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The Wall

John Lanchester

3.61 · Rating details · 11,309 ratings · 1,431 reviews

Ravaged by the Change, an island nation in a time very like our own has built the Wall―an enormous concrete barrier around its entire coastline. Joseph Kavanagh, a new Defender, has one task: to protect his section of the Wall from the Others, the desperate souls who are trapped amid the rising seas outside and are a constant threat. Failure will result in death or a fate ...more

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Paperback, 272 pages

Published March 17th 2020 by W. W. Norton Company (first published January 17th 2019)

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Jul 26, 2019 Marchpane rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-releases

Dull, pedestrian dystopia

I’m not really sure who the target readership is for The Wall , John Lanchester’s Booker-longlisted novel about a post climate change future. As a work of genre fiction – a cli-fi dystopia – it is derivative and stale. It’s also unsatisfying as literary fiction, with flat prose, undeveloped themes and cardboard characters. The callow young narrator and a tendency to over-explain the obvious might tip it towards the YA category, but YA readers are likely to find it plo Dull, pedestrian dystopia

I’m not really sure who the target readership is for The Wall , John Lanchester’s Booker-longlisted novel about a post climate change future. As a work of genre fiction – a cli-fi dystopia – it is derivative and stale. It’s also unsatisfying as literary fiction, with flat prose, undeveloped themes and cardboard characters. The callow young narrator and a tendency to over-explain the obvious might tip it towards the YA category, but YA readers are likely to find it plodding and dull.

The plot ambles aimlessly, then rushes to a deeply unsatisfying conclusion. Atmosphere and world-building are lacklustre, while character development is scant. We are introduced to a couple of duplicitous, potentially interesting individuals, but those stories end up going nowhere.

The expository set-up takes up the first quarter of the book. That’s a lot of info-dumping to foist on a reader before the plot fires up but even so, the world-building is thin, full of hoary clichés and bland terminology: Defenders, Others, Breeders, the Change, the Wall. Tedious details are numerous (the dimensions of the Wall, the Defenders’ daily routine, etc) while important ones are omitted (why does an island nation need to gird itself with a 10,000km solid wall against leaky refugee boats? Where’s the Navy? Why hasn’t their economy totally collapsed? Did they close off all the ports too? Why are traitors put out to sea on a small, well-provisioned boat instead of just executing them?)

Perhaps in keeping with the laxity of world-building, The Wall pays little heed to causal effects of the Change, thus torpedoing its worth as a credible climate change novel. Sea levels have risen so much that ‘there are no beaches left in the world’ but the characters catch a train to a seemingly unaltered London – surely the Thames would swallow half the city. Elsewhere, an unnamed river “still looks more or less the same” as before the Change; this is handwaved away as ‘accidents of topography’. Supplies of comestibles like tea, chocolate, and beef are apparently unaffected by a worldwide climate catastrophe. But the most implausible aspects of the book are too spoiler-y to mention.

These critiques could be brushed aside if this narrative worked as a fable, social comment, allegory or cautionary tale, but I thought it was equally facile in that respect. The book fumbles with issues of nativism and xenophobia, but fails to properly interrogate this theme or offer any insights. A really good dystopian novel can pose existential questions, hold a mirror to society, reframe the human experience, or skewer preconceptions. The Wall offers nothing so sophisticated and relies on the reader to extrapolate meaning from its malleable premise.

For me, The Wall was about as nuanced as a giant slab of grey concrete, and just as interesting. 1.5 stars. ...more

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Oct 30, 2019 Paula rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Dystopian fans

Recommended to Paula by: Booker

Shelves: booker-prize-nominee, favorite-books, read-in-2019, dystopia, published-2019, literary-fiction, e-audio

Longlisted for the Booker prize 2019

I very much enjoyed this suspenseful and atmospheric dystopian novel. Maybe because it is so plausible.

