Characters: B
Writing: B-
Plot: A / Pacing: D-
Poignancy: C+
It's a rare occasion that a book so full of Really Cool Ideas capsizes due to an immensely obvious and easily-avoided flaw. Most authors understand basic tenets of pacing and plot development, or they're just not very good writers to begin with. I can't recall any book quite like Darwinia, a book otherwise really really good, but suffering from a pacing-choice so bizarre that literally every single review on Amazon mentions it with the caveat: "good except for..."
The basic back-cover gist of Darwinia is that in 1912, all of Europe and the UK are suddenly replaced by a bizarro-land that seems to have evolved along a different timeline than our own. All former inhabitants of the effected areas vanish along with every remnant of old Europe. The continent becomes, in effect, a vast unexplored wilderness. It's an interesting enough premise on its own to sustain an entire narrative, but the author takes the story in a rapidly-escalating sci-fi direction rather than dwell on a potential alternate-history / steampunk spin. Wilson essentially promises the reader from the beginning that all mysteries will be explained scientifically, but it's still jarring when the story totally shifts direction in the second half. Darwinia is an incredibly difficult book to review without giving away major plot points and background, because the book's flaws as well as its brilliance are inseparable from its complicated plot. Therefore, forgive my vagueness.
Essentially, the problem is similar to this. Imagine halfway through The Sixth Sense a titlecard came up that said "INTERLUDE" and M. Night walked up in front of a frozen-screen of the movie. "Okay, here's the deal," M. Night says. "Bruce Willis, in this movie, is a ghost. He's been dead since the beginning. You remember that scene? Yeah, he died. So he can't really die again in the rest of the movie or anything. I wouldn't even worry about it. He's a ghost. Okay."
It's more complicated than that, of course, but that horrifically puzzling storytelling choice would have been as inexplicable as what the author attempts to do here. There is literally a chapter called "Interlude" not even a third of the way through the book, and it gives away the whole gambit all in one nonsensical swoop. The exposition has no connection to the chapters and events surrounding it. The characters in the book are not aware of it. It destroys the drama and danger that follow after. And at first you think, "Well, this sudden sci-fi twist probably couldn't be comprehended by primitive 1920-era characters with no means of understanding such concepts. I guess the author just needed a way to reveal what he couldn't reveal through natural exposition." But no. A hundred pages later, the main character finds out the exact same information, in-story. It's revealed clearly and effectively. There is then another interlude chapter, reiterating the same information. Not only is that first interlude give-away unnecessary, drama-destroying and jarring, but it's fucking redundant! Everything would have worked absolutely fine if he hadn't dropped his ace on the table before the betting even got good.
The further into Darwinia you progress, the more frustrating this really becomes. For one, the Heart of Darknessesque expedition that makes up the first half of the book is quite interesting, even though Wilson is inconsistent with his New World and the dangers it presents. A lot of opportunities for suspense and mystery are ignored or ruined. If the end-game were still a mystery to the reader, as it is to the characters, a lot of the surrealist horror and unexplained happenings would have far more weight. Instead, the world around them is all-but forgotten, becoming trivial and tame.
When Wilson finally drops that second, in-story reveal (which is no longer satisfying for the reader), the story takes the u-turn hinted at earlier and finds its footing once more. The last portion of the book is tightly plotted and intricate in back-story, all of which works surprisingly well given its out-thereness. Wilson truly has some wonderful ideas, even if other variations of the same concept have been done before. This book could easily have been a trilogy, far more epic and detailed than the version Wilson gave us. As it is, the material is given barely-enough attention—making that goddam reveal all the more perplexing. It makes me hope for an alternate Earth in which all of this book (as well as the UK) are replaced with a bizarro version in which Wilson has learned how to pace a novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment