3 Stars
This dystopian novel
is set in the near future, in 2023.
Barry James is being quarantined in a secure facility located in the
hot, arid Karoo desert of South Africa.
He and his fellow patients are suffering from pulmonary nodulosis, a
lethal disease called the “new plague.”
Barry has been confined there for over three years; in that time he has
cut all ties with the past because “looking back is madness.” He is just waiting to die.
After Barry attempts
suicide, a psychologist suggests that he keep a journal. His notebooks form the narrative core of this
novel. In a preface, the
editors/compilers of these notebooks suggest that they be read “as a meditation
on the psychology of illness.”
This is not an action
novel with a lot of suspense. Barry describes
his daily life which is a routine of eating, sleeping, taking medications, and
staring out the window. He is very
lethargic so it is obvious that he is struggling with depression. Occasional visits with Ms. Van Vuuren, the
psychologist, or chats with Dr. Von Hansmeyer, the resident physician, provide some
relief from the monotony.
Barry’s only escape is
dreams: “They are the only way out of
here – in those dreams anything is possible, any horror, any one, any thing,
even snow.” He sleeps so that he can
dream: “Dreams. What bliss to close your eyes on this
carnage, to slip into blackness and be swept away to another world.” Barry describes his dreams in great detail;
in all of them, snow is falling, as if he wants to inhabit a world that is a
total contrast to his reality. He
comments, “even in the most bleak of worlds we’ll find something to hold on to
. . . even if that is something as impossible as snow in this god-forsaken
wasteland.”
Barry is an unreliable
narrator. The effects of his medication
often leave him unable to distinguish between reality and delusions. Likewise, he is not above fabricating stories
to tell the psychologist. In the
preface, the reader is told that the journals are “in effect an internal
monologue that straddles the precariousness of what are essentially two worlds
– one real and one imaginary.”
The book is an
examination of the psychological effects of a terminal illness and
isolation: “We are sick and therefore we
are isolated, locked up. We must wait out
our days here, and then die – so that the healthy ones, the ones we have
forgotten about, may live.” And the
world outside the facility is not a haven either; there is a suggestion that
the outside world is falling apart because of climate change: “’The whole country is now nothing but army
and private contractors protecting the rich.
And as long as they have these droughts and floods, nothing will
change. All downhill from here.’”
I cannot say that I
found this book unputdownable. At times,
it is tedious. But, of course, that
tediousness is a reflection of Barry’s daily existence. It is thought-provoking and suggests that
there may be no true asylum (shelter and protection) for us in the near
future.
Note: I received a digital advanced reading copy from the publisher.
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