THERE ARE NO BEACHES LEFT...the Change has happened and the climate is past fixing. Set on an island (sounds like the UK) British author, John Lanchester, takes the reader to The Wall. It’s COLD, very COLD, and the author makes you feel like you are there. The Defenders man The Wall which surrounds the border. Young people are drafted for 2 years to protect ...more

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Feb 06, 2019 Meike rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: uk, 2019-booker, 2019-read

Now Nominated for the Booker Prize 2019
The genius of Lanchester's "The Wall" is that this dystopia simply envisions what might happen if we go on like this: The sea levels have risen dramatically due to climate change, Britain has build a wall around the whole island, and people who flee from the South to the North are combated like enemies in a war. Is this the most subtle book ever written? Hell no, but this author does not seem to think that the problems we are facing scream for excessive su Now Nominated for the Booker Prize 2019
The genius of Lanchester's "The Wall" is that this dystopia simply envisions what might happen if we go on like this: The sea levels have risen dramatically due to climate change, Britain has build a wall around the whole island, and people who flee from the South to the North are combated like enemies in a war. Is this the most subtle book ever written? Hell no, but this author does not seem to think that the problems we are facing scream for excessive subtlety, and I don't blame him for it.

At the beginning of the book, our narrator Joseph Kavanagh starts his mandatory military service as a "Defender" (yes, there's some newspeak - hello, Orwell!): At all times, 50.000 enlistees are standing on the defense wall to keep "the Others" out. Vast parts of the first third of the book mirror the mixture of boredom, fear, and anger that possesses the soldiers during their service, and Lanchester develops a theme that proved to be the most fascinating to me: He questions the dynamics of blame, guilt and responsibility. Young people blame their parents for letting "the Change" (i.e. climate change) happen, but the majority of society as a whole approves of the wall, the killing and the enslavement of refugees and also the fact that those "Defenders" who fail to keep foreigners out are themselves exiled to the sea - so almost every young person is threatened to become one of "the Others", and what would happen then?

When finally a big attack occurs, the novel gains speed and becomes a real page-turner. I was particularly fascinated by the role of a high-ranking soldier who was one of the last refugees who made it into the country without being killed and then became a "Defender" - this character illustrates the connection between perspective, fear, and ethics. At the same time, Kavanagh is sometimes hard to bear as a narrator: He feels victimized and constantly expects people to apologize (which they don't do) without realizing that he himself - a guy who borrows slaves and stands on a wall to kill refugees - certainly cannot claim innocence or moral superiority. In this story, most people point their fingers at each other and do nothing, which is of course how all great man-made catastrophes happen.

So all in all, this book is a little crude, and it's not the most literary text ever written - which at the same time makes sense, of course, because the narrative voice is true to Kavanagh, the narrator. You have to give it to Lanchester though that he talks about important issues and points out the cynicism that is at the heart of right-wing nationalism. And while Lanchester claims that Brexit wasn't his main focus when he wrote the book, though he was certainly influenced by it, the book is clearly more terrifying if you have been following British politics, which is currently operating in a mode of self-destruction. This doesn't mean that this book isn't relevant for and reflective of tendencies in other parts of the world as well. For me as a citizen of a country that was divided by a wall where refugees did get shot, it's aggravating to think that walls are still discussed as policy, when in fact they are a means of war. ...more

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Oct 23, 2019 Jenna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia

"I had been brought up not to think about the Others in terms of where they came from or who they were, to ignore all that—they were just Others."

Npc Maga GIF - Npc Maga Wall GIFs

Wall: "A high thick masonry structure forming a long rampart or an enclosure chiefly for defense" . (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

For millennia, humans have built walls to keep people in -- and to keep people out. We've all unfortunately heard trump's spiel about how we need to build a wall to keep out all those "criminals, drug dealers, rapists" (ie "Others"). How we need to defend our "great" 🤔 country and keep out all the evil others who would surely harm us and take what belongs to us, if given the chance to weasel their way into this great (cough, cough) land.

Americans are not alone in wanting to keep out "OTHERS". Anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise throughout the Western world. In The Wall, John Lanchester imagines a time in the near future when climate change (the Change) has made resources scarce in much of the world. The novel takes place in an unnamed island country (the citizens speak with British slang and I took it to be England/UK) where a wall has been erected around its entire perimeter. Because the citizens of this country have sufficient resources, they are worried about Others coming and taking what they think is rightfully theirs. Indeed, people do try to get over the wall and because of that, each citizen (excluding the few Elite) must do a 2 year stint as a Defender of the Wall.

