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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Harkaway just might be brilliant, September 25, 2008
This review is from: The Gone-Away World (Hardcover)
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I'm a reader given to pronouncements like: I hate science fiction. And for the most part it's really not my cup of tea. Well, The Gone Away World is undeniably science fiction, and it is the most interesting novel I've read in quite some time. The back copy on the galley I read compared it to Kurt Vonnegut meets Joseph Heller meets Mad Max. I immediately assumed that was hyperbole of the worst kind, but damn if that doesn't sum it up perfectly!
How can I describe the plot? As the novel opens, we're in a post-apocalyptic version of the world we know. We meet our first-person narrator and his team of trouble-shooting compatriots. Something possibly disastrous has happened, and they're off to save the day--as long as they'll be adequately compensated for the job. That's what they do. They're the Haulage & Hazmat Emergency Civil Freebooting Company of Exmoor County, a tight-knit group of life-long friends and war buddies.
The first chapter was about 30 pages, and I have to admit it was very strange and confusing, but undeniably funny. After that first chapter set in the novel's present, the clock is rolled back several decades, and the next 275 pages tells the life story of the unnamed narrator. And suddenly the book became far more accessible, because there were references to things like Elvis Presley and Tupperware. It was a world I could recognize. And gradually all the weird stuff from the first chapter was explained. What was the "Go Away War," why it was called that, and how the radically altered (not for the better, I can assure you) world came to be. It's a strange, deeply disturbing story leavened with a lot of humor and some wonderfully whimsical and likeable characters.
Around the 300 page mark, we are back where we were at the top of the novel, and our heroes are off to save the world. But nothing goes according to plan. And just when you think you've got a grasp on the rules of this strange world and this odd novel, Harkaway pulls the rug from under your feet and suddenly all the rules change and everything you think you know has changed!
This is a dense and challenging 500-page novel. Some parts of it are wonderfully light and comic. Other parts were so dark and disturbing I wasn't sure I wanted to continue reading. But I did continue, often forcing friends to listen to me read pages of text aloud. The language is fabulous and the many tangents and asides are priceless--such as a meandering discussion of the role of sheep in times of war. Other times it's a single sentence such as: "You have to worry about someone even mimes find creepy." that you want to stitch onto a pillow and place on your couch.
I wouldn't recommend this novel to everyone I know, but for readers with an open mind and a tolerance for absurdity, satire, and speculative fiction it's a must read. It may be one of the best debut novels I've ever read. It is the most interesting novel--period--that I've read in years.
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33 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Imaginative - unpredictable - and very well written, August 20, 2008
This review is from: The Gone-Away World (Hardcover)
With all the promotion accompanying the publication of this book the story probably needs little introduction? However just in case: it is set in Britain in the not very distant future. We join the story and after the Go-Away War when civilisation relies upon and lives within reach of the globe encircling Jorgmund Pipe; and who knows what inhabits the regions beyond its reach? Problem: the pipe is on fire and professional trouble-shooter and all-round hero Gonzo Lubitsch and his crew are hired to extinguish the fire - but there is more to the fire, and the pipe than it seems. As we follow the charismatic Gonzo and his best friend (our apparently happily married narrator) in their exploits the story takes us back to their childhood and the time before the Go-Away War; we learn of the origins of their friendship, follow them to university and through military service and their subsequent involvement in the Go-Away War. Then we pick up the story again post-War; and this is when we learn of the effects of the fall-out, as well as more about the mysterious Jorgmund Company; we gradually understand the disastrous mess of a world which the Jorrmund Pipe appears to dominate and sustain.
But what really makes this book something special is the quality of the writing. It is writing of such eloquence it simply demands to be read. Nick Harkaway (son of spy thriller writer John le Carré aka David Cornwell) juxtaposes the ordinary and the absurd with such naturalness that we almost don't question it; we might just pass it by if it were not so hilariously funny at times; such is the writer's skill. Every page is a pleasure and one wants to dwell on and enjoy each word, but one is torn between lingering at leisure and becoming absorbed in the detailed byways the story regularly takes and the urgent desire to learn what happens next. One thing we can be sure is that what happens next rarely predictable.
As the story unfolds we encounter a wide range of unforgettable characters in addition to our two main protagonists. I'll mention just one as it will also give an indication of the time setting: our narrator's boyhood martial arts instructor the octogenarian Mr Wu of the Voiceless Dragon School, born in the 1930s, a wise, subtle and unassuming man who is relentlessly pursued by his family's arch-enemy the Ninjas, and whose very young female assistant sleeps on his couch. In addition to an array of interesting characters we should add a parade of weird and wonderful creatures.
The Gone-Away World is an amazing tale; it is a fantasy, an odyssey, an epic; it is story of upheaval and disaster, of nightmare monsters becoming reality, of loyalty and friendship, an adventure encompassing tense drama contrasting more leisurely pursuits, a story which takes us along the way, with unhurried confidence, on many detailed diversions and anecdotes, a story which jumps from the mundane to the surreal, even miraculous. But all the while the full comic potential is fully exploited, and it is all the funnier for the masterful writing, for the wry humour is as often found in the choice of expression, the turn of phrase, as in the ongoing events.
