04-25-2012, 10:00 AM
Christopher Priest put himself at the center of a controversy this year by saying basically no one was worthy to win this year's Arthur C Clarke award. This made me curious to find out whether Priest was any good as a writer. The one way you might know about Priest is that he wrote the source material for the movie "The Prestige". (Prestige was directed by Nolan and starred Christian Bayle and Hugh Jackman. Not the one starring Edward Norton)
The Separation is the story of twins in Britain on the eve of World War 2. One brother, Joe, is a pacifist. The other Jack is a pilot in the RAF. But both are referred to as JL which cause confusion to everyone they meet from Winston Churchill to Rudolph Hess. Most of the action keeps cycling back to the night of May 10, 1941 when Hess flew on a peace mission to Britain.
To make things tricky, there are two universes where both brothers exist. In one, Hess's peace mission succeeds and the war ends on May 10. The other world is of course our own. The first section of the book, which universe you are in isn't quite clear, until you get a few clues that you are in the short WWII world. Then it flips to our Universe. It also keeps flipping between the brothers. Eventually you get RAF pilot Jacks view of the entirety of both wars. Pacifist Joe keeps dreaming both realities so you don't know which world he ends up in.
I kept trying to figure out why they were telling the stories in parallel. I thought I saw a blurb for the book that says one of the twins ends up in the alternate universe. But that didn't occur and I don't how that would help the story, either. What was the point of telling the story from the four view points?
It's well written and well told, but eventually pointless. In one world, the war mongerer prevails and in the other the pacifist kind of prevails.
In the Prestige, Priest also makes great use of twins. Plus, in The Separation, Churchill has a double he trots around town to go to public functions. I think Priest just writes novels so he can talk about twins.
The Separation is the story of twins in Britain on the eve of World War 2. One brother, Joe, is a pacifist. The other Jack is a pilot in the RAF. But both are referred to as JL which cause confusion to everyone they meet from Winston Churchill to Rudolph Hess. Most of the action keeps cycling back to the night of May 10, 1941 when Hess flew on a peace mission to Britain.
To make things tricky, there are two universes where both brothers exist. In one, Hess's peace mission succeeds and the war ends on May 10. The other world is of course our own. The first section of the book, which universe you are in isn't quite clear, until you get a few clues that you are in the short WWII world. Then it flips to our Universe. It also keeps flipping between the brothers. Eventually you get RAF pilot Jacks view of the entirety of both wars. Pacifist Joe keeps dreaming both realities so you don't know which world he ends up in.
I kept trying to figure out why they were telling the stories in parallel. I thought I saw a blurb for the book that says one of the twins ends up in the alternate universe. But that didn't occur and I don't how that would help the story, either. What was the point of telling the story from the four view points?
It's well written and well told, but eventually pointless. In one world, the war mongerer prevails and in the other the pacifist kind of prevails.
In the Prestige, Priest also makes great use of twins. Plus, in The Separation, Churchill has a double he trots around town to go to public functions. I think Priest just writes novels so he can talk about twins.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit