| | Fugue for a Darkening Island |  | Author: Christopher Priest
Publisher: New English Library
Category: Book
Buy Used: £19.86
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 765499
Media: Paperback
Pages: 128
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
ISBN: 0450015750
EAN: 9780450015755
ASIN: 0450015750
Publication Date: September 1973
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Early writing shows strengths and flaws August 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've been a fan of Christopher Priest since I read 'The Glamour', and have, I think, read all his subsequent books. Finding this out of print early novel was an unexpected treat; however, it has clarified certain misgivings I have about Priest's writing
The fascination with the shifting time frames, the dream, or rather nightmare quality, the views of reality that are not quite solid and immutable are all there, as much as in his later and more polpular novels like The Prestige and The Affirmation.
So why didn't I rate this novel more highly? It's because something I had thought might be a flaw in some of Priest's characters, I'm now convinced is a flaw in his writing. His focus is always with characters who are dissociated in some way from their emotions; this is particularly evident in his descriptions of sexual encounters - there is a coldness at the heart of these, and possibly for the first time I'm aware that Priest's books could never be written by a woman; there's an undercurrent in this book which almost comes across as misogyny. I've certainly noticed it before, but had seen it as character, rather than author driven.
Maybe Priest can't write tenderness - and I'm certainly not saying men can't write tenderness, or that there aren't positive (rather than negative) differences in books which might be written by both men and women, which clearly show the strengths of each gender rather than what (in general) might be seen as the weaknesses.
Its just in this case, Priest is all hard angles, and this is as disconcerting as some female writers who are all marshmallow.
I know this is not meant in any way to be a comforting book - its a dystopia for heaven's sake, BUT and its a big but, I found no emotional engagement at all, except distaste, for all the characters. They are not clearly enough engaged with from the inside, to allow any sort of empathy.
It didn't really seem to matter what happened to any of the characters, and it does seem to me that any writing which so completely loses a sense of redeemable humanity somewhere, has failed. I appreciate that 'dystopia' has come about because of some disengagement from our own humanity, but on a fundamental level, to engage with that disengagement so completely as a writer that NOTHING and NO-ONE MATTERS is a huge huge flaw.
The writer who (for the first time) I would compare Priest to - a writer who also writes 'Science Fction' and engages with societal and political structures and dystopias, is Ursula K. Le Guin. This latter writer engages as deeply with politics, philosophy, existential unease, society in breakdown, dystopia, but there is a deep and abiding humanity through her work - the outcomes matter, because we, as readers, are able to engage. There is the same sense of engagement in humanity in Doris Lessing's 'Canopus In Argos' writings. They just happen to be women writing in the 'science fiction' genre. Perhaps what has made some women NOT enjoy 'science fiction' as a genre, is this tendency for disengagement with emotion, from some writers of the genre - though there are certainly male, as well as female, writers who absolutely engage with emotion - Wyndham, H.G. Wells, Orwell (1984) are three who immediately spring to mind, whose central characters are engaged with so particularly and individually that we can follow their journey and relate to their dilemmas.
Despite all my negative conclusions about 'Fugue' and feeling that its actually a rather unpleasant book, I have at least appreciated being able to dissect for my own satisfaction just WHY the book doesn't work. It certainly made me think!
 Gruesomely Chilling And Convincing November 19, 2002
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
A powerhouse of a near-future dystopia, unrelenting in its grim intensity. This amazing novel by Christopher Priest is a glimpse into the future of an England caught up in an armed three-way conflict, between the Nationalist government of neo-Fascist Prime Minister John Tregarth, a liberal Seccessionist element and organised bands of refugee Africans, having fled a nuclear holocaust from the African continent. This breakdown is seen through the eyes of the book's protagonist Alan Whitman through his and that of his family's struggle to survive the anarchic hell of what once was England.The book itself is written in a disjointed, fractured style of writing (with constant use of flashbacks), that to the casual reader can leave one feeling confused and disoriented, however, closer inpection of the book's structure reveal this to be to the book's benefit as it leaves the book short of fat and strong on substance and structure. Parts of the storyline as seen through the eyes of Whitman impart a dreamy, hallucinatory feeling to the reader who can never be sure of what will happen next. One may not be satisfied with the length of this short book (128 pages) but personally, I found the short length to be satisfying. This book is gritty, unstylised and yet not so much a product of its time. Despite its themes reflecting the NEW WAVE exploration of entropy and dissolution, the book's storyline immediately brought back to me, the strong feelings that arose from the M.V Tampa crisis in Australia of 2001, prior to 9/11. I remembered the feelings of fear, hostility and paranoia from the Australian public towards the stranded refugees and the possible reaction of the public towards these boat people had they been allowed to land in Australia. The book is as relevant now as it was back upon release in 1972. I believe this to be perhaps the most accurate and disturbing example of classic dystopia and political sci-fi ever written.
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