That our very likeable and unassuming narrator remains nameless is not inconsequential, it is crucial to the plot; and his loyalty to his friend Gonzo despite some most surprising events might also prove to be the salvation for what is left of the world. It has been likened it to A Clockwork Orange, Catch 22 or Brave New World; it is reminiscent at time of A Hitchhikers Guide . . . Whatever comparison may be made, one thing is beyond question: it is without doubt an eminently enjoyable read and a cracking and original escapade.
If all you are interested in is a quick-fire story which hurriedly gets to the point wasting no time you may in truth find this a laborious read. However if you enjoy reading for the shear pleasure of reading, if you enjoy the liquid flow of words, if for you the adventure of the journey is as important as arriving, you are sure to enjoy The Gone Away World.
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Bad writing, bad plotting, all around bad, February 17, 2011
Without question, one of the worst books I have ever read. You could cut 150 pages from it and never notice. The writing is abominable, full of useless digressions (and annoying parentheticals that themselves seem to run on and on until you forgot what the start of the paragraph was about, or the point of the sentence, if there ever was one). The characters are paper thin, bad stereotypes of good guys and bad buys from B-movie thrillers.
Worst of all, however, are the plot holes and inconsistencies in the book (NOTE: it's impossible to review this book without revealing plot twists: lots of spoilers follow). There is a knack to creating an alternate universe, or a science fiction universe. The details have to be believable, and no matter how bizarre the fictional world, it has to be sustained by its own internal logic. Harkaway fails dismally on this score. The major premise of the book is that a new weapon has been invented which, by stripping the information from matter, makes it just "go away". Well, it turns out that the matter still exists, and takes form when inspired by people's imaginations and dreams. Fair enough. But it turns out that they've been testing this weapon, even in front of the narrator. Somehow, these dire results never occurred during any of the tests. Whooops. The weapon is also extremely difficult to develop, and extremely well-protected, as we are informed through another pointless and implausible digression by our narrator. But it turns out that everyone has one, and they all get used at the same time. Furthermore, there seems to be no particular reason why they are used. The weapon is obviously a WMD, an analogue of a nuke, but the decision to use the weapon is never justified. Everyone just drops the bomb for no particular reason. In other words, they do it because otherwise Harkaway doesn't have a plot or a book, not because that is what any normal human would do in Harkaway's fictional universe. I understand this is supposed to be absurd, but it fails to be so, primarily because of the author's poor writing.
This is just one instance of Harkaway failing to give his world and his novel any sort of internal consistency (there are many, many more -- the nameless narrator remembers all sorts of things he couldn't possibly remember, as an imaginary friend, or because the person who imagines him is not present for the scene (actually entering the room later), and Harkaway injects all kinds of inconsistencies into the book in order to "fool" the reader into not realizing that the narrator is made-up for as long as possible). They made reading the book torture, especially when combined with the digressive, prolix writing style.
Another point about the writing. More than a few reviewers have compared Harkaway to writers like Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and others working in what I would define as an "absurdist". I think the comparison is an insult to those other authors. Absurdism, and often humor in general, require a light touch. Authors like Adams (especially) use deft strokes and quick, sharp sentences to increase the humor of their writing. Ponderous run-on sentences drag you down, and suck out the fun. I don't particularly care for Pratchett's work, but the language at least makes me smile, and I can understand why others might find it funny. The difference between Adams, Pratchett et al. and Harkaway is like the difference between eating a small, intense, refreshing mint and working your way through endless mouthfuls of sticky tasteless nougat filled with strange tooth-breaking chunks that get stuck in your teeth and you can't get them out no matter what you do. Not as pleasant.
Another thing about absurdism. Harkaway thinks it's funny just to pile all these strange coincidences and situations on top of one another. Ninja mimes, that's cool, I'll throw some of those in. Sufi mystic liberationists, that'd be cool too, I'll throw some of them in too. Aren't I clever. Actually, no. For absurdism to work it has to have a degree of internal consistency (as related above); the absurd situation has to exist for a logical reason taken to extremes, not just because the author thinks it would be neat. Furthermore, the absurd has to relate at least minimally to the real. Adams makes the destruction of the Earth itself seem funny, because he relates it to issues many people have had dealing with local bureaucracies. The absurdism comes from taking a local situation and making it global, and following through to the logical consequence of the idea. Harkaway lacks this skill, and so the absurdism is forced. Being forced and unrelatable, it is not funny.
Finally, humor requires that we have sympathy for the characters. Adams does terrible things to Arthur Dent, but you never think that he doesn't care about his character (probably because there is a lot of Adams in Dent). We can laugh at Arthur because we have sympathy for him. Many of us have tried to maintain our sense of dignity, our sense of personhood, even under the most outrageous circumstances, and we see the humor in Arthur trying to do so. (Same for Pratchett's and Gaiman's characters). Harkaway's characters are flat flat flat, and so the crazy things that happen to them just seem stupid, not funny. When it turns out the mimes are ninjas, it isn't funny in the least. When the narrator realizes who is, there is great opportunity for absurdist humor, but Harkaway misses it because the narrator is two-dimensional and we don't much care about him, and can't relate to him, as he is nothing more than a B-movie tough-guy caricature.
In short, the book is not funny, or absurd, just tedious. If it were funny, the author wouldn't need to take such pains in constantly pointing out to you how funny and absurd it is. I got the feeling that Harkaway wrote the book to amuse himself, and is very pleased with himself for the job he did. Why anyone else would want to read this is beyond me.
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