As our protagonist Joseph quickly finds out, the Wall is a brutally cold place and the shifts are long and tortuous. One mustn't ever let down one's guard, because Others might sneak over the wall and if that happens, whoever is on watch will be banished. They will have the chip removed that allows them to function as a citizen of this country, and be put on a raft out to sea.

I loved the first two-thirds of this book; it is told from Joseph's POV and I loved knowing his thoughts as he began his duty on the Wall. I loved learning the rules and rationale, seeing how life on the Wall was. Mr. Lanchester described the extreme cold in such detail that I kept wanting to grab a blanket whilst reading... though I didn't really need one. And how I LOVED reading about that cold, especially every time I was in the middle of a dreaded hot flash!

However, some things didn't make much sense. I didn't understand why punishment for an Other getting over the Wall was banishment. Why not just extend one's time as Defender? We are told that there are a shortage of people to defend the wall, thus the required 2 year stint of all citizens... except those who agree to breed because then they will be creating future Defenders. So, if you agree to have a bunch of heterosexual sex and pop out a baby or two, then you can get off the Wall. (You would think ALL the young people who are straight or even bi would sign up for that, but no. They are angry at their own parents for bringing them into this ruined world and do not want to do that to another human being). The powers that be are worried about there not being enough people to defend the wall, so why don't they just allow some people (Others) to become citizens?? And why use banishment as a punishment? That makes no sense, but since it's a novel, it doesn't really have to -- though it's better when it does!

The first two-thirds of this book -- 5 stars. Then we get to the final third and it just petered out. I felt like the author got bored writing the book and looked for a quick way to end it. As such, I found the ending unsatisfactory. Perhaps that's just me though and others (ha, ha!) will like the ending. It's a good story for the most part, and one to make us think about who "Others" really are. Instead of hating and fearing those we perceive as different, we should instead recognise our common humanity and feel compassion for those seeking refuge or a better life. ...more

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Feb 17, 2019 Peter Boyle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: speculative-fiction

We're not short on dystopian stories these days. One would think that readers might like to escape the daily news cycle of doom and gloom, but our appetite for apocalyptic thrillers shows no signs of abating. The Wall is one of the more considered and thoughtful offerings. If you're a fan of the kind of speculative fiction that Margaret Atwood does so well, you might want to check it out.

The story is set sometime in the near future. A major climate event has occurred, causing sea levels to rise. We're not short on dystopian stories these days. One would think that readers might like to escape the daily news cycle of doom and gloom, but our appetite for apocalyptic thrillers shows no signs of abating. The Wall is one of the more considered and thoughtful offerings. If you're a fan of the kind of speculative fiction that Margaret Atwood does so well, you might want to check it out.

The story is set sometime in the near future. A major climate event has occurred, causing sea levels to rise. There are no beaches left in the world. Many countries have built a wall around their entire coastline, to stop the ocean from encroaching, but also to prevent migrants (or Others as they are called) from entering. In Britain, it is mandatory for young people to carry out national service, protecting the border. The draftees who serve on the Wall are known as Defenders, trained to kill Others who attempt to enter the country via sea. Kavanagh is one such Defender and he is our narrator.

Understandably, there is a sense of resentment among Kavanagh and his peers. They have never experienced a world that wasn't ravaged by climate change. But their parents have, and it "broke on their watch." Home on leave between Wall shifts, Kavanagh can't even look his folks in the eye: "... the Change was not a single solitary event. We speak of it in that manner because here we experienced one particular shift, of sea level and weather, over a period of years it is true, but it felt then and when we look back on it today still feels like an incident that happened, a defined moment in time with a before and an after. There was our parents’ world, and now there is our world."

It's not hard to read between the lines and uncover the allegorical meanings at play. John Lanchester pores over the same news headlines as the rest of us. This story is an amalgamation of our present fears: Brexit, Trump's Mexican wall, the rise of anti-immigration sentiment, irreversible climate change. He dares to imagine the worst possible scenario and what makes this novel so terrifying is that it's all so plausible. We are sleepwalking our way into a monumental environmental catastrophe, but world leaders remain focused on growing their economies.

