The Gone Away World

This summer my bottom clocked up a not inconsiderable number of hours sitting on various European trains. I love travelling on trains - you get a chance to recline your seat and stare out the big windows beside you at the changing scenery. You can have a little doze if you want (I’m an expert at this) and, unlike on a bus, you can read without feeling nauseous (depending on what you’re reading, of course).

Between Italy and Croatia, I was lucky enough to have Nick Harkaway’s first novel The Gone Away World as travelling companion. This ambitious and action-packed tale of a post-apocalyptic world pushed all my buttons - you’ve got action, you’ve got love, you’ve got betrayal, you’ve got ninjas and mimes and pirate monks. You’ve got that unchartered territory where anything can happen that is the completely obliterated version of the world-as-we-know-it. A world with which Harkaway, to the limits of his creative licence as author, has not hesitated to play.

The book is not a light read, neither metaphorically nor literally (the fact that I lugged all two hundred thousand words of it around with me for a week while backpacking is testament to how much I enjoyed it) but Harkaway’s writing style which is, to use The Independent on Sunday's description, "by turns hilarious, outrageous, devastating, hip and profound" keeps you reading. In fact, it was Harkaway’s writing style that I think I enjoyed most about The Gone Away World - it bounces along almost flippantly but there’s a profundity to it at the same time that reminds you of the substance of the novel as a reflection on our modern society and how we behave within it.

And after reading a little bit into why and how he wrote the book, I now understand why Harkaway decided to use this often lightly humorous tone to deal with very serious and current issues. As he says, the novel is "a comedy, of course, because serious things are funny". But as he also says, it’s pretty much impossible to categorise or to exactly explain the book: you have to read it for yourself to get it.

Of course, I will admit that The Gone Away World is not for everyone - it actually came to me via two people who, for one reason or another, had failed to finish it. But then what book pleases everybody? If you’re not into things like ninjas and pirates and if imagining a topsy-turvy future doesn’t tickle you, don’t bother. I, however love these things and loved The Gone Away World because it managed to incorporate each of them (and so much more) at the same time as being a well-written and thought-provoking work.

Sources:
Book Review by Doug Johnstone, The Independent on Sunday, 8th June 2008
http://www.nickharkaway.com/books/