Novel: The Doomsday Book
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was searching for good fantasy fiction, a genre I generally enjoy on the screen but not on the page. Don’t like guys named Thorbak of EldWorld; can’t stand Big Ideas expressed in terms of hardware; and so on. But after reading and enjoying Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, I felt I might like some more stories where a magical or science fiction element intrudes on a world I recognize. Tried Edinburgh Dead with mixed results. Then followed one of those Amazon “if you enjoyed,” threads and came up with Connie Willis’s The Doomsday Book.
What a wonderful novel. Really. Just beautifully done. Written almost twenty years ago now (1992), won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, and I’d never heard of it before. My bad.
The story: in the Oxford of the future, a female history student goes back in time to the 14th century. There’s more of a plot than that, but why give it away? The writing is simple and powerful, the characters extremely enjoyable, the setting so realistic you can smell it, and the whole thing is such a pleasure it’s like eating cake. (This in spite of the fact I was swamped with work and could only read it in small portions, which can ruin a book.) Willis writes with enormous compassion but precise observation. She does children, especially, better, I think, than anyone I’ve ever read. Without treating them in either a romantic or reductive way, she captures perfectly how they can be endearing and annoying at exactly the same moment. She also has an uncanny way of presenting a vision of the world that is at once very, very dark and very, very hopeful—sort of like real life. I’m not sure at all but I’m guessing she’s a Christian of some stripe, but if ever a writer managed to write a Christian worldview in a non-vomitous way, it’s she—and other happy-talk Christian writers should take note, and indeed take notes.
Some of the best things about the book are the things Willis doesn’t do. She doesn’t imagine the future in any particular detail or explain time travel very much. She tells you the rules without trying to come up with some elaborate explanation for them—and then on with the characters and the story. It’s a very clean, gripping approach.
Many years ago, I realized with surprise that I don’t really read very many books by women anymore—almost none by American women. I’ll write about the reasons another time when I feel like starting an argument. But I freely and humbly confess that almost everything I like about this novel—the warm compassion, the leisurely and domestic plotting, the lovable characters, the brilliantly done children—is in some sense womanly. So brava for the pure force of talent that overcomes prejudice. In fact, just to show you what kind of guy I am, I won’t even mention the pro-Obama picture on her website. Oops…
But seriously, forgive and forget the Obama tote. The author’s politics in no way intrude on the proceedings here. If you like fiction and you’ve never read this, pick it up. It’s absolutely terrific.
Connie’s been a friend for considerably more years than either of us would want to admit, and she really is a wonderful writer. As to the Obama tote, she lives in a college town, what can I say?
thanks. it sounds interesting.
okay- so my best guess on why not read contemporary women writers? They don’t give the big bad wolf a fighting chance?
you might as well start that argument. you’re a good writer of definite opinions. I know I feel terrible that I’m generally repelled by the pastel yellow covers on most women’s fiction, b/c I know I’ll be frustrated by what’s inside, and I can’t usually put my finger on it. Although Joshelyn jackson is good for one go-round.
connie willis won awards with this? I can find it at the library?
My own experience is that female writers, no matter how good, tend to have a real problem getting their male characters right. Makes their work a hard read for a guy.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that women readers have the same problem with male writers. The only difference is that I’m blind to that problem.
On the Fantasy novels, have you tried David Drake’s Lord of the Isles series? I liked them, though not everybody does. That one I found interesting partly because it was a high fantasy set in, essentially, the Minoan Mediterranean, rather than the more usual High Gothic Europe expy. I also enjoyed the interlocking adventures aspect of it.
On modern women writers, have you read any of Bujold’s stuff? I’ve only read her Vorkosigan series (which is firmly in the sci-fi realm of things), but I’m told she has a very good fantasy series. The Vorkosigan series stood out for being both one of the few series that you could read in almost any order, and one of the few series where the characters grew and changed throughout.
I would like to second the vote for Lois McMaster Bujold.
The Sci-Fi Vorkosigan series are great, of course, but the Chalion trilogy is just as powerful, if not more so.
I don’t normally read fantasy, but made an exception for Bujold, and I am certainly happy that I did.
Also, speaking of Connie Willis, the “To Say Nothing of the Dog” is a joy to read, especially if one is a fan of the original book.
One of my very favorite authors! Read her recent two-volume set on WWII Britain, “Blackout” and “All Clear” and also her novel “Passage” and see if you aren’t convinced she’s a Christian. It’s subtle, and it won’t bother non-Christians, but I see it. (With “Passage” you must wait until the very last page.)
I’ve put it differently, but I don’t read sci/fi or fantasy either. Occasionally a friend will twist my arm to get me to read something in one of these genres; generally it doesn’t measure up to my standards. My favorite of these was when a friend discovered I read mysteries a lot, and so he passed on to me a fantasy novel that had a mystery theme. When I handed it back to him and told him the whole thing was a bad pastiche of Nero Wolfe, he said “Who?” Nothing more needed to be said on that score; if you didn’t read the original, riffs on it won’t work, but they’ll look very clever.
Of sci/fi fantasy stuff, I would recommend Neal Stephenson, though I will warn you his stuff tends to be of the weighty-tome variety. He has a new book out in hardback that I’m considering; what’s holding me back is that I still haven’t read the “Baroque Cycle” trilogy, which sits on my bookshelves. One thing that’s always fascinated me is why mystery and suspense novels are written in series, essentially open-ended, while sci/fi and fantasy are often constructed in “cycles,” sets of three, four, or five books.
Re: Ms. Willis, someone passed along to me a book that I believe she wrote about Lincoln and his dreams (for those who aren’t familiar, his dreams actually did play a significant part in his personal life). I enjoyed it and remember it pretty well. I have “To Say Nothing of the Dog” around here somewhere; I’ve never read it, but I’m a big fan of the original book.
Mr. Klavan, have you ever read the novels of Tim Powers? My personal favorite is Declare, but Last Call is a runner-up.
I’m a big Connie Willis fan. While SF authors are generally viewed as being mainly concerned with the future, Willis seems more interested in the past…and, particularly, the way in which the past lives in the present. Several of her novels and short stories explore this connection using various hypothetical forms of time displacement. One of these is Lincoln’s Dreams, mentioned above, in which a young woman starts having very disturbing dreams–which turn out to be those of Robert E Lee. In the introduction, Willis writes:
“In the first part of Lincoln’s Dreams, Jeff is offered a job researching the long-term effects of the Vietnam War. He turns it down. “I’m busy studying the long-term effects of the Civil War.” And I guess that’s what I was doing, too, writing this book.
Because the Civil War isn’t over. Its images, dreamlike, stay with us — young boys lying face-down in cornfields and orchards, and Robert E. Lee on Traveller. And Lincoln, dead in the White House, and the sound of crying.
The Civil War disturbs us, all these long years after, troubling our sleep. Like a cry for help, like a warning, like a dream. And we pore over it, trying to break the code, its meaning just out of reach.”
One great Connie WIllis story that uses the time-displacement theme, but functions more on an individual than a societal level, is “Chance.” I reviewed it here:
Author Appreciation: Connie WIllis
I loved this book! I read it a few years ago and was struck by how clever and original it was. I never did a follow up to see if she’d written anything else though, and now I will.
Doomsday Book was sold to me as a triumph of the human spirit. In the end, the only triumph was that the villagers in the heroine’s village all got proper burials, unlike the residents of the other villages.
Doomsday Book isn’t science fiction, nor is it fantasy. It’s worldsux, a popular genre if one goes by the number of dystopias on the booklists.
I sent my copy back to the publisher, and demanded my money back. They sent me the money.
Andrew
A couple of suggestions I have enjoyed recently/immensely to add to your reading pile.
Neal Stephenson – “Cryptonomicom” – SciFi
George RR Martin – Song of Ice and Fire series which begins with “A Game of Thrones” – Fantasy
SM Stirling – “Dies the Fire” and its sequels – SciFi/Fantasy
Niven, Pounell & Barnes – “The Legacy of Herot” – SciFi
George Alec Effinger – “A Fire in the Sun”, “When Gravity Fails”, “The Exile Kiss”
Classic SciFi and Fantasy (If you haven’t already read these, your literature education is incomplete indeed!)
Heinlein: “Stranger in a Strange Land”, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, “Starship Troopers”
Niven: “Ringworld”
Tolkien: “The Hobbit”, “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Silmarillion”
Haldeman: “The Forever War”
Card: “Ender’s Game”
This is a good start but by no means a comprehensive listing of all that is worth reading in the SciFi and Fantasy genres.