The Wall is a wake-up call, but it's also a riveting and suspenseful read. Lanchester wraps an exciting story around our current anxieties. It's written in a very direct style and I imagine many will devour it in a single sitting. It may not be the most hopeful or heartwarming tale, but it packs a mighty punch. ...more

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Jul 29, 2019 Hugh rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-lit, read-2019, booker-longlist

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019

My fifth book from this year's Booker longlist, this is the first which I think is lucky to be there. I don't read much dystopian fiction but I have already read two much more imaginative ones this year, the best of which was Zed. Neither is this Lanchester's best work - he has never improved on his debut The Debt to Pleasure, though Fragrant Harbour came close.

We meet the narrator Joseph Kavanagh (as others have pointed out this must be a nod to Kafka's Josef Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019

My fifth book from this year's Booker longlist, this is the first which I think is lucky to be there. I don't read much dystopian fiction but I have already read two much more imaginative ones this year, the best of which was Zed. Neither is this Lanchester's best work - he has never improved on his debut The Debt to Pleasure, though Fragrant Harbour came close.

We meet the narrator Joseph Kavanagh (as others have pointed out this must be a nod to Kafka's Josef K) on the first day of his compulsory two years service as a Defender. We learn that Britain is surrounded by a high wall, which serves both to keep outsiders (Others) out, but also because the sea has risen due to global warming. The book is in three sections, the first describing life on The Wall and the second how Kavanagh's section is successfully attacked, largely thanks to their being betrayed from inside.

The third part takes the story in an unexpected direction, as (view spoiler)

I found the whole premise lacked plausibility, for example Lanchester does not explain how river water crosses the wall, how it can withstand the enormous water pressure, what happens to the bigger offshore islands or why despite global warming the wall is so cold most of the time. The language is monotonously plain, and much of the book reads like a rather dull adventure story with an implausible romantic subplot. I suspect it was written with an eye to cinematic adaptation.

I decided the third star was just about deserved by the exploration of the moral ambiguity of the situation and because like all dystopias many of its premises are extensions of real world concerns, but it could have been so much better. ...more

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Mar 06, 2019 Ron Charles rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: apocalyptic, environmental-fiction

John Lanchester’s new novel, “The Wall,” sounds like the best-timed book of the year. It arrives smack dab in the heat of a constitutional crisis over President Trump’s determination to build a barrier along our southern border — Congress be damned.

Lanchester, who lives in London, is well-equipped to write about this confrontation tearing up America. Not only is he one of the best financial journalists, he’s also a novelist with a keen eye for how politics and money corral ordinary people’s live ...more

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Oct 05, 2019 Nenia ✨️ I yeet my books back and forth ✨️ Campbell rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: this-is-the-way-the-world-ends, les-arcs-de-triomphes, science-fiction, help-help-i-m-being-repressed

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THE WALL by John Lanchester falls into a genre that I call "unapologetic lad-lit." It's written for men, and doesn't really make any secret about it; the manly-man protagonist plows his way through the story with his testosterone-charged mediocrity, and all of the women who should be out of his league but aren't end up falling for his oh so average charms. There's also war, too, of course. I definitely got a STARSHIP TROOPERS vibe from t ...more

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Jul 28, 2019 Gumble's Yard rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-booker-longlist, 2019

I read this book due to its long listing for the 2019 Booker Prize, although I have in fact read all four of the author’ should previous novels and his most famous work of non-fiction. I loved his Whitbread (now Costa) First `novel prize winning “The Debt to Pleasure” but struggled to engage with much of his writing since and had decided to skip this book (unless prize nominated) based on that and on the early reviews I had read of the book.

So now it had been prize nominated, here goes ..

Climat ...more

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Oct 20, 2019 Emily B rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I liked the concept of this book however the wall did seem very very familiar however overall I enjoyed reading and as a dystopia I found it entertaining.

I have to say I did prefer the first half to the second and wasn’t too keen on the ending. I’m not sure why it stopped there exactly.

‘A bit like human life in general, you could say, the terrible regularity with which nothing happens, the genuine terror when something does’

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Sep 04, 2019 Kathleen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Booker Prize Longlist 2019. Lanchester’s dystopian novel explores a world where sea levels have risen dramatically after ‘the Change’, land is scarce and in need of protection from ‘the Others’. Thus, the country (similar to the U.K.) has erected ‘the Wall’ and manned it with ‘Defenders’ to keep out water and unwelcome immigrants—a literal Brexit.

