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Gnomon
From the widely acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World and Tigerman, comes a virtuosic new novel set in a near-future, high-tech surveillance state, that is equal parts dark comedy, gripping detective story, and mind-bending philosophical puzzle.
In the world of Gnomon, citizens are constantly observed and democracy has reached a pinnacle of ‘transparency.’ Every action is seen, every word is recorded, and the System has access to its citizens’ thoughts and memories–all in the name of providing the safest society in history.
When suspected dissident Diana Hunter dies in government custody, it marks the first time a citizen has been killed during an interrogation. The System doesn’t make mistakes, but something isn’t right about the circumstances surrounding Hunter’s death. Mielikki Neith, a trusted state inspector and a true believer in the System, is assigned to find out what went wrong. Immersing herself in neural recordings of the interrogation, what she finds isn’t Hunter but rather a panorama of characters within Hunter’s psyche: a lovelorn financier in Athens who has a mystical experience with a shark; a brilliant alchemist in ancient Carthage confronting the unexpected outcome of her invention; an expat Ethiopian painter in London designing a controversial new video game, and a sociopathic disembodied intelligence from the distant future.
Embedded in the memories of these impossible lives lies a code which Neith must decipher to find out what Hunter is hiding. In the static between these stories, Neith begins to catch glimpses of the real Diana Hunter–and, alarmingly, of herself. The staggering consequences of what she finds will reverberate throughout the world.
A dazzling, panoramic achievement, and Nick Harkaway’s most brilliant work to date, Gnomon is peerless and profound, captivating and irreverent, as it pierces through strata of reality and consciousness, and illuminates how to set a mind free. It is a truly accomplished novel from a mind possessing a matchless wit infused with a deep humanity.
In the world of Gnomon, citizens are constantly observed and democracy has reached a pinnacle of ‘transparency.’ Every action is seen, every word is recorded, and the System has access to its citizens’ thoughts and memories–all in the name of providing the safest society in history.
When suspected dissident Diana Hunter dies in government custody, it marks the first time a citizen has been killed during an interrogation. The System doesn’t make mistakes, but something isn’t right about the circumstances surrounding Hunter’s death. Mielikki Neith, a trusted state inspector and a true believer in the System, is assigned to find out what went wrong. Immersing herself in neural recordings of the interrogation, what she finds isn’t Hunter but rather a panorama of characters within Hunter’s psyche: a lovelorn financier in Athens who has a mystical experience with a shark; a brilliant alchemist in ancient Carthage confronting the unexpected outcome of her invention; an expat Ethiopian painter in London designing a controversial new video game, and a sociopathic disembodied intelligence from the distant future.
Embedded in the memories of these impossible lives lies a code which Neith must decipher to find out what Hunter is hiding. In the static between these stories, Neith begins to catch glimpses of the real Diana Hunter–and, alarmingly, of herself. The staggering consequences of what she finds will reverberate throughout the world.
A dazzling, panoramic achievement, and Nick Harkaway’s most brilliant work to date, Gnomon is peerless and profound, captivating and irreverent, as it pierces through strata of reality and consciousness, and illuminates how to set a mind free. It is a truly accomplished novel from a mind possessing a matchless wit infused with a deep humanity.
688 pages, Hardcover
First published October 19, 2017
1521 people are currently reading
13579 people want to read
About the author
Nick Harkaway
33 books53.7k followersNick Harkaway was born in Cornwall, UK in 1972. He is possessed of two explosively exciting eyebrows, which exert an almost hypnotic attraction over small children, dogs, and - thankfully - one ludicrously attractive human rights lawyer, to whom he is married.
He likes: oceans, mountains, lakes, valleys, and those little pigs made of marzipan they have in Switzerland at new year.
He does not like: bivalves. You just can't trust them.
He likes: oceans, mountains, lakes, valleys, and those little pigs made of marzipan they have in Switzerland at new year.
He does not like: bivalves. You just can't trust them.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,128 reviews
October 9, 2017
This is a strange multi-layered beast of a book set in a future Britain under total surveillance, governed by the System, where the majority of people remarkably believe this is a good thing. It is a dense and demanding sci-fi and fantasy read requiring attention and patience from the reader. It would be remiss of me not to mention that at 700+ pages, you need to prepared for the long haul. This is a sprawling tale which goes in a myriad of directions and left me bewildered as to where it was heading and what to make of what I was reading. Inspector Mielikki Neith of Witness is investigating the death of Diana Hunter, which to all intents to purposes should not have occurred whilst she was being interrogated. Diana was 61 years old, divorced with no children. She was an administrator and the writer of Quairendo, rumoured to contain secret truths hidden within it although this is disputed.
Inspector Neath is one of those who believes in the good of the system, but as she investigates she is forced to question her beliefs. Nothing is fixed, not even time or notions of reality. The story revolves around the complex issues of identity, shifting and changing realities and questions of what it all might mean, although the conclusion does help a little. I expect every reader to have different concepts and thoughts as to what this novel is about because it is difficult to discern what intentions the author has. This level of nebulousness is likely to leave many readers deeply frustrated. This is a difficult review to write, I find myself in the quandry of knowing I cannot do justice to this book or even delineate precisely what it is about. If you are happy to be left stranded to make of it what you will, then this is a book for you. There are detailed descriptions, it is beautifully written and slow paced. The vocabulary the author uses is extensive and likely to having you reach for the dictionary often. A novel that succeeds in leaving me shaking my head and, at the same time, enthralled. I am at a loss as to what else to say! Many thanks to Random House Cornerstone for an ARC.
Inspector Neath is one of those who believes in the good of the system, but as she investigates she is forced to question her beliefs. Nothing is fixed, not even time or notions of reality. The story revolves around the complex issues of identity, shifting and changing realities and questions of what it all might mean, although the conclusion does help a little. I expect every reader to have different concepts and thoughts as to what this novel is about because it is difficult to discern what intentions the author has. This level of nebulousness is likely to leave many readers deeply frustrated. This is a difficult review to write, I find myself in the quandry of knowing I cannot do justice to this book or even delineate precisely what it is about. If you are happy to be left stranded to make of it what you will, then this is a book for you. There are detailed descriptions, it is beautifully written and slow paced. The vocabulary the author uses is extensive and likely to having you reach for the dictionary often. A novel that succeeds in leaving me shaking my head and, at the same time, enthralled. I am at a loss as to what else to say! Many thanks to Random House Cornerstone for an ARC.
April 19, 2023
Long and complex mind game that is nothing less but modern Orwell.
Can a murder occur in a state controlled and surveillanced by an unprejudiced system? And can this system make such a mistake that will lead to someone’s death? In search for the answers author takes us through the hectic puzzle of various characters and events full of philosophical thoughts on human nature and democracy.
As the issue 'what's more important freedom or safety' keeps torturing our minds, the story seems very much up-to-date. Although the reader might be overwhelmed by an amount of pages and hundreds symbols and details, it's very well written and has exciting plot-twists.
Can a murder occur in a state controlled and surveillanced by an unprejudiced system? And can this system make such a mistake that will lead to someone’s death? In search for the answers author takes us through the hectic puzzle of various characters and events full of philosophical thoughts on human nature and democracy.
As the issue 'what's more important freedom or safety' keeps torturing our minds, the story seems very much up-to-date. Although the reader might be overwhelmed by an amount of pages and hundreds symbols and details, it's very well written and has exciting plot-twists.
August 27, 2017
Gnomon is actually a novel that defies description for all the right reasons, it is an epic, an ultimately rewarding read with so many layers inside the layers under the levels that hide the realities that your head will spin and you’ll come out of it feeling dazed and probably weirdly wired. Or maybe that is just me. We’ll see I guess…
The use of language is purely beautiful, a smorgasbord of differing voices all linked to the main bulk of the narrative through the eyes of the Inspector. Probably. But anyway – the point is, this is literary if you take it in the popularly defined way, as such it might not be for everybody and indeed may challenge you in ways I also can’t describe – but in the end you know not one word was wasted.
I feel I should try and explain a little about the plot but the blurb does that in some ways (but not at all in others) and I’m not sure that if I focus on any one element that I wouldn’t pick the wrong one to focus on. Peripherally it is about the investigation of an interrogation that has gone awry, in a UK run by “the System” that sees all and therefore by the people rather than a government, this is seen by most within that system as a genuine Utopia. I guess the main theme explored is whether such a thing is even possible, human nature being what it is. That is the simplest way of saying what I saw there but the next reader may well turn around and say “what the heck are you on, its not about that at all”
Now I’ve read back the above it probably isn’t about that….
ANYWAY there you go. Nick Harkaway has created a story that can be wildly interpretive or I suppose if you must, dissected bit by bit until you come to some thoughts about what the author intended – but I don’t think it matters what the author intended (sorry Mr Harkaway) but more matters whether or not you love it and get something from it under the guise of your own personality. I loved it but you can’t ask me why because I don’t really know and probably never will know. I do know that I will read it again in the future, first page to last, with the knowledge of the ending and it will be a completely different novel to the one that I have just read.
Basically I feel like I have just been swallowed by a shark.
Gnomon spoke to me in it’s final denouement but what it said I will never tell -because it’s going to tell you something different and I wouldn’t want to be called a liar – also because that is its reward for sticking with it, through the craziness and the sense of it as you absorb all those beautiful words and turn them into a whole.
Intelligent, driven, for me summed up in that blurb sentence that reads “a solution that steps sideways as you approach it” Gnomon is challenging, wonderful, descriptively fascinating, unrelentingly clever and in the end worth every moment of your time. A grand sprawling epic of indescribable proportions.
What can I say? Highly Recommended.
The use of language is purely beautiful, a smorgasbord of differing voices all linked to the main bulk of the narrative through the eyes of the Inspector. Probably. But anyway – the point is, this is literary if you take it in the popularly defined way, as such it might not be for everybody and indeed may challenge you in ways I also can’t describe – but in the end you know not one word was wasted.
I feel I should try and explain a little about the plot but the blurb does that in some ways (but not at all in others) and I’m not sure that if I focus on any one element that I wouldn’t pick the wrong one to focus on. Peripherally it is about the investigation of an interrogation that has gone awry, in a UK run by “the System” that sees all and therefore by the people rather than a government, this is seen by most within that system as a genuine Utopia. I guess the main theme explored is whether such a thing is even possible, human nature being what it is. That is the simplest way of saying what I saw there but the next reader may well turn around and say “what the heck are you on, its not about that at all”
Now I’ve read back the above it probably isn’t about that….
ANYWAY there you go. Nick Harkaway has created a story that can be wildly interpretive or I suppose if you must, dissected bit by bit until you come to some thoughts about what the author intended – but I don’t think it matters what the author intended (sorry Mr Harkaway) but more matters whether or not you love it and get something from it under the guise of your own personality. I loved it but you can’t ask me why because I don’t really know and probably never will know. I do know that I will read it again in the future, first page to last, with the knowledge of the ending and it will be a completely different novel to the one that I have just read.
Basically I feel like I have just been swallowed by a shark.
Gnomon spoke to me in it’s final denouement but what it said I will never tell -because it’s going to tell you something different and I wouldn’t want to be called a liar – also because that is its reward for sticking with it, through the craziness and the sense of it as you absorb all those beautiful words and turn them into a whole.
Intelligent, driven, for me summed up in that blurb sentence that reads “a solution that steps sideways as you approach it” Gnomon is challenging, wonderful, descriptively fascinating, unrelentingly clever and in the end worth every moment of your time. A grand sprawling epic of indescribable proportions.
What can I say? Highly Recommended.
April 21, 2018
This is one of those books that makes you feel that for years you've been killing time with other books, treading water offshore, waiting for a shark to find you. It stretches the sense of what books can do. It gets better the more you think about it, the more you give to it. It's not just a pageturner, though it's that... Not just a literary novel or a science fiction novel, though it's both... I think it really does find more space for the art.
Where's the goddamn sixth star?
Where's the goddamn sixth star?
February 22, 2025
I would have liked to have loved this one. But I didn't! It utilizes a futuristic imagination to create a Gross coming world in which everything there is to know about anyone is fully known. Sorry, Nick. Read my dreams.
Oh, I forgot - you can't. Nor can the state.
You can map the body, but not the mind. The brain? Yes, but our thoughts, no. Thoughts cannot be mapped, having themselves no substance.
You see, I don't go to that bleak self-destructive place of doom and gloom you live in anymore. I know Big Brother can't read my mind or soul!
It’s like in CATS: when a crime is committed, McCavity Just Ain’t There.
***
Rigid fatalistic determinism has been around since Adam was a submissive shoeshine boy for the Fallen Angels - who begat a Race of Giants, the powerful states and corporations of our time.
The slimy snake who thought he knew everything told him he could have the power to know everything and everyone like the back of his hand. But snakes can’t read minds either!
Relax, Adam. Sophocles called it hamartia! And it goes before a fall.
***
But yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as Hope. Hope in the little wonderful things of life that always cancel out the nightmare of the affectively narrow-minded Big Picture.
When we awaken after a restful sleep we're filled with New Hope.
It's in a warm smile. It's in a generous favour.
Hope springs eternal. Even in a society like ours.
So relax, Mr. Harkaway!
Open the Windows of your Mind, inhale the Fresh and be Happy for what you have.
And go back to basic simple realities!
You know, if you ask for nothing for yourself you get nothing.
The Peace we find then far outweighs the ugly complications of Gmomon's inextricable spider webs!
Oh, I forgot - you can't. Nor can the state.
You can map the body, but not the mind. The brain? Yes, but our thoughts, no. Thoughts cannot be mapped, having themselves no substance.
You see, I don't go to that bleak self-destructive place of doom and gloom you live in anymore. I know Big Brother can't read my mind or soul!
It’s like in CATS: when a crime is committed, McCavity Just Ain’t There.
***
Rigid fatalistic determinism has been around since Adam was a submissive shoeshine boy for the Fallen Angels - who begat a Race of Giants, the powerful states and corporations of our time.
The slimy snake who thought he knew everything told him he could have the power to know everything and everyone like the back of his hand. But snakes can’t read minds either!
Relax, Adam. Sophocles called it hamartia! And it goes before a fall.
***
But yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as Hope. Hope in the little wonderful things of life that always cancel out the nightmare of the affectively narrow-minded Big Picture.
When we awaken after a restful sleep we're filled with New Hope.
It's in a warm smile. It's in a generous favour.
Hope springs eternal. Even in a society like ours.
So relax, Mr. Harkaway!
Open the Windows of your Mind, inhale the Fresh and be Happy for what you have.
And go back to basic simple realities!
You know, if you ask for nothing for yourself you get nothing.
The Peace we find then far outweighs the ugly complications of Gmomon's inextricable spider webs!
February 24, 2020
Describing Gnomon is a challenge, because it’s simultaneously many different things: A cautionary tale about our modern moment’s convergence of technology, surveillance, and human hubris. A matryoshkian novel, as narratively complex as it is straightforward and readable, that is itself ultimately all about storytelling, narrative, and books. A satisfyingly self-aware postmodern book that wants access to your mind as a tool to self-propagate. A beautifully designed physical book (Chip Kidd doesn’t mess around). A book that teaches you how to read it as you read it.
Gnomon is also staggeringly vast in its scope and ambition: It’s about math, immigration, surveillance, sharks, encryption, ancient Rome, video games, economics, hive minds, the near future, the far future, liberty and security, mirrors and parallels, disconnection, right angles, mythology, time travel, social manipulation, the human connectome, steganography, racism, intertextuality, detective novels, religion, castouts, manipulation, our ever changing definition of reality, interrogation, torture, and so many, many other things.
If you like books by Borges, Neal Stephenson, Cherise Wolas, David Mitchell, David Foster Wallace or Ted Chiang, this is one I think you will immensely enjoy.
Gnomon is also staggeringly vast in its scope and ambition: It’s about math, immigration, surveillance, sharks, encryption, ancient Rome, video games, economics, hive minds, the near future, the far future, liberty and security, mirrors and parallels, disconnection, right angles, mythology, time travel, social manipulation, the human connectome, steganography, racism, intertextuality, detective novels, religion, castouts, manipulation, our ever changing definition of reality, interrogation, torture, and so many, many other things.
If you like books by Borges, Neal Stephenson, Cherise Wolas, David Mitchell, David Foster Wallace or Ted Chiang, this is one I think you will immensely enjoy.
May 22, 2018
DNF'ed at 32%. I tried. I really, really did.
Another week, Another DNF.
Scifi is one of my favorite genres but lately, it feels like every time I pick up a sci-fi novel to read - I'm extremely bored, confused, and disappointed. I received this book in a PageHabit box that a friend bought for me. Her heart was in the right place but this book belongs in the trash.
I did not care for the synopsis. Wow, another dystopian society where the government sees and records your every move. So shook, I've definitely haven't read this a thousand times before. This is such an innovative idea.
Basic af plot aside, my primary issue stems from the writing. The author is guilty of data dumping what feels like useless information for pages on end, to the point where the story almost feels convoluted. This shouldn't be a story that's difficult to follow and yet it was. There's a break in the narrative where one of the protagonists has what I can only describe as a spiritual experience with a shark. Yes. You read that right. Although it was one of the more interesting sections to read, I couldn't help but feel that the story was all over the place.
There were various sections where I had to pause my reading and I ask myself: "What is happening?"
I just don't understand how the pacing was so unbelievably slow and I still missed how entire sections went from point A to point B. This book just wasn't for me. I made it to page two-hundred and something and I couldn't get emotionally invested in any of the characters. They weren't even slightly interesting to me. The more I read, the more distant I felt from the story (and the recondite terms definitely didn't help).
Overall, it felt like I spent the majority of my time and effort on concentrating, on trying to understand what was happening rather than on enjoying anything. I'm sure this is a very clever book for some readers. I'm sure there are people out there who read this book and were mindblown, but I will never be one of those people.
Side note: I discovered a new pet peeve. Long af sentences to describe or state something that can be said in a few words. I don't need a 1k worded prose to tell me the sun is hot. Condense the writing, please.
May 28, 2018
When I reviewed Harkaway's novel Angelmaker five years ago, I expressed a worry that Harkaway was boxing himself in. That he had settled on exactly one application for his formidable talents -- a boisterous but ultimately fluffy type of sci-fi adventure story -- and that he was never going to do something rawer, more messily human, something with goals beyond the efficient optimization of entertainment density per page.
My fears were misplaced. Gnomon is, in many ways, the exact book I was hoping for from Harkaway when I wrote that review. It drops the "everyman hero meets a succession of endearing but disposable extras" structure of the earlier novels, and instead alternates between a cast of core characters who are each given ample space to breathe, to live, to speak in their own voices, to mess up, to be confused. It is about unsettling things, and it aims to unsettle the reader when appropriate; it does not think that we need to be strung along with the promise of candy on every new page, and its scenes and chapters do not break down nicely into different sugary flavors (the big fight, the comedy routine, the teary parting or reunion, the surgically deployed plot twist). It is clearly a heartfelt work by a man who wants to say something about the real world, even if he is entertaining us as he does it.
The only problem is that it . . . uh . . . isn't very good.
Part of the charm of Harkaway's earlier work was the way it under-promised and over-delivered. It was cheesy entertainment, executed uncommonly well. You could tell this Harkaway guy had talent to burn, but he wasn't rubbing his smarts and skills in your face: they were experienced as a long series of pleasant surprises, layered without fanfare over the competent, serviceable sci-fi adventure you knew you were getting when you bought your ticket.
In Gnomon, Harkaway over-promises and under-delivers. Fragments of esoterica or wordplay that would, in earlier novels, have been thrown as a light garnish onto one page and forgotten on the next are now treated with the utmost gravity, and expected to bear ten or twenty pages of load each. We are reading a detective story, and so every shiny tidbit Harkaway pulls out of his magpie's collection is a potential clue. The Greek word catabasis is mentioned early on, and then mentioned again, and mulled over by the detective. There are many catabases in this narrative, it turns out, and we are reminded of this regularly.
Words, phrases, and themes recur, and we are rarely allowed to forget that this is the sort of book where such things recur, and everything is or might be connected. We are supposed say, "oh, what a tangled web he weaves!", and in case we need helping along in this, we are nudged endlessly by the narrative, which -- no matter which character it follows, no matter which layer of the multiply nested metafiction (oh what a tangled web) -- never fails to notice, to admire or bemoan, its own tangled esoteric fancy meta nature.
All of this is clearly meant, sometimes, to touch upon topics of importance in ground-level, non-fictional reality. But with so many layers of misdirection, so many false leads whose false notes could well be features rather than bugs, it is hard to tell which notes are meant to be the true ones. When I balk at a near-future surveillance state whose creepy AI-overseen direct democracy is literally called "The System," am I just demanding too much realism from something whose fakeness has a tangled-web purpose? What am I to make of the fact that the overseeing AI is gifted with almost godlike abilities -- far beyond any reasonable extrapolation of present-day technology, and probably sufficient to pass the Turing Test and usher in a whole host of issues never raised in the narrative -- and yet can apparently be completely fooled by a widely known (but illegal) computer program which the detective downloads and uses later on in the story? If she can use this program, why isn't everyone using it, and why doesn't that completely destroy the orderly society she appears to live in?
At one point, a lawyer who knows she is being watched by an agent of a shadowy and powerful para-governmental organization says, to her clients, that this organization represents "a merger of state and corporate power." One of her clients, known to his friends as a weirdo conspiracy nut, later explains to the others that the lawyer passed them a clever covert message, by saying this -- a message only people like him, and apparently no one in the shadowy and powerful para-governmental organization, would understand. Have you got it yet? Have you been in the right classroom, or, hell, read the right Wikipedia page? Yes:
There are some good stories and characters, or at least parts of them, in here. They live and breathe for a time, each of them, but ultimately, this book is not about them. It is about its oh-so-tangled web, made up of little bits of book learning, strewn like bread crumbs for the detective and reader to pick up and marvel over. What we are left with is a very fancy, and intermittently very well done, version of a Dan Brown novel. But we are not promised Dan Brown and given something better; we are promised the world, and given Dan Brown.
My fears were misplaced. Gnomon is, in many ways, the exact book I was hoping for from Harkaway when I wrote that review. It drops the "everyman hero meets a succession of endearing but disposable extras" structure of the earlier novels, and instead alternates between a cast of core characters who are each given ample space to breathe, to live, to speak in their own voices, to mess up, to be confused. It is about unsettling things, and it aims to unsettle the reader when appropriate; it does not think that we need to be strung along with the promise of candy on every new page, and its scenes and chapters do not break down nicely into different sugary flavors (the big fight, the comedy routine, the teary parting or reunion, the surgically deployed plot twist). It is clearly a heartfelt work by a man who wants to say something about the real world, even if he is entertaining us as he does it.
The only problem is that it . . . uh . . . isn't very good.
Part of the charm of Harkaway's earlier work was the way it under-promised and over-delivered. It was cheesy entertainment, executed uncommonly well. You could tell this Harkaway guy had talent to burn, but he wasn't rubbing his smarts and skills in your face: they were experienced as a long series of pleasant surprises, layered without fanfare over the competent, serviceable sci-fi adventure you knew you were getting when you bought your ticket.
In Gnomon, Harkaway over-promises and under-delivers. Fragments of esoterica or wordplay that would, in earlier novels, have been thrown as a light garnish onto one page and forgotten on the next are now treated with the utmost gravity, and expected to bear ten or twenty pages of load each. We are reading a detective story, and so every shiny tidbit Harkaway pulls out of his magpie's collection is a potential clue. The Greek word catabasis is mentioned early on, and then mentioned again, and mulled over by the detective. There are many catabases in this narrative, it turns out, and we are reminded of this regularly.
Words, phrases, and themes recur, and we are rarely allowed to forget that this is the sort of book where such things recur, and everything is or might be connected. We are supposed say, "oh, what a tangled web he weaves!", and in case we need helping along in this, we are nudged endlessly by the narrative, which -- no matter which character it follows, no matter which layer of the multiply nested metafiction (oh what a tangled web) -- never fails to notice, to admire or bemoan, its own tangled esoteric fancy meta nature.
All of this is clearly meant, sometimes, to touch upon topics of importance in ground-level, non-fictional reality. But with so many layers of misdirection, so many false leads whose false notes could well be features rather than bugs, it is hard to tell which notes are meant to be the true ones. When I balk at a near-future surveillance state whose creepy AI-overseen direct democracy is literally called "The System," am I just demanding too much realism from something whose fakeness has a tangled-web purpose? What am I to make of the fact that the overseeing AI is gifted with almost godlike abilities -- far beyond any reasonable extrapolation of present-day technology, and probably sufficient to pass the Turing Test and usher in a whole host of issues never raised in the narrative -- and yet can apparently be completely fooled by a widely known (but illegal) computer program which the detective downloads and uses later on in the story? If she can use this program, why isn't everyone using it, and why doesn't that completely destroy the orderly society she appears to live in?
At one point, a lawyer who knows she is being watched by an agent of a shadowy and powerful para-governmental organization says, to her clients, that this organization represents "a merger of state and corporate power." One of her clients, known to his friends as a weirdo conspiracy nut, later explains to the others that the lawyer passed them a clever covert message, by saying this -- a message only people like him, and apparently no one in the shadowy and powerful para-governmental organization, would understand. Have you got it yet? Have you been in the right classroom, or, hell, read the right Wikipedia page? Yes:
“So the thing I said that she said she couldn’t advise on: that’s the thing she would advise if it wasn’t outside her professional competence. See? That’s what she thinks we ought to do. Blow it all wide open. But she can’t say that with squit in the room or they’ll say she advised us to break the law or whatever and take away her funny hat.”
“She’s a solicitor,” Annie said primly.
“Whatever. That’s what she’s telling us to do.”
“I thought she was telling us not to do that.”
“Yeah. Squit probably thinks so, too. Fuck him.”
“You’re getting all this from what she said about Turnpike?”
“Basically. It was a bit of a red flag. What, it really doesn’t mean anything at all to you? Still?”
“Colson,” Annie said. “You’re an info-rat. Not everyone’s brain works that way. The merger of state and corporate power: why is it important?”
Colson scowled as if both the question and the answer were part of some conspiracy of which he particularly disapproved. “It’s one of the basic victory conditions of Italian Fascism,” he said.
There are some good stories and characters, or at least parts of them, in here. They live and breathe for a time, each of them, but ultimately, this book is not about them. It is about its oh-so-tangled web, made up of little bits of book learning, strewn like bread crumbs for the detective and reader to pick up and marvel over. What we are left with is a very fancy, and intermittently very well done, version of a Dan Brown novel. But we are not promised Dan Brown and given something better; we are promised the world, and given Dan Brown.
December 3, 2017
First off, I received this as an ARC from Penguin Random House. Thank You.
This book fits squarely in the category "what in the heck did I just read". It kind of has a "House of Leaves" feel to it. It's like a Russian nesting doll and The Lament Configuration all in one big puzzle.
It does start off slow, but give it time. Once you start to work to puzzle out you will see why.
This story also screams undertones of Phillip K. Dick. So if you love Dick's work, this is a treat.
This book fits squarely in the category "what in the heck did I just read". It kind of has a "House of Leaves" feel to it. It's like a Russian nesting doll and The Lament Configuration all in one big puzzle.
It does start off slow, but give it time. Once you start to work to puzzle out you will see why.
This story also screams undertones of Phillip K. Dick. So if you love Dick's work, this is a treat.
October 10, 2017
This was far too dense for me. I can see that this is literary fantasy/ dystopia, but I really couldn’t get on with it. I like books, generally speaking,that make the reader “work for it” but I was doing all the work and not getting much pleasure!
Many thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Many thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
April 29, 2020
As I said previously, English is not my first language, but I dare to comment this complex novel. I must say that the book deserves a more extensive review.
Gnomon has a fascinating beginning, set in a future high surveilled UK, with the marvelous/nightmarish assistance of an artificial inteligence -the Witness- and the plot starts with a murder apparently impossible. So, the novel looks like good science fiction but then, as the different plots develops... well, It does not matter the genre: Gnomon is Gnomon. However, I can say that at the first chapters the expectations of this novel are high, but then...
I think this novel has strengs and weakness, and in a way both can have the same origin. I will try to explain this:
To begin with, the literary genius of Mr. Harkaway is undeniable. In a simplistic way, Gnomon has a multi-multi layered plot with a lot of knots (and some traps), a lot of dramatic moments (Athenais Karthagonensis, Berilun Bekele), also thrilling ones (the murder of Diana Hunter, Lenno Lönnrot), tragicomic scenes (Constantin Kyriakos) and sense of wondering aspects (the Witness, Gnomon). In addition, a lot of classic and religious references, some I know and some not; some can be true and some not (very interesting but for now I have had enough and I do not want to investigate more).
All of this is well written. Mi regret is Mr. Harkaway's insatiable desire to enrich his stories -that is, the four main plots of this novel-. As a result, for me, this is... mmm... not boring, of course not; but EXHAUSTING. And I must add that in the entire book you could not know where all this leads (perhaps nowhere).
The book has a lot of "artifices"; starting, as a little example, for the name of the british main character, the investigator Mielikki Neith: "She has no idea what possessed her mother to give her a Finnish name (...)". In this novel we will see a story inside a story, the History inside the story, meta literary games, endless phisolophical questions by the main characters and more, much more. All of this is good, well developed, excellent! But for me at last, this is also excessively baroque. As a result, by mid-reading I was already looking forward to finishing this book, and this can not be good (in some way it remembers me the latest Peter Jackson's movies: you can make it, but you must make it?). So, as I said, these excesses convert the virtues of this book in defects.
Finally, I must add that the resolution of the plot is not as good as I was expecting, or not as good as this novel deserves. So, is the literary style the most important aspect in a novel? For my taste not, if the book does not work entirely as a whole. And I say this not only as a science fiction reader.
Gnomon has a fascinating beginning, set in a future high surveilled UK, with the marvelous/nightmarish assistance of an artificial inteligence -the Witness- and the plot starts with a murder apparently impossible. So, the novel looks like good science fiction but then, as the different plots develops... well, It does not matter the genre: Gnomon is Gnomon. However, I can say that at the first chapters the expectations of this novel are high, but then...
I think this novel has strengs and weakness, and in a way both can have the same origin. I will try to explain this:
To begin with, the literary genius of Mr. Harkaway is undeniable. In a simplistic way, Gnomon has a multi-multi layered plot with a lot of knots (and some traps), a lot of dramatic moments (Athenais Karthagonensis, Berilun Bekele), also thrilling ones (the murder of Diana Hunter, Lenno Lönnrot), tragicomic scenes (Constantin Kyriakos) and sense of wondering aspects (the Witness, Gnomon). In addition, a lot of classic and religious references, some I know and some not; some can be true and some not (very interesting but for now I have had enough and I do not want to investigate more).
All of this is well written. Mi regret is Mr. Harkaway's insatiable desire to enrich his stories -that is, the four main plots of this novel-. As a result, for me, this is... mmm... not boring, of course not; but EXHAUSTING. And I must add that in the entire book you could not know where all this leads (perhaps nowhere).
The book has a lot of "artifices"; starting, as a little example, for the name of the british main character, the investigator Mielikki Neith: "She has no idea what possessed her mother to give her a Finnish name (...)". In this novel we will see a story inside a story, the History inside the story, meta literary games, endless phisolophical questions by the main characters and more, much more. All of this is good, well developed, excellent! But for me at last, this is also excessively baroque. As a result, by mid-reading I was already looking forward to finishing this book, and this can not be good (in some way it remembers me the latest Peter Jackson's movies: you can make it, but you must make it?). So, as I said, these excesses convert the virtues of this book in defects.
Finally, I must add that the resolution of the plot is not as good as I was expecting, or not as good as this novel deserves. So, is the literary style the most important aspect in a novel? For my taste not, if the book does not work entirely as a whole. And I say this not only as a science fiction reader.
January 6, 2025
4.0 Stars
This story has such a messy, winding narrative. I usually have a strong preference for tight narratives so this one really shouldn't have worked for me. Yet something about this novel worked with my brain. I loved it from the first few chapters. I found myself rereading paragraphs because I just wanted to spend time appreciating the writing. It's a long book and I didn't think it was perfect. I wish this one would have been a touch shorter because I eventually grew weary of the stylized writing.
This is a novel that I really enjoyed but I can't blindly recommend it to everyone. This will likely work best for readers looking for a unique narrative approach and don't mind a longer book.
This story has such a messy, winding narrative. I usually have a strong preference for tight narratives so this one really shouldn't have worked for me. Yet something about this novel worked with my brain. I loved it from the first few chapters. I found myself rereading paragraphs because I just wanted to spend time appreciating the writing. It's a long book and I didn't think it was perfect. I wish this one would have been a touch shorter because I eventually grew weary of the stylized writing.
This is a novel that I really enjoyed but I can't blindly recommend it to everyone. This will likely work best for readers looking for a unique narrative approach and don't mind a longer book.
February 22, 2019
A totally dense and complicated story, or actually, several stories, all layered and interleaving each other. What starts as a murder investigation by System's Inspector Mielikke Neith into a seriously failed interrogation of a woman, turns into a slow deciphering of a very complicated set of plans crafted by a brilliant mind. Along the way, the author poses many questions about identity, reality, surveillance, privacy, responsibility, the power of the state, storytelling, and probably a dozen other things. This is not an easy book to read, even while the language isn't terribly complex. My brain felt like it had been put through a heavy workout by the time I finally finished this fascinating and challenging book.
April 17, 2023
To date, the most challenging book I’ve read. Will need to reread this in the future.
May 30, 2018
Soo.... Nick Harkaway. He's a funny guy, yeah?
A funny guy with an enormous vocabulary.
Who likes to mess with his readers.
It's cool Nick. I didn't want to understand your book anyway, and just so you know we're cool, I gave it 4 stars, because you're a funny guy.
Seriously- trying to put this book into words is tremendously difficult. The running theme is: fugue, catabasis, apocatastasis, connectome, gnomon, the list goes on but these were the ones I had to Google enough times to remember. And just so we're clear, the kindle dictionary refuses to define or translate catabasis. We're good now though, I will never ever forget the meaning or translation of catabasis ever again. And for those of you sneering down your nose at me wondering where I get off calling these difficult- please know that some of them have multiple meanings and Harkaway does not find using all the meanings even a little daunting. It's all very clever in the end.
Furthermore- that is just a bare fraction of the words I had to attempt to define while reading this book. It is not for the faint of heart. It is not a light fluffy beach read. Do you have an engagement ring picked out? You're going to need it. This is a commitment.
Did it pay off in the end? I don't know that it did. At the heart of it was a glaringly obvious message that's been seen before. In much tinier packages. With less words.
However- for the parts that I did understand, it was a lot of fun. Constantine Kyriakos's chapter was pure unadulterated joy for me. I understood that sarcastic asshole on a level that is so very fundamental to my being. Berihun Bekele's story spoke to me. Made me want to weep for him, cheer for him. More than I wanted anyone else in this book to succeed, I wanted Bekele to succeed. Gnomon gave us a bunch of psychobabble that was delightfully wicked to read. The Inspector Neith chapters were fun, trying to solve the mystery with her, picking up on clues and connecting the threads.
I do think that Harkaway is clever. I will probably read his other work in the future. Not any time soon because my brain needs a break. But there are moments when reading this that I wondered at the genius of it. Gnomon is written in a very specific and precise way, and Harkaway, through words makes you feel like the Witness to these events which I do believe is how the reader is supposed to feel. Part of the book. Part of the characters. Part of the system. Are you for it, or against it? Even in the careless, reckless way in which I fumbled through this book- I was made to feel that way in the end. I might even consider a re-read of it someday, though I don't think I'd go it alone.
So- read this. Laugh with it. Rage at it. Weep for it. But do it over the course of a few weeks. Have Google ready. Get rid of the kids. Send them out with your SO in fact. Maybe they can take the dog too. Grab a cup of coffee and settle in for the long haul. I would recommend this to fans of dystopians looking for a good old fashioned riddle to solve.
A funny guy with an enormous vocabulary.
Who likes to mess with his readers.
It's cool Nick. I didn't want to understand your book anyway, and just so you know we're cool, I gave it 4 stars, because you're a funny guy.
Seriously- trying to put this book into words is tremendously difficult. The running theme is: fugue, catabasis, apocatastasis, connectome, gnomon, the list goes on but these were the ones I had to Google enough times to remember. And just so we're clear, the kindle dictionary refuses to define or translate catabasis. We're good now though, I will never ever forget the meaning or translation of catabasis ever again. And for those of you sneering down your nose at me wondering where I get off calling these difficult- please know that some of them have multiple meanings and Harkaway does not find using all the meanings even a little daunting. It's all very clever in the end.
Furthermore- that is just a bare fraction of the words I had to attempt to define while reading this book. It is not for the faint of heart. It is not a light fluffy beach read. Do you have an engagement ring picked out? You're going to need it. This is a commitment.
Did it pay off in the end? I don't know that it did. At the heart of it was a glaringly obvious message that's been seen before. In much tinier packages. With less words.
However- for the parts that I did understand, it was a lot of fun. Constantine Kyriakos's chapter was pure unadulterated joy for me. I understood that sarcastic asshole on a level that is so very fundamental to my being. Berihun Bekele's story spoke to me. Made me want to weep for him, cheer for him. More than I wanted anyone else in this book to succeed, I wanted Bekele to succeed. Gnomon gave us a bunch of psychobabble that was delightfully wicked to read. The Inspector Neith chapters were fun, trying to solve the mystery with her, picking up on clues and connecting the threads.
I do think that Harkaway is clever. I will probably read his other work in the future. Not any time soon because my brain needs a break. But there are moments when reading this that I wondered at the genius of it. Gnomon is written in a very specific and precise way, and Harkaway, through words makes you feel like the Witness to these events which I do believe is how the reader is supposed to feel. Part of the book. Part of the characters. Part of the system. Are you for it, or against it? Even in the careless, reckless way in which I fumbled through this book- I was made to feel that way in the end. I might even consider a re-read of it someday, though I don't think I'd go it alone.
So- read this. Laugh with it. Rage at it. Weep for it. But do it over the course of a few weeks. Have Google ready. Get rid of the kids. Send them out with your SO in fact. Maybe they can take the dog too. Grab a cup of coffee and settle in for the long haul. I would recommend this to fans of dystopians looking for a good old fashioned riddle to solve.
November 9, 2017
I normally read quite quickly – I’ve read 157 books so far this year. But this one took me nearly two weeks to complete. Partly it’s the fact that it is something of a doorstopper at over 700 pages, but the main reason was that early on I took the decision that I wouldn’t speed-read through this one. The prose is too rich, too dense – there are too many allusions and clues scattered throughout and as you may have gathered from the blurb, the structure isn’t all that straightforward, either.
It might have been tempting to have accelerated through it if I hadn’t been enjoying the experience so much. Harkaway is a remarkable writer and this is him at the peak of his capabilities. For all the depth and complexity, I found the book highly readable and engrossing. It would have been a real shame to have thrown away the experience by trying to skim through it. The writing is immersive and each character has their own flavour so that after a while, it only took a couple of lines to realise whose head I was in. Essentially, it is a thriller. But the puzzle is far more of the slow-burn variety, which doesn’t stop there being some jaw-dropping twists near the end.
For all their quirkiness, I was fond of all the characters, though my favourites remained dogged, persistent Inspector Mielikki Neith whose investigation of the untimely death of Diana Hunter in custody triggers the whole chain of events – and fierce, beautiful Athenais, once-mistress to Saint Augustine, before he decided to become so saintly. The characterisation is masterly and as I’m a sucker for character-led stories, it was their vividness and sheer oddness that sucked me in and kept me reading.
I also feel a similar anger that sparks through the book – the apathy of too many of us, the blind belief that if we put in place a whole raft of cameras and electronic surveillance, it will somehow be alright, no matter who ends up at the helm and in charge. This is a remarkable, brave book, deliberately constructed and written on an epic scale. Does it work? Oh yes. I loved it, but my firm advice would be – don’t rush it. If you try reading this one in a hurry, you’ll end up throwing it out of the window – and given its size, it may cause serious injury if it hits someone…
While I obtained the arc of Gnomon from the publisher via NetGalley, this has in no way influenced my unbiased review.
10/10
It might have been tempting to have accelerated through it if I hadn’t been enjoying the experience so much. Harkaway is a remarkable writer and this is him at the peak of his capabilities. For all the depth and complexity, I found the book highly readable and engrossing. It would have been a real shame to have thrown away the experience by trying to skim through it. The writing is immersive and each character has their own flavour so that after a while, it only took a couple of lines to realise whose head I was in. Essentially, it is a thriller. But the puzzle is far more of the slow-burn variety, which doesn’t stop there being some jaw-dropping twists near the end.
For all their quirkiness, I was fond of all the characters, though my favourites remained dogged, persistent Inspector Mielikki Neith whose investigation of the untimely death of Diana Hunter in custody triggers the whole chain of events – and fierce, beautiful Athenais, once-mistress to Saint Augustine, before he decided to become so saintly. The characterisation is masterly and as I’m a sucker for character-led stories, it was their vividness and sheer oddness that sucked me in and kept me reading.
I also feel a similar anger that sparks through the book – the apathy of too many of us, the blind belief that if we put in place a whole raft of cameras and electronic surveillance, it will somehow be alright, no matter who ends up at the helm and in charge. This is a remarkable, brave book, deliberately constructed and written on an epic scale. Does it work? Oh yes. I loved it, but my firm advice would be – don’t rush it. If you try reading this one in a hurry, you’ll end up throwing it out of the window – and given its size, it may cause serious injury if it hits someone…
While I obtained the arc of Gnomon from the publisher via NetGalley, this has in no way influenced my unbiased review.
10/10
October 23, 2021
The first novel that I have read by Nick Harkaway. From the initial blurb that I read on Netgalley and Goodreads, the book sounded great. However, for me this was a very slow read and when I first started reading the book it felt like the author had swallowed a dictionary. To be very honest and I know this sounds brutal, but I found it boring. This is only my opinion and I am sure many other readers will disagree with me. I'm very disappointed.
Many thanks to Netgalley for the copy in return for my honest and unbiased opinion.
Many thanks to Netgalley for the copy in return for my honest and unbiased opinion.
April 21, 2018
The bookshop is closed, but [the proprietor] goes down to the back office, puts on the kettle and opens the door. People will be very alarmed, and in his experience they always feel better knowing there's a bookshop open.
I did something extremely rare with this book – I re-read 150 pages to better understand what was actually happening. It worked, but... there's an incredible amount of complexity here, and I'm not sure it's all necessary.
First, big kudos for Harkaway attempting and (mostly) pulling off such a dense, difficult novel. There are no cheap shortcuts or tricks that are presented to the reader; there's complex (more to come on that) and complicated story threads, but it's all earned and well-done. The plot is delicately crafted, extremely creative, and fun. I enjoyed the solidly-built characters and the whodunit storylines the most. Harkaway has an amazing gift as a storyteller with an eye for the near future, and I'm a lifelong fan at this point.
There are two aspects of Gnomon that I think will throw off many readers, and both of them discouraged me as well, which I was not expecting. First off, there's difficult language. I need to find a way to rate the rarity of words (I can apparently pay $120 to purchase a ranking? But I'm not.) On the fifth page of the book, Harkaway used four words that I had never seen before. I'm used to letting one or two slip by sometimes, but to encounter four in a single page is unusual – and daunting for many readers. I had to (metaphorically) drag out the big dictionary on these, and I believe a simpler word would have sufficed. Luckily, it let up later on, but still: calm down.
The second item was the complexity of the plot. When the book ended, I sort of knew what had happened, but it didn't mesh properly. I knew there were a few things that I must have overlooked in how the story came together, or didn't understand correctly, but whole aspects of the story just didn't make sense. To a certain degree, I really do love piecing a mystery together, untangling everything and figuring it out. This came really close to my breaking point, however, and while I'm glad I went back and re-read those 150 pages to figure it out, I came very close to not doing that and being forever denied the true depth and intensity of the story.
I have a hard time recommending this as much as I would recommend Harkaway's other books, but it was still enjoyable and I wouldn't discourage anyone who is up for the challenge. Just don't forget your (metaphorical) dictionary.
---
For those reading this that are curious about the pieces I had to untangle to understand how the novel ends, I will try to spell it out here. I haven't been able to find this written out anywhere else online, and considering how much time I spent looking for it, I figure I won't be the only person who wishes it to be available. Apologies if this is in some way incorrect or incoherent.
July 24, 2018
They say "dysfunctional," but all I hear is "uppity."
—Diana Hunter, p.406
That one line sums up the late Diana Hunter pretty well, I think—even though it comes pretty late in Nick Harkaway's Gnomon, after a lot has already happened.
Hunter's dead, to begin with, and Inspector Meilikki Neith of the Witness needs to find out why. Hunter had already died before Gnomon begins, in fact. She died under Witness interrogation, too, and that's not supposed to happen anymore—in this near-future Britain, absolutely everything is recorded by the ubiquitous System, and officers of the Witness like Neith are (with the System's help, of course) always able to apprehend the perpetrators of what few crimes still occur, and to help them gently back into being productive members of society.
Inspector Neith's job should be easy. Hunter's final interrogation was no mere question-and-answer session; it's a full-sensory recording of her mental state, that Neith can dive into, stop and start, and explore at will.
But Diana's mind contains unexpected multitudes, and Meilikki cannot avoid being changed by what she encounters within.
*
The difficulty is cognitive I'm afraid.
—p.533
The difficulty is cognitive.
I'm afraid.
—later on p.533
Gnomon is ambitious, both in plot and in structure. It's recursive—fractal, even—residing for me in the same conceptual neighborhood as the film Inception. As Inspector Neith plays back what are supposed to be Diana Hunter's memories, she becomes immersed instead in the minds of other people, all somehow contained in Hunter's head. Constantine Kyriakos, brass-balled Greek financier; expatriate Ethiopian painter Berihun Bekele; Athenais Karthagonensis, lover of the man who became Saint Augustine; and one other, who may be the Gnomon of the title... all of whom have rich, full existences that the System recorded where only Hunter's was supposed to be. Was Diana mad? Or has she found an impossibly clever way to beat the System?
And... does the System even need to be beaten? The old tension between liberty and security seems to have been resolved in favor of both. While the Witness keep crime down to a minimum, the System also mediates an electronic democracy that gives everyone a voice and an unprecedented chance to participate directly in government. More people than ever before—both in numbers and by percentage—are happy with the way things are. It sounds like—it is—a nearly-perfect society.
Nearly...
*
The Gnomon itself is a multi-faceted metaphor. Most people know the word, if they know it all, as denoting the part of a sundial that sticks up to make the shadow... but as Nick Harkaway demonstrates throughout Gnomon, it refers to almost anything that is perpendicular, that sticks out... like a shark's fin. The numeral 4. Perhaps even Diana Hunter herself, standing up against the flow of history as she did. But then... I keep coming back to the Japanese saying... "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down."
We don't like our outliers much, we humans. But sometimes we need 'em.
*
After Nick Harkaway's earlier novels—The Gone-Away World, Angelmaker and Tigerman—had all impressed me greatly in completely different ways, I expected to like his fourth novel as well... and this is, in fact, exactly the kind of thing I want authors to write—it's the opposite of "seriesitis."
Some people have found this book less accessible than Harkaway's previous books, and I can understand that—it's much more complex and demanding, deeper and longer—but I became deeply immersed in Gnomon from the very beginning, as deeply immersed as Inspector Neith becomes by her case.
I would love to be able to weave myself into the fabric of the world as deeply as this.
The thing is, Nick Harkaway just keeps getting better. Gnomon is, again, an even richer work than its predecessors—and one that somehow manages to keep being fun as well.
Ultimately, it's really nothing like his earlier books, except in one all-important sense: it stands out as being very, very good.
September 30, 2021
Catabasis not for masses
Итак: дверь, которую можно открыть или закрыть; комната, что существует только иногда и лишь для имеющих глаза, чтобы видеть. Нужен ли вам ключ? Thus, a door that can be opened or closed, a room that exists only sometimes and only to those with the eyes to see. Would you like a key?
"Гномон" тренд сезона. По крайней мере, был таковым, пока COVID-19 не вытеснил из умов и серде�� прочие темы. На фоне коронованного вируса меркнет все, способное держать внимание. Что уж говорить о фантастическом романе, изначально заявленном как интеллектуальный, объемом под девять сотен страниц. Если бы еще тема как-то корреспондировала со злобой дня, вроде кингова "Противостояния" или "Станции Одиннадцать" Мандел. Но нет, реальность "Гномона" даже и не Мир, который сгинул, а вовсе утопия. Я не оговорилась, не антиутопия "1984" с Большим Братом, перманентно подозревающим граждан в мыслепреступлениях. Но идеально сбалансированное общество, где тотальный контроль "Свидетеля" диагностирует тупики на ранней стадии прохождения.
Своего рода страховочная сетка для предотвращения кризисов. Мир, где миллион камер нежно приглядывает за гражданами, чтобы не допустить агрессии и насилия, а регулярная процедура освидетельствования на одноименном аппарате стала большей рутиной, чем нынешняя диспансеризация. Полчаса-час обследования и в мозгах у тебя полный порядок: заглянем, почистим, проанализируем и устраним причины беспокойства лучше любого психотерапевта - продолжай идти по жизни в гармонии с собой и миром. Неудивительно, что престиж инспекции "Свидетеля" непререкаем, а на службу в эту структуру попадают лучшие из лучших.
Миеликки Нейт из таких. Больше того, молодая и амбициозная, она мечтает стать лучшим инспектором "Свидетеля". О том, что мечты небезосновательны, говорит скорое продвижение по карьерной лестнице, практически триумфальное шествие от самых рутинных случаев к сложным и запутанным. Как смерть Дианы Хантер во время освидетельствования. Ничем не примечательная пожилая одинокая тетка, в молодости написала пару романов и даже стала культовым автором для кучки молодых интеллектуалов. Нет, почитать никак, только на бумаге, ограниченным тиражом на руках у немногих поклонников, с которых взято обещание не оцифровывать.
Впрочем, с писательством она давно покончила, живет уединенно, к системе нелояльна. Говорят, учит молодых методикам ускользания за радиус обзора камер. Учила. пока не скончалась на "Свидетеле". Едва начав расследование, Нейт, в доме погибшей, подвергается нападению загадочного существа, возникшего словно из ниоткуда. Называет себя Лонрот, не мужчина не женщина, лицо скрыто, голос неидентифицируем, система не отреагировала на появление. Говорит, что может проходить сквозь стены. Врет, конечно, ну ничего, поймаем и расколем.
А непосредственно в ходе расследования выясняется две вещи. 1. Личность Дианы Хантер не была единственной в сознании погибшей, по сути, это многослойная стеганография (текст, скрывающий под собой другой) или матрешка, чтобы понятнее: нечто внутри другого, таких индивидуальностей четыре. 2. Процедура освидетельствования продолжалась не полчаса и не час, а больше двухсот шестидесяти часов. Одиннадцать суток ментального допроса, неудивительно, что пациент скорее мертв. По поводу второго необходимо побеседовать с коллегами, что не доставит удовольствия ни им, ни Нейт (честь мундира и всякое такое).
Что до первого: кто все эти люди?. Что ж, поехали. Константинас Кириакос, миллиардер, гений, плейбой. В прошлом ботан и задрот, обретший сверхспособности к финансовой аналитике в результате диковинного происшествия у берегов Эгейского моря, где плавал со своей девушкой Стеллой. Гигантская акула появилась из ниоткуда, любимая погибла, а Кириакос стал своего рода Мидасом - все, на что обратит взгляд, обращается в золото. Вы уже догадались, что счастья это ему не приносит? Потому что, правильно, ничто не заменит утраты любви. Да еще эта акула. Становится персональным тотемом и фетишем, а треугольный плавник (как вариант четверка в остроугольном написании) всюду преследует его.
Афинаида, умна и хороша собой, в прошлом возлюбленная Блаженного Августина (того самого, столпа христианства), оставленная им ради служения Богу. Сын подросток Диодатис, который последовал за отцом и погиб, был прислан ей Августином в гробу, заполненном медом. Примитивный, но действенный способ бальзамирования. И мед пахнул немного тленом, немного мочой, а вынуть тело юноши из вязкой массы было почти непосильно, но она справилась, конечно и затосковала навеки. Теперь призвана в качестве эксперта в недавно обнаруженную Камеру Исиды. Бредни, разумеется, вместе с тем безграмотным свитком, какой, якобы, найден внутри и обещает алгоритм воскрешения (помните историю Осириса, возвращенного сестрой-женой из мира мертвых?) Внезапно человек, доставивший ее сюда, найден убитым и расчлененным на пять частей. И ни капли крови - в точности как в предшествующем обряду жертвоприношении. Но что, если попробовать вернуть Диодатиса?
Художник Бекеле, слава пришла к нему рано, в конце бунтующих шестидесятых успел побыть символом нового искусства новой Африки и придворным живописцем императора Хайле Селассие, которого растафарианство, на минутку, считает земным воплощением Джа. После Военного переворота в Эфиопии друзья помогли ему эмигрировать в Англию, где прожил большую часть жизни, терзаемый горьким чувством вины и совершенно утратив былые лавры. Но вот внучка Энни предложила принять участие в проекте компьютерной игры, внезапно обретшей безумную популярность, вместе с деньгами, славой и ненавистью "народных масс", сопровождаемой всплесками агрессии, направленной на мигрантов. И тогда игра трансформируется, станет виртуальным концептом того, что после воплотится в реальность как проект "Свидетель".
Пятым будет загадочный Гномон, сверхинтеллект, способный творить и разрушать миры, трансформировать законы Вселенной. Которому для его непостижимой миссии необходимы все четверо творцов: писательница, эзотерик, математик, художник и охотница (Нейт одно из имен египетской богини охоты и войны, на всякий случай) - отражение Дианы Хантер. Такой зеркальный коридор, необходимый для странствия в иные пределы. То, что в культуре обозначается словом Катабасис - схождение. В Сути, пятый роман Ника Харкуэя есть нисхождение и последующий подъем по пяти концентрическим кругам. Действие. трансформирующее мир. Читать интересно, концовка великолепная.
На самом деле, чувства дополняют друг друга и каждое из них питает остальные. Труднее услышать кого-то. если вы не видите движения его губ. Труднее отличить холод от сырости, не ощущая запахов. In fact, the senses are complementary, each feeding the rest. It’s harder to hear someone if you cannot see their lips, harder to tell the difference between coldness and wetness if you cannot use your nose.
Итак: дверь, которую можно открыть или закрыть; комната, что существует только иногда и лишь для имеющих глаза, чтобы видеть. Нужен ли вам ключ? Thus, a door that can be opened or closed, a room that exists only sometimes and only to those with the eyes to see. Would you like a key?
"Гномон" тренд сезона. По крайней мере, был таковым, пока COVID-19 не вытеснил из умов и серде�� прочие темы. На фоне коронованного вируса меркнет все, способное держать внимание. Что уж говорить о фантастическом романе, изначально заявленном как интеллектуальный, объемом под девять сотен страниц. Если бы еще тема как-то корреспондировала со злобой дня, вроде кингова "Противостояния" или "Станции Одиннадцать" Мандел. Но нет, реальность "Гномона" даже и не Мир, который сгинул, а вовсе утопия. Я не оговорилась, не антиутопия "1984" с Большим Братом, перманентно подозревающим граждан в мыслепреступлениях. Но идеально сбалансированное общество, где тотальный контроль "Свидетеля" диагностирует тупики на ранней стадии прохождения.
Своего рода страховочная сетка для предотвращения кризисов. Мир, где миллион камер нежно приглядывает за гражданами, чтобы не допустить агрессии и насилия, а регулярная процедура освидетельствования на одноименном аппарате стала большей рутиной, чем нынешняя диспансеризация. Полчаса-час обследования и в мозгах у тебя полный порядок: заглянем, почистим, проанализируем и устраним причины беспокойства лучше любого психотерапевта - продолжай идти по жизни в гармонии с собой и миром. Неудивительно, что престиж инспекции "Свидетеля" непререкаем, а на службу в эту структуру попадают лучшие из лучших.
Миеликки Нейт из таких. Больше того, молодая и амбициозная, она мечтает стать лучшим инспектором "Свидетеля". О том, что мечты небезосновательны, говорит скорое продвижение по карьерной лестнице, практически триумфальное шествие от самых рутинных случаев к сложным и запутанным. Как смерть Дианы Хантер во время освидетельствования. Ничем не примечательная пожилая одинокая тетка, в молодости написала пару романов и даже стала культовым автором для кучки молодых интеллектуалов. Нет, почитать никак, только на бумаге, ограниченным тиражом на руках у немногих поклонников, с которых взято обещание не оцифровывать.
Впрочем, с писательством она давно покончила, живет уединенно, к системе нелояльна. Говорят, учит молодых методикам ускользания за радиус обзора камер. Учила. пока не скончалась на "Свидетеле". Едва начав расследование, Нейт, в доме погибшей, подвергается нападению загадочного существа, возникшего словно из ниоткуда. Называет себя Лонрот, не мужчина не женщина, лицо скрыто, голос неидентифицируем, система не отреагировала на появление. Говорит, что может проходить сквозь стены. Врет, конечно, ну ничего, поймаем и расколем.
А непосредственно в ходе расследования выясняется две вещи. 1. Личность Дианы Хантер не была единственной в сознании погибшей, по сути, это многослойная стеганография (текст, скрывающий под собой другой) или матрешка, чтобы понятнее: нечто внутри другого, таких индивидуальностей четыре. 2. Процедура освидетельствования продолжалась не полчаса и не час, а больше двухсот шестидесяти часов. Одиннадцать суток ментального допроса, неудивительно, что пациент скорее мертв. По поводу второго необходимо побеседовать с коллегами, что не доставит удовольствия ни им, ни Нейт (честь мундира и всякое такое).
Что до первого: кто все эти люди?. Что ж, поехали. Константинас Кириакос, миллиардер, гений, плейбой. В прошлом ботан и задрот, обретший сверхспособности к финансовой аналитике в результате диковинного происшествия у берегов Эгейского моря, где плавал со своей девушкой Стеллой. Гигантская акула появилась из ниоткуда, любимая погибла, а Кириакос стал своего рода Мидасом - все, на что обратит взгляд, обращается в золото. Вы уже догадались, что счастья это ему не приносит? Потому что, правильно, ничто не заменит утраты любви. Да еще эта акула. Становится персональным тотемом и фетишем, а треугольный плавник (как вариант четверка в остроугольном написании) всюду преследует его.
Афинаида, умна и хороша собой, в прошлом возлюбленная Блаженного Августина (того самого, столпа христианства), оставленная им ради служения Богу. Сын подросток Диодатис, который последовал за отцом и погиб, был прислан ей Августином в гробу, заполненном медом. Примитивный, но действенный способ бальзамирования. И мед пахнул немного тленом, немного мочой, а вынуть тело юноши из вязкой массы было почти непосильно, но она справилась, конечно и затосковала навеки. Теперь призвана в качестве эксперта в недавно обнаруженную Камеру Исиды. Бредни, разумеется, вместе с тем безграмотным свитком, какой, якобы, найден внутри и обещает алгоритм воскрешения (помните историю Осириса, возвращенного сестрой-женой из мира мертвых?) Внезапно человек, доставивший ее сюда, найден убитым и расчлененным на пять частей. И ни капли крови - в точности как в предшествующем обряду жертвоприношении. Но что, если попробовать вернуть Диодатиса?
Художник Бекеле, слава пришла к нему рано, в конце бунтующих шестидесятых успел побыть символом нового искусства новой Африки и придворным живописцем императора Хайле Селассие, которого растафарианство, на минутку, считает земным воплощением Джа. После Военного переворота в Эфиопии друзья помогли ему эмигрировать в Англию, где прожил большую часть жизни, терзаемый горьким чувством вины и совершенно утратив былые лавры. Но вот внучка Энни предложила принять участие в проекте компьютерной игры, внезапно обретшей безумную популярность, вместе с деньгами, славой и ненавистью "народных масс", сопровождаемой всплесками агрессии, направленной на мигрантов. И тогда игра трансформируется, станет виртуальным концептом того, что после воплотится в реальность как проект "Свидетель".
Пятым будет загадочный Гномон, сверхинтеллект, способный творить и разрушать миры, трансформировать законы Вселенной. Которому для его непостижимой миссии необходимы все четверо творцов: писательница, эзотерик, математик, художник и охотница (Нейт одно из имен египетской богини охоты и войны, на всякий случай) - отражение Дианы Хантер. Такой зеркальный коридор, необходимый для странствия в иные пределы. То, что в культуре обозначается словом Катабасис - схождение. В Сути, пятый роман Ника Харкуэя есть нисхождение и последующий подъем по пяти концентрическим кругам. Действие. трансформирующее мир. Читать интересно, концовка великолепная.
На самом деле, чувства дополняют друг друга и каждое из них питает остальные. Труднее услышать кого-то. если вы не видите движения его губ. Труднее отличить холод от сырости, не ощущая запахов. In fact, the senses are complementary, each feeding the rest. It’s harder to hear someone if you cannot see their lips, harder to tell the difference between coldness and wetness if you cannot use your nose.
December 7, 2017
You need to be match fit for a Nick Harkaway, you need to prepare for massive vocabulary, difficult concepts, layer upon layer of story and get yourself ready to be taken on a trip where you don't have a map and you just have to surrender yourself to the captain of the journey and trust you will get there in the end. Usually this works really well for me, but sadly not this time. I just couldn't get into it. I did love the complicated words, I liked the main character, but I got horribly confused. I wound myself in knots trying to get through this, then I walked away. I have loved all the other books I've read by this author, I knew what I was getting into, but I just couldn't make it to the end.
January 14, 2018
This took me so long to finish. One of the mist dense, confusing, intelligent and beautifully written novels Ive come across. Dont go in wanting a quick easy read. This 700 page behemoth will take awhile for thr average reader. Thisi is also more Lit than scifi. There were times I had to re read passages and even look up words haha. The blurb gives you a cergain background to the story but it doesnt really give you much. Even trying to describe what I read is impossible. My best friend also read it and we both took different ideas, concepts and views on what happened. If you like beautiful prose with a snail pace plot but with weird scifi concepts ( could be scarily true in a few years time) then give this a shot.
March 25, 2019
composition is collision, synthetic as much as original. Authors are accretors. (292)
Gnomon is Nick Harkaway's richest and most ambitious novel so far.
I've read all of Harkaway's novels (plus one that might be his, under a pseudonym) and count myself a fan. I love his odd worldbuilding, weird plots, and the combination of manic humor with stark tragedy, where pulp and geekery are taken seriously.
Gnomon does all of this, but ramped up. Here Harkaway seems to be wandering deeply into Borgesian territory, with a story concerning devious books, sideways conspiracies, and dreams within dreams. But he's also marching right onto David Mitchell's patch, since most of Gnomon is a nesting series of tales told by different narrators. The novel is also a riff on digitally structured surveillance state. Crashing back and forth across those architectonics are a police investigation, an alien invader, a kickass nuclear submarine, and games with codes and ciphers.
Naturally things get meta. Characters discuss codes, and the text contains many. Indeed, it leads with a cipher. And there are winks to the reader, like this:
Most successful book: The Mad Cartographer’s Garden, in which the reader is invited to untangle not only the puzzle that confronts the protagonists but also a separate one allegedly hidden in the text like a sort of enormous crossword clue... (6)FA LA JI RO JI JA is repeated often enough to make me want to start cracking.
There are other pleasures to Gnomon, like Harkaway's sly wit.
There are many advantages to the end of privacy, and one of them is the obsolescence of social awkwardness. The Inspector finds this outcome both efficient and laudable. (28)Characters are a treat to dive into, from the braggadocio-drenched, shark-haunted Greek banker to the sinister alien intelligences. There's also Harkaway's deep geekery, which lets him toss off references to "extremely rare and undervalued duodecimal quipus" and "locatively discursive spimes."
Finance by itself is ruthless, and that ruthlessness is its salvation. The real disasters are only possible when you bring politics into it, because politics is about pretending to care.(65)
Well. You don’t murder a universe without some degree of discomfort.(541)
It's easy to get lost in the novel's referential depths. On 216 we get one single mention of a character called Slade; I'd bet this is a quiet nod to David Mitchell's nifty Slade House. Later (322) the future narrator mentions the Last Redoubt; doubtless this bows to William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land (1912). A brief mention of "the Van Riper Principle" (356) surely points to the great US Marine, Paul Van Riper and his stunning 2002 wargame triumph. And a secret lair hidden "beneath the bust of Shakespeare" (604) - tell me that's not from the Adam West Batman tv series!
I relished swimming through those reference- and shark-infested depths. The climax went on a bit too long, perhaps. Otherwise, I welcome everyone to have a shot at dive in and FA LA JI RO JI JA.
November 26, 2017
Dystopian Science Fiction with a Confounding Edge
Gnomon is both high- and low-concept science fiction at their absolute best. At 700 pages, with a long, long cast of strong – and strange – characters, and a winding, snake-like plot that doubles back upon itself and sniffs along the way the rarefied air of philosophy, religion, and some funky not-too-distant future science, Gnomon is an oft-confusing, confounding work of near – and maybe total – genius.
It opens as technology-based dystopian fiction, in a near-future world where crime and disaffection have been brought under control by use of the Witness, a computer programme with added technological extras that make the actions of the population transparent and knowable, and thus predictable. Neith, one of the main narrators, is a police Inspector tasked with investigating the circumstances around the death of refusenik Diana Hunter, who lived a quiet life outside the system, as much as she was able, and who taught local children low-level rebellion and anarchy in a gentle and unalarming way. But as Inspector Neith is about to find out, there is much more to what she sees as an almost utopian society, and a great deal more to Diana Hunter, than meets the eye.
In this monster-sized novel, Harkaway ranges freely through deep science and spiritualism, the absurd and the ridiculous, the philosophy of life and death, and takes the reader on some long, wild rides through the outer edges of fantasy.
There were times when I wondered whether and how he could pull it all back together, but – with quite some skill – he manages to provide touchstones of reality in Neith, and at times Hunter, no matter how far he strays into the realms of weirdness.
It’s a beautiful book and well-deserving of a must-read recommendation. But it’s also a confusing one, with several narrators, and sudden unannounced switches in perspective and point-of-view, which makes it an incredibly demanding read – at many points I thought I was just getting the hang of it and was settling down for a nice comfortable, long home straight, and then the whole world would shift again, and I would find myself as bewildered as ever – a delicious feeling, as Harkaway has great authority in his writing, so that the confusion, and wretched feeling of being far out to sea, becomes a readerly rollercoaster of thrills and knife-edge tension that gripped me from first page to last.
Harkaway has pulled off an incredible feat of literary engineering, drawing together impossibly diverse threads of knowledge and narratives to an ultimate point that left me stunned and feeling somehow enlightened. Gnomon is the first book in a very long time of which I can say: this book changed my outlook on life.
I received a review copy of this book from the publisher
Gnomon is both high- and low-concept science fiction at their absolute best. At 700 pages, with a long, long cast of strong – and strange – characters, and a winding, snake-like plot that doubles back upon itself and sniffs along the way the rarefied air of philosophy, religion, and some funky not-too-distant future science, Gnomon is an oft-confusing, confounding work of near – and maybe total – genius.
It opens as technology-based dystopian fiction, in a near-future world where crime and disaffection have been brought under control by use of the Witness, a computer programme with added technological extras that make the actions of the population transparent and knowable, and thus predictable. Neith, one of the main narrators, is a police Inspector tasked with investigating the circumstances around the death of refusenik Diana Hunter, who lived a quiet life outside the system, as much as she was able, and who taught local children low-level rebellion and anarchy in a gentle and unalarming way. But as Inspector Neith is about to find out, there is much more to what she sees as an almost utopian society, and a great deal more to Diana Hunter, than meets the eye.
In this monster-sized novel, Harkaway ranges freely through deep science and spiritualism, the absurd and the ridiculous, the philosophy of life and death, and takes the reader on some long, wild rides through the outer edges of fantasy.
There were times when I wondered whether and how he could pull it all back together, but – with quite some skill – he manages to provide touchstones of reality in Neith, and at times Hunter, no matter how far he strays into the realms of weirdness.
It’s a beautiful book and well-deserving of a must-read recommendation. But it’s also a confusing one, with several narrators, and sudden unannounced switches in perspective and point-of-view, which makes it an incredibly demanding read – at many points I thought I was just getting the hang of it and was settling down for a nice comfortable, long home straight, and then the whole world would shift again, and I would find myself as bewildered as ever – a delicious feeling, as Harkaway has great authority in his writing, so that the confusion, and wretched feeling of being far out to sea, becomes a readerly rollercoaster of thrills and knife-edge tension that gripped me from first page to last.
Harkaway has pulled off an incredible feat of literary engineering, drawing together impossibly diverse threads of knowledge and narratives to an ultimate point that left me stunned and feeling somehow enlightened. Gnomon is the first book in a very long time of which I can say: this book changed my outlook on life.
I received a review copy of this book from the publisher
March 16, 2021
I received this book from Net galley, in exchange for an honest review.
In the reality of this near-future, Britain is a constantly surveilled direct democracy called The System, assisted by a ubiquitous AI The Witness which is constantly on hand to provide advice and information. And nobody seems to mind except a few subversives like Diana Hunter.
Ms Hunter has been called in for interrogation, a neural procedure that searches through the unconscious mind of the subject causing no harm and even correcting any mental defects or disturbances. Except that during her interrogation Hunter dies and Inspector Neith is brought into investigate.
Neith investigates by experiencing the neural records of Hunter’s interrogation where she encounters not the consciousness of Diana hunter herself but those of several other characters created in Hunter’s mind to delay and misdirect the investigators.
The story meanders off following the flow of each character’s narrative and the reader has to go with it.
To be honest I found it quite enjoyable although I became a little perturbed when we were a couple of hundred pages in and there was still no noticeable progress in the plot.
Everything was fine until we got to Gnomon itself. I don’t particularly like either AI narratives or stream of consciousness and for an awful lot of pages Gnomon was a combination of both. At first he was interesting and angry but after many paragraphs of his burbling I was reading the words but all I could hear was blah, blah blah.
This was one part of the manuscript that would have benefited from some courageous editing. Much, much less would have been so much more.
Word and themes kept being repeated in way that led me to believe the author wanted me to understand that these things were CONNECTED in some SIGNIFICANT way but they never coalesced into a comprehensive whole and many concepts were left dangling in an unsatisfying and partially comprehensible ending.
It is not that I couldn’t work out what it all meant just by then I didn’t care.
The author entangled the narrative in a level of complexity that never quite achieved its potential and left me feeling the story as a whole was less than the sum of its parts.
The parts I liked were a 4 even a 5 star novel but the baggy, draggy middle brought it down to barely 3 stars.
In the reality of this near-future, Britain is a constantly surveilled direct democracy called The System, assisted by a ubiquitous AI The Witness which is constantly on hand to provide advice and information. And nobody seems to mind except a few subversives like Diana Hunter.
Ms Hunter has been called in for interrogation, a neural procedure that searches through the unconscious mind of the subject causing no harm and even correcting any mental defects or disturbances. Except that during her interrogation Hunter dies and Inspector Neith is brought into investigate.
Neith investigates by experiencing the neural records of Hunter’s interrogation where she encounters not the consciousness of Diana hunter herself but those of several other characters created in Hunter’s mind to delay and misdirect the investigators.
The story meanders off following the flow of each character’s narrative and the reader has to go with it.
To be honest I found it quite enjoyable although I became a little perturbed when we were a couple of hundred pages in and there was still no noticeable progress in the plot.
Everything was fine until we got to Gnomon itself. I don’t particularly like either AI narratives or stream of consciousness and for an awful lot of pages Gnomon was a combination of both. At first he was interesting and angry but after many paragraphs of his burbling I was reading the words but all I could hear was blah, blah blah.
This was one part of the manuscript that would have benefited from some courageous editing. Much, much less would have been so much more.
Word and themes kept being repeated in way that led me to believe the author wanted me to understand that these things were CONNECTED in some SIGNIFICANT way but they never coalesced into a comprehensive whole and many concepts were left dangling in an unsatisfying and partially comprehensible ending.
It is not that I couldn’t work out what it all meant just by then I didn’t care.
The author entangled the narrative in a level of complexity that never quite achieved its potential and left me feeling the story as a whole was less than the sum of its parts.
The parts I liked were a 4 even a 5 star novel but the baggy, draggy middle brought it down to barely 3 stars.
March 6, 2018
Ambitious and creative novel set in a dystopian future and told through multiple intertwined voices - some actual, some fictional, some where it's not so clear. I wouldn't suggest I understood all of the twists and turns, or unpacked all of the dense cross-references, but the writing is excellent and the multiple turns of the screw are thoroughly enjoyable if you're willing to stick with the complex narrative. Definitely one of those books where you fell you'd get a lot more out of it the second time through.
January 4, 2021
Mini-Review:
3 Stars for Narration by Ben Onwukwe (Good Narrator but bad fit for this book.)
4 Stars for Concepts
2 Stars for Plot Execution, Abrupt POV Shifts, Hazy Setting
1 Star for Preachy Narrative
3.5 Stars for Characters (Some were better than others.)
** Recommend Reading Print vs Listening to Audio
Narration: Onwukwe is a good narrator but he was not a good fit for the story because there are multiple POVs. He's the kind of storyteller that has a narrative voice and adds emotional inflections with tone, speed, etc. However, he doesn't try to have a different voice for males/females/etc.
I decided to read Gnomon as my intro to Harkaway because it was one of the latest releases at the time.
Gnomon is a quirky story about what it would be like if there was a computer system in place to watch every move & stopping people from enacting crimes or catching them. I think the story would have been stronger if the author had chosen a linear time line and focused on having one main character vs a handful of notables. Why? I enjoyed the character focused parts more than the stream of consciousness rant/preach/rambles.
Harkaway has a cool way of making the story feel textured. Like its a physical object that you can touch. Then he goes off in a thought experiment or emotional abstract and things get fuzzy. There's not enough science to make the story a hard SF. It's a decent speculative fiction set in some future time.
A few things about one of the characters, placement of the story and other minor but key points made me ask why. It didn't feel like I was reading about an African man. It generally felt like I was reading about a white guy in future-ish London.
In the end, the story was okay but failed to leave a lasting impression. I may have enjoyed it more by reading but I'm not sure. I'll definitely try out another story by Harkaway. There were good phrases & sequences in the book. I hope to read a story that is more cohesive & not as preachy.
3 Stars for Narration by Ben Onwukwe (Good Narrator but bad fit for this book.)
4 Stars for Concepts
2 Stars for Plot Execution, Abrupt POV Shifts, Hazy Setting
1 Star for Preachy Narrative
3.5 Stars for Characters (Some were better than others.)
** Recommend Reading Print vs Listening to Audio
Narration: Onwukwe is a good narrator but he was not a good fit for the story because there are multiple POVs. He's the kind of storyteller that has a narrative voice and adds emotional inflections with tone, speed, etc. However, he doesn't try to have a different voice for males/females/etc.
I decided to read Gnomon as my intro to Harkaway because it was one of the latest releases at the time.
Gnomon is a quirky story about what it would be like if there was a computer system in place to watch every move & stopping people from enacting crimes or catching them. I think the story would have been stronger if the author had chosen a linear time line and focused on having one main character vs a handful of notables. Why? I enjoyed the character focused parts more than the stream of consciousness rant/preach/rambles.
Harkaway has a cool way of making the story feel textured. Like its a physical object that you can touch. Then he goes off in a thought experiment or emotional abstract and things get fuzzy. There's not enough science to make the story a hard SF. It's a decent speculative fiction set in some future time.
A few things about one of the characters, placement of the story and other minor but key points made me ask why. It didn't feel like I was reading about an African man. It generally felt like I was reading about a white guy in future-ish London.
In the end, the story was okay but failed to leave a lasting impression. I may have enjoyed it more by reading but I'm not sure. I'll definitely try out another story by Harkaway. There were good phrases & sequences in the book. I hope to read a story that is more cohesive & not as preachy.
December 26, 2018
3.5 rounded down
I could have easily rounded up, and considering the investment I took when reading (listening) to this book (29 hour audiobook people!) maybe I should have given it a bit more benefit of the doubt. But that said, I also expect books that make readers put in such enormous efforts to be a bit more satisfying.
Gnomon is part scifi dystopic fiction, part detective thriller, with dashes of Inception and the Matrix, exploring the world of unconsciousness and dreams. Taking place in the near future, in a world where all is transparent, including our most intimate thoughts, a dissident woman, Diana Hunter, is accidentally killed during an interrogation by the "system" into her thoughts, something that has never occurred before. Brought into investigate is Mielikki Neith, who begins to explore Hunter's subconsciousness only to discover that layered among Hunter's thoughts are four distinct personalities with complete histories. Neith must figure out why these memories (false or real) are in Hunter's mind.
As one can tell from the bare bone synopsis this story is quite confusing, as Harkaway goes into depth for each of these personalities, often switching voices and perspectives midstream. Each transition is made with a philosopher's flare, as the character laments about big questions of life, faith, mortality, love etc etc. Despite this, he manages to bring things slowly together, through Neith, who begins to slowly understand that her role in the mystery may be much more than inspector.
In someways, Harkaway sticks the landing, the ending a shock but also making sense. That said, without giving anything away, it was a bit derivative, and not quite as satisfying after one thinks about it. After 29 hours (or 700 pages) I wanted to be blown away and I just wasn't.
One more thing about the audiobook. The narrator has a powerful voice and it is a well done production. That said, I found there was inconsistencies in the accents. Neith is Scottish, but the narrator only uses a Scottish accent when she is speaking not for her internal thoughts. Similarly, one of the personalities in Hunter's brain is Greek, but the accent only was there when he speaks. I found this frustrating and made following an already jumbled plot that much more difficult.
Good luck to anyone else who decides to conquer this beast.
I could have easily rounded up, and considering the investment I took when reading (listening) to this book (29 hour audiobook people!) maybe I should have given it a bit more benefit of the doubt. But that said, I also expect books that make readers put in such enormous efforts to be a bit more satisfying.
Gnomon is part scifi dystopic fiction, part detective thriller, with dashes of Inception and the Matrix, exploring the world of unconsciousness and dreams. Taking place in the near future, in a world where all is transparent, including our most intimate thoughts, a dissident woman, Diana Hunter, is accidentally killed during an interrogation by the "system" into her thoughts, something that has never occurred before. Brought into investigate is Mielikki Neith, who begins to explore Hunter's subconsciousness only to discover that layered among Hunter's thoughts are four distinct personalities with complete histories. Neith must figure out why these memories (false or real) are in Hunter's mind.
As one can tell from the bare bone synopsis this story is quite confusing, as Harkaway goes into depth for each of these personalities, often switching voices and perspectives midstream. Each transition is made with a philosopher's flare, as the character laments about big questions of life, faith, mortality, love etc etc. Despite this, he manages to bring things slowly together, through Neith, who begins to slowly understand that her role in the mystery may be much more than inspector.
In someways, Harkaway sticks the landing, the ending a shock but also making sense. That said, without giving anything away, it was a bit derivative, and not quite as satisfying after one thinks about it. After 29 hours (or 700 pages) I wanted to be blown away and I just wasn't.
One more thing about the audiobook. The narrator has a powerful voice and it is a well done production. That said, I found there was inconsistencies in the accents. Neith is Scottish, but the narrator only uses a Scottish accent when she is speaking not for her internal thoughts. Similarly, one of the personalities in Hunter's brain is Greek, but the accent only was there when he speaks. I found this frustrating and made following an already jumbled plot that much more difficult.
Good luck to anyone else who decides to conquer this beast.
February 14, 2018
Nick Harkaway is a literary genius, and we wander through his remarkably twisted (in both senses) mind as he takes us down a labyrinthine rabbit hole to rival any and all rabbit holes. Gnomon is one of the most ambitious and imaginative books I have ever read. It is its own unique self while hearkening to (and perhaps paying homage to) Jorge Luis Borges's short stories, Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves, Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts, and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.
I could no more summarize Gnomon than I could the Bible. This is a dense novel--both literally (in terms of its physical size and weight) and intellectually. It is not an easy read, and if you find yourself lost in the journey that it takes you on, don't be surprised, for what else would you expect from diving into the whirlwind?
As I was starting to write this paragraph, I intended to give my justification for rating this novel four stars instead of five. I was going to say that this was a novel that I very much appreciated but did not thoroughly enjoy, and then I immediately went and changed my rating from four to five stars because, although it was a difficult read and not always enjoyable, to rate it only four stars would be an injustice. Yes, it is a long read and is often arduous. You can't just breeze through it like some airport thriller or the sci-fi flavor of the month. This novel is not for the faint of heart. Gnomon is brilliant. It left me breathless.
I have a feeling that Gnomon, like Danielewski's House of Leaves, will be one that, years from now, will continue to stand out in my memory for the sheer audacity of the author's vision and the intricate precision of its execution.
I often finish a novel and remark to myself how much I enjoyed it. It's not difficult to write interesting and enjoyable novels. But rarely do I finish a novel and say to myself, "That was impressive." Gnomon is impressive.
I could no more summarize Gnomon than I could the Bible. This is a dense novel--both literally (in terms of its physical size and weight) and intellectually. It is not an easy read, and if you find yourself lost in the journey that it takes you on, don't be surprised, for what else would you expect from diving into the whirlwind?
As I was starting to write this paragraph, I intended to give my justification for rating this novel four stars instead of five. I was going to say that this was a novel that I very much appreciated but did not thoroughly enjoy, and then I immediately went and changed my rating from four to five stars because, although it was a difficult read and not always enjoyable, to rate it only four stars would be an injustice. Yes, it is a long read and is often arduous. You can't just breeze through it like some airport thriller or the sci-fi flavor of the month. This novel is not for the faint of heart. Gnomon is brilliant. It left me breathless.
I have a feeling that Gnomon, like Danielewski's House of Leaves, will be one that, years from now, will continue to stand out in my memory for the sheer audacity of the author's vision and the intricate precision of its execution.
I often finish a novel and remark to myself how much I enjoyed it. It's not difficult to write interesting and enjoyable novels. But rarely do I finish a novel and say to myself, "That was impressive." Gnomon is impressive.
February 18, 2019
4.5 stars
This book is dense and not an easy and quick read at all. Also, I probably lengthened the time spent with this book by about 10% just because I kept having to look up words I did not know. I went back and forth while reading between "I'm loving this narrative and these characters!" to "ugh, I have no idea what is happening and I wish the narrator would condense what he was trying to say". I persevered, though, and was richly rewarded at the end. All the threads came together to create a world and puzzle to stand back and admire. Two days later, I'm still thinking about how certain things fit together and what the implications are. Even though there were some frustrating reading sessions with this book, what this book did not fail to do is create a wide array of colorful characters and fully detailed worlds.
I'm not going to attempt to even start describing what this book is about as the synopsis does a fine job at giving a very simple overview. But be ready for a dive into a world where the maze is not what it seems from the surface.
This book is dense and not an easy and quick read at all. Also, I probably lengthened the time spent with this book by about 10% just because I kept having to look up words I did not know. I went back and forth while reading between "I'm loving this narrative and these characters!" to "ugh, I have no idea what is happening and I wish the narrator would condense what he was trying to say". I persevered, though, and was richly rewarded at the end. All the threads came together to create a world and puzzle to stand back and admire. Two days later, I'm still thinking about how certain things fit together and what the implications are. Even though there were some frustrating reading sessions with this book, what this book did not fail to do is create a wide array of colorful characters and fully detailed worlds.
I'm not going to attempt to even start describing what this book is about as the synopsis does a fine job at giving a very simple overview. But be ready for a dive into a world where the maze is not what it seems from the surface.
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