The two future strands take place on the edge of the Kefahuchi Tract, a singularity so incomprehensible, so powerful, that its entire circumference (the Beach) is one giant layer of the detritus of observation stations from millions of years of now-extinct alien civilizations focused on understanding it. And Ed Chianese, in that same far future, is addicted to a particular form of sensory-immersive virtual reality, and owes money to the wrong people about that.
Seria Mau Genlicher is a spaceship, her body wired into state-of-the-art-for-the-far-future alien technology- she can navigate in quantum dimensions and see particles no detector can register, but she desperately wants to be human again. Kearney is a physicist in late-twentieth-century England, a man broken in complex ways for complex reasons who is running fervently from everything and maintaining a mutually damaging-but-helpful relationship with his ex-wife. On the surface, Light is a pretty complicated novel: three-stranded narration with no obvious connections between the strands, at least at first. The ways Harrison uses structure make me cry. I was blown away by The Course of the Heart, and I am blown away by Light. John Harrison is really, really high on my list of favorite writers now working. Light is also the book that novelist and critic Adam Roberts was so sure would win the Arthur C Clarke award, he offered to change his name to Adam Van Hoogenroberts if it didn't.
No one who reads it could doubt that Harrison might win the Booker if he could be bothered. What it is is stunningly written, meticulously plotted, hallucinogenically realised and brutally honest. But then I suspected it was never intended to be, and the author wouldn't want the kind of people who want to like characters as his readers anyway. This is not a kind book, or even a particularly likeable book. Harrison's genius is to tie Kearney's narrative thread to those of Seria Mau – a far-future girl existing in harmony with White Cat, her spaceship, surfing a part of the galaxy known as the Kefahuchi Tract – and Chinese Ed, a sleazy if likeable cyberpunky chancer with a passion for virtual sex. But this is M John Harrison: so antihero Michael Kearney is a mathematically brilliant, dice-throwing, reality-changing hyper-intelligent serial killer haunted by a horse-skulled personal demon. It's also the only book to bring me unpleasantly close to sympathising with a serial killer. Light is the kind of novel other writers read and think: "Why don't I just give up and go home?" That was certainly my first reaction on reading its mix of coldly perfect prose and attractively twisted insanity.
0 kommentar(er)