Above all, The Wall is an atmospheric novel. We meet the narrator, Joseph Kavanagh, as he starts his new job as a Defender on the Wall. It is COLD! The ...more

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Jul 26, 2019 Jerrie (redwritinghood) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This is a dystopian novel about climate change, nationalism, and immigration, as much as it is about human nature and basic survival. The book started out slowly with the narrator basically giving a lengthy dissertation about the wall and how the rising sea levels caused the disruption of society. This is not the most interesting way to do world-building. The book did pick up about halfway through when there was finally some action in the story. Despite the characters constant fight for survival ...more

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Aug 12, 2019 Collin rated it liked it · review of another edition

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 BOOKER PRIZE.

The first thing we learn about the wall is that it is cold. Not just your everyday run of the mill cold. The cold that makes you wish you were dead, or at least somewhere else. The second thing we find out is that when you’re sent to the wall for your tour, it will last two years. These two points never change, but the men who you will be on tour with do. The obvious questions spring to mind, why was the wall built, what has happened to the rest of the world. LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 BOOKER PRIZE.

The first thing we learn about the wall is that it is cold. Not just your everyday run of the mill cold. The cold that makes you wish you were dead, or at least somewhere else. The second thing we find out is that when you’re sent to the wall for your tour, it will last two years. These two points never change, but the men who you will be on tour with do. The obvious questions spring to mind, why was the wall built, what has happened to the rest of the world. The world in which Lanchester has placed this narrative is clouded with ambiguity. The reader continually hears about “the change” and “the others”. Some of the narrative can be pieced together. There has been a change, seemingly to the climate and Britain has been walled off from the rest of the world. This wall must be defended twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week from “the others”. This is the definition used to describe everybody on the other side of the wall. The penalty for anybody making it over the wall is horrific and simple. For every person who makes it over the wall one defender is put to sea, pretty much a slow death sentence. This almost reminded me of decimation in the Roman Legions.

Lanchester seems to be having a go at multiple targets. Climate change, refugees, Brexit, even classism. We are never told just how far into the future this novel is set, but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to see a similar future to this one unfolding. Granted it may be quite a way down the track but a possibility, perhaps. Is this book meant as a portent, a warning of what may come to pass, a future whose path we may have already started irrevocably down?

Lanchester does a wonderful job of letting the reader experience the wall through the eyes of the protagonist Kavanagh. So many feelings are experienced, both mental and physical, by Kavanagh when he first takes his place on the wall. Intense cold, fear, anxiety and ultimately boredom. The reader almost feels that he has been condemned to two years on the wall along with Kavanagh.

Even though I enjoyed this book, it never really rose to the heights that I thought it would. It’s an entertaining novel and I particularly enjoyed the ending. Perhaps it may have more of an impact for British readers. However, I think the issues that Lanchester is targeting unfortunately exist in many places. For me, a good book, but far from essential reading. 3.5 stars.
...more

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Aug 15, 2019 Trudie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia, booker-19

* 3.5 *

This reading experience ended up being ok despite all indicators to the contrary.
Look, I don't think this is a literary-prize winning effort, but I enjoyed it. As a dystopia it takes a fairly minimalist approach to world-building : take a big wall, add water, baby politicians and some "Others" and that is your backstory. Generally, it is lacklustre as far as dystopias are concerned. However, I approached this as a type of team-bonding novel; a low-key version of Platoon set in chilly Eng ...more

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Aug 23, 2019 Dianne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: booker-2019, best-of-2019

This book is long-listed for the 2019 Booker Prize, so that made it a must read for me. I try to read all the Booker long-list novels every year. Reviewers have not been kind to this one, so I was not expecting to like it - but I did! Do I think it’s Booker-worthy? No. It was (for me) an interesting but lightweight dystopian look at a possible future where walls abound to keep immigrants (called “Others” here) out and where climate change (called “The Change”) has flooded the landscape.

The probl ...more

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Apr 16, 2019 Ova - Excuse My Reading rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A brave new world for millennials, this is.
Full review soon

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Mar 21, