in a terror attack in the Yellow Quarter; is shipwrecked on the coast of the Blue Quarter, and is farmed off to an angst-ridden Green Quarter boarding house, eventually escaping and joining the itinerant and stateless White People, a band of nomadic outsiders who drift aimlessly from quarter to quarter, spurned and shunned by the populations of this new and unsettling world.

Reticent of Huxley's Brave New World, author Rupert Thomson, rather than focusing on the nuts and bolts, the mechanics of this dystopian world chooses instead, to chart Thomas's tortured emotional landscape, as he becomes an outlaw, a fugitive, traveling from quarter to quarter, experiencing first hand each facet of the human condition. Our hero starts off with such noble pursuits and intent, convinced that his role is safe guarding the values and integrity of the Red Quarter. "I realized that he had to fight for the system, had to believe in it, or my removal from my family will have been for nothing."

But as Thomas travels, and witnesses the Yellow Quarter's inhumanity, the Blue Quarter's innocently sweet nature, and the Green quarter's chronic depressives, he realizes that the divided kingdom is united after all, by just one thing: "longing," a longing by most people to perhaps be reunited again.

But like the Kingdom he journeys through, Thomas realizes early on, that there will be no going back, there would be no going back to the part of him that had been buried for so many years, and there would be no more glimpses of that forgotten life. Going to Club Bathysphere exposed the need in Thomas, the ache - the hollowness that lay beneath a life so seemingly well ordered, even charmed. Fragments of another life had been released, altering him forever. His experiences lead him to admit that everything he had built had been revealed for what it was - "mere scaffolding."

Thompson evokes a bleak, desolate, almost apocalyptic world, where the psychological outlines of the different Quarters are sharply defined; its landscape of fleeting female figures, semi-erotic encounters, and of canals, waterways, and even underwater seas. It's also a world of transient, almost spiritual figures, fighting for survival in cities that embody all that is selfish and self-absorbed about capitalism.

Although the narrative tends to lose impetus towards the end, Divided Kingdom is mostly a gripping saga, a part adventure story, and part treatise on the human experience, a portrait of a world that is divided into a type of "psychological racism," where misguided authorities " have force-fed us our own weakness - our intolerance, our bigotry, to create a world where the people seem to need it, and even thrive on this type of prejudice." Mike Leonard November 05.

Divided Kingdom begins with the main character, 8 years old, rousted out of his bed the night the kingdom (a parallel sort of Britain gone to misery and chaos) is divided into quarters based on the four humours in a last ditch attempt to salvage society. Hustled off to a reeducation facility, Thomas Perry is eventually transferred to a family still grieving over the loss of their wife/mother in the Red "sanguine" quarter, where he gradually moves up the political ladder within the ministry responsible for assignments/transfers. The book really starts going when he is sent to a conference in another quarter. There, in a club called the Bathyscope (it reminded me somewhat of Steppenwolf's theater), he sees images/scenes that drive him to skip out on his responsibilities and began a border-crossing trek that will eventually bring him to all four quarters.

The premise of the story isn't all that plausible. The fact that it is barely explored in any pragmatic/realistic sense leads one to think it isn't meant to be seen as particularly plausible anyway. Much as Parry does in the Bathyscope. the reader is being taken on a dreamlike experience and shouldn't look for the nuts and bolts dystopia of an Orwell or Bradbury.

And dreamlike it is, as Parry moves among the various citizens of each quarter, encountering a wide variety of character types, including the mysterious White People, those who can't be assigned a humour (they don't seem to gravitate towards one) and who move in speechless, nomadic packs.

Kingdom is a hard novel to pin down. As mentioned, it doesn't work at all on a pragmatic dystopic level as nothing of how the societies function or not is ever really explored. And for me, it only worked hit and miss on the more surreal level. There is strong writing in much of it, though sometimes overly noticeable as crafted. There are as well some moving sections and moments that deserve some pause and meditation. But its picaresque plot never really compelled, nor did the character, and while I followed what happened it was with somewhat moderate interest. The ending, unfortunately, I thought the weakest section and so that colored the entire reading somewhat negatively

I can't say Divided Kingdom pulled me along or startled me with its language or style except for every now and then. It was a serviceable read with moments of highlights, but the latter part diluted those moments for me. I'd be interested to read more by the author for his inventiveness and his ability to create a beguiling tone/atmosphere, but I can't really strongly recommend Divided Kingdom.

That is the premise of Rupert Thomson's dystopian novel "Divided Kingdom". Set in the United Kingdom, a group of unseen, unknown `powers that be' have determined that British society is decaying. Hopelessness, despair, and dysfunction are the hallmarks of the political and economic life of a once great nation. The solution: take Great Britain and divide it into four mini-Britains each separated from the other by a wall similar to the one that used to divide Berlin. People are not permitted to travel from one section to the next. The key to this subdivision of Britain is the "great rearrangement".

Each mini-Britain will be segregated by personality type. Every citizen is assessed and assigned to one of four personality types based on the ancient concept of the four humors: Choleric (yellow), melancholic (green), phlegmatic (blue) and sanguine (red). `Sanguine' people, who are optimistic and even-tempered, must reside in the Red Quarter. `Phlegmatics' are passive and compassionate and tend to let life carry them along like a leaf floating on a stream. They are assigned to the Blue Quarter. `Cholerics' are aggressive, Type-A people assigned to live in the Yellow Quarter, `Melancholics' are introspective and pessimistic, and must live in the Green Quarter. The great rearrangement is planned under great secrecy and the people of Britain wake up one morning to see that the military is supervising the forced shipment of every citizen to their assigned quarter.

As the story opens eight-year old protagonist, Thomas Parry, is snatched from his parents home and placed in a school pending his transfer to the red section. Thomas is placed with a family whose wife/mother has been forcibly sent to another quarter. Thomas adjusts well, on the surface at least, to the great rearrangement. He eventually becomes a trusted government employee and is asked to cross the border to attend a multilateral conference attended by all four groups. It is a rare privilege for Thomas to cross the border. It is only after he arrives that all the angst that Thomas had kept buried inside begins to come to the fore. Thomas receives an invitation to a strange, exotic club and the club unleashes such powerful, unfathomable forces within Thomas that he drops everything and embarks on a journey that takes him across the four kingdoms.

Thomas' journey is a journey of self-examination. However, Thomson does a great job providing something of a travelogue through each of the four kingdoms. Thomson does a great job fleshing out Thomas' character. However, given the large cast of characters who Thomas encounters those secondary characters do tend to have a somewhat superficial portrayal. The fact that these characters tend to live up to their personality assignment does make their portrayal seem logical within the confines of the book.

The book's concept is an excellent one and the plot is both original and entertaining. The plot allows Thomson and the reader the opportunity to explore the role of the individual's role in society, the role of the family, and the individual's concept of self and sense of affiliation with the community around him. Thomson's dystopian vision has its roots in Aldous Huxley's "BRAVE NEW WORLD" and also Yevgeny Zamyatin's "WE".

"Divided Kingdom" does have some flaws (in my opinion). At one point some of the characters exhibit some almost supernatural powers. One character seems to be able to render her invisible. I found this to be a bit of a distraction and came across as an easy way to get Thomas and the other character across a border. Ultimately this is not a major problem but it left me seeing those books as being somewhat separate from the story as a whole. However, this quibble should not detract from Thomson's well-executed prose. It is concise and adheres successfully to the less-is-more school of fiction. Thomson does not bludgeon the reader with conclusions or answers. Rather, he tells a story in a fairly minimalist style and leaves the rest to the thought processes of his readers.

All in all "Divided Kingdom" is an entertaining, thought provoking book. Highly recommended. L. Fleisig

After decades of decline leading to despondency, dismay, and depression amongst the citizenry, the English government begins a new program to strengthen the moral fiber of its people. The Rearrangement is simple: Federal agents split families moving people into four psychologically based camps; placing like with like. Whether one was relocated into a choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic or sanguine zone depend on a psychological evaluation of the individual's temperament.

In this brave new world, a child was separated from his parents, renamed Thomas Perry and placed within the sanguine quarter. The lad moves in with a grieving adult whose spouse was sent to another sector. Years later, a grown-up Thomas works undercover for the government. However a revelation hits him to learn who he really is instead of a state socially engineered output. He obsesses over this and decides he should start by seeking to find his biological parents. Taking one tiny step on that path let alone a journey means risking all he holds "dear" because if caught he will be reprocessed to insure he never undermines the state again.

DIVIDED KINGDOM is a fabulous science fiction thriller that starts off with an incredible well written premise that will grip the audience, especially as Thomas has his revelation and begins his quest into a strange underworld. Ironically the deep story line slows down whenever the action is ratcheted up focusing on Thomas faces potential exposure and death from his clandestine peers. The hero is terrific as he serves as the focus of a social experiment that may seem off the wall, but not as far out in a red and blue world as one would think. Rupert Thomson provides an intriguing look at the future.

Harriet Klausner

I thoroughly enjoyed this book about a future "United Kingdom" that has become divided. Imagine a world where everyone is sorted by which medieval "humour" they fit into -- all the choleric people are together, separate from all the melancholics, etc. I thought it an interesting premise that gave structure to the author's exploration of identify, value, etc. My only qualm comes from the fact that I'm not an intellectual and usually like my books to end in a happy summation wherein all mysteries are solved. But, as in real life, it doesn't happen here. I happened upon this book by accident -- I was locked out of my house and forced to spend the evening at the local library, with the reward of discovering a new author whose books I look forward to reading. I recommend this book to anyone with an evening to pass and a desire to read something that isn't in the common run of things.

This book was recommended to me recently by a helpful gentleman in Waterstones. We'd embarked upon a discussion of favourite authors when I went to pick up a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse 5'. Joseph Thomson, so he said to me, thinks about the world like no other. Divided Kingdom was supposed a revelation, a compelling and thought-provoking journey through different worlds where the reader is forced to question not only his own character but the nature of social order per se. I had expected therefore to see (in my mind's eye) four very different communities which, after twenty years of being left to their own devices, would have reached their respective humorous equilibria.

In my mental prologue, the choleric quarter would be every inch the Mad Max carry-a-gun-at-all-times environment where open hostility is the norm. Although this was touched upon in the guise of street urchin attacks and the like, the norm for choleric males would appear in Thomson's world to be grunting at passers-by and getting drunk on a Saturday night. Surely a society comprised solely of bilious aggressors would have near-imploded or at least transformed into something less recognisable? It's the combination of personality types in any group which brings balance and unfortunately the world described in the Yellow Quarter resembled too closely the sights and sounds of the United Kingdom as it is. Likewise for the remaining quarters where particular traits were exaggerated but the underpinning idea fell short.

I have no problem with the dividing lines. The four humours, while outdated as a determiner of character, are readily accessible. The manner in which the lines were drawn, too, was apt if rather unimaginative. My real gripe with Thomson's narrative is the lack of any real exploration or explanation of any of the promised themes. Perhaps if Thomas Parry had been born a hundred years after the Rearrangement, or a thousand, then the story would have held more interest.

I must briefly mention the White People who, conversely to the rest of the population, had in fact evolved into a new species in twenty years, capable of psychic communication yet incapable of normal speech. I'm afraid their existence was to me nothing more than a clumsy plot device to allow the protagonist to travel freely between lands, suffering unnecessary indignity along the way to evoke sympathy and elicit a sense of humanity where none existed.

So to the end of the novel which I read in snatches through necessity. I held out hope to the last page that I would be treated to the denouement which I felt certain was coming. The presence of Parry's boss in the closing chapters could, and should, have been used to render a satisfying conclusion. Sadly though I feel agitated and somewhat cheated, and Thomson has missed the opportunity to tell a story with an ending.

I rate this three stars for the prose which is very easy to engage with, and for the potential this story had. It could have been so much more.

This novel is different from the novels of Thomson I have read.

It's narrated by the main character, Thomas Parry (Michael Micklewright before The Rearrangement), and so it doesn't contain as much of the brilliant, hallucinatory, realer-than-real description Thomson usually delivers.

But this is perfectly appropriate. Thomas is not Thomson. He's more staid, less easily jolted, more likable but more conventional.

The novel is a dystopia. Like most dystopias, a perfect world has been engineered, but gone wrong. But it isn't as nightmarish as "1984" or "The Handmaid's Tale" or even as eerie as "Brave New World."

"Brave New World" is creepy to us, but isn't creepy to its inhabitants, because they have been genetically-engineered and heavily-conditioned to be near-robots. They function perfectly, and are perfectly content. They are like ants who never question their society.

As in "Brave New World," people in "Divided Kingdom" are divided up--but here they are divided by temperament--according to the old idea of 4 humors: choleric (aggressive, impulsive, self-centered), sanguine (optimistic, cheerful, outgoing), phlegmatic (emotional, spiritual, altruistic), and melancholic (pessimistic, lugubrious, doomed).

It becomes obvious that this system is over-simple.

Thomas takes a hair-raising (and illegal) odyssey through all 4 "kingdoms" and sees firsthand how predictable, but also unpredictable, they are.

The book gains momentum as it goes, and during Tom's illegal journey becomes by turns exciting, scary, wondrous, and sad.

The ending is breathtaking, horrifying, uplifting, and oddly calm.

A tremendously insightful, moving book.

It's a quest book, with a disappointing result that leaves all sorts of questions you'd been persevering to get answered, unanswered. You know you're in trouble when you come to understand the premise: In the presumably near future, British society has succumbed to crime, debauchery, materialism and violence to such an extent drastic measures are instituted. So far so good! But British subjects are forcibly segregated into four walled-off quarters of the Isles... according to personality.

You have your sanguine quarter, choleric quarter, melancholic quarter and phlegmatic quarter. This preposterous division might actually have been saved by a couple pages' worth about how advances in psychological science -- real or imagined, don't care which -- somehow led to the conclusion that these four ancient "humours" really are very important. Otherwise, Thomson may as well have divided the country by height, or something.

But I don't want to dwell on the premise, about which there are all sorts of things wrong, because the story itself needs to be complained about. Our man, Thomas Parry, ends up illegally flitting from quarter to quarter, trying to... it's hard to say. Well, it's not hard to answer the question from the narrative, but there's no real good reason he's doing all this. Along the way he gets into several sticky spots and scrapes, by goodness, for it is a quest narrative. At one point he's told that by random chance he happens to be an honored guest who can stay, on others' dime, as long as he'd like. How fortunate, in that his money's been destroyed! Only later do you find out that even though he's arrived there by shipwreck (!) from which he's the only survivor, and he convalesces for what must be a few weeks, he's been followed! Dang!

I shouldn't get snippy. Thomson is trying hard, going so far as to bludgeon us over the head with literary devices like having key characters leave impressions in pillows, handprints on windshields, and other traces of themselves where they've been. You recognize it (it's awfully hard to miss) and wonder what might be the reason. Right on schedule, we meet a character who specializes in not leaving traces of herself where she goes and "escaping notice." Wow! I get it! So she's sort of different from everybody else in the book, then?

It's dreadful, until near the end when you think you might be rooting for something to happen, that then doesn't, except the book ends with it maybe about to happen, but by then you don't care because the most preposterous (sorry to reuse the word, but it's perfect) event has just occurred and you're waiting for it to have been a dream or illusion of some sort when you run out of book. Not recommended, if you hadn't gathered.

The second star is for the fact that Thomson is indeed a clever writer, who can turn a phrase.

Probably nobody will ever write a better dystopian novel than Nineteen Eighty-Four, but this comes close; the editorial reviews, and Ms Klausner's, do fine jobs of explaining why.

My one point of dissent has to do with the Publisher's Weekly review -- the book isn't an allegory, any more than Orwell's masterpiece is. (PW has a habit of saying something snide/downbeat at the end of a review.) Most of the characters, except for Thomas, are "flat"; but so are most of the characters in the Odyssey.

So people who are turned off by the idea of allegory should just ignore the PW review.

I'm shocked and disappointed by how few reviews have been written of this novel. Thomson has created an interesting premise and pulled through with the kind of dystopian novel that makes you look at the world around you in a new light, not to mention gives you great joy at the craft. I LOVED this book - picked it up in the library, and then bought a copy as a gift - and am reading it again. I may have to buy another copy because I may not want to part with it. Thomson's writing provides imagery, suspense, great characters. A fascinating work right up the alley of fans of the dystopian fiction genre. Also important, it will appeal to those who don't need everything spelled out and on the surface and are willing to let things unfold.