Published: April 2022
Pages: 259
Summary
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal–an experience that shocks him to his core.
Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.
When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.
My thoughts
This book is a blend of science fiction and literary fiction. The story follows a time traveller who journeys through different eras, encountering unexpected connections and grappling with the profound implications of his actions.
This was such a fascinating concept and a thoroughly enjoying reading experience. I read this straight after the COVID restrictions had been lifted so at times, this felt completely alien yet very real. I never thought I’d be able to relate to a dystopian setting, especially one held in the solar system but this hit the mark and I loved it.
Mandel’s writing is exquisite, lyrical, and evocative, creating a sense of wonder and melancholy. Watching these lives across different time periods, unfold and touch one another, it was thrilling and heart-achingly beautiful. I was completely baffled by the overarching mystery and definitely did not figure it out before the end. Which I’m usually pretty good at, I’ve read so many mystery/thrillers. But this! I was so incredibly surprised. Finishing this book I actually stared at the wall for a few minutes just thinking and soaking it in.
In such a short novel it manages to touch on profound themes of regret, loss, the interconnectedness of humanity, and memory, and it does it so well. This book is small but it is packed with a punch. This was a book I randomly picked up at a bookshop and it’s now one of my favourites. I love discovering a hidden gem and a new author to explore further.
“..and my point is, there’s always something. I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story. It’s a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we’re uniquely important, that we’re living at the end of history, that now, after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst that it’s ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world.”
The narrative can feel slow-paced at times, with a focus on philosophical musings. If you prefer a fast-paced plot, you may not enjoy this one as much. I also lean towards faster plots but I found the mystery so intriguing and the writing really touched me at parts, it kept me hooked that I struggled to put it down. One of the main messages of this book is the act of humanity. When do we act out of kindness, when do we turn a blind eye, and understanding the consequence, do we act still? Is it an act of weakness to display humanity? It touched my moral compass and I was asking myself ‘what would I do?’
“Won’t most of us die in fairly anticlimactic ways, our passing unremarked by almost everyone, our deaths becoming plot points in the narratives of the people around us?”
Would I recommend?
Yes, yes and yes. This book is beautifully written and I believe it will resonate with a lot of readers. If you enjoy science fiction, I think you will enjoy this unique exploration of time travel and hopefully you find it as reflecting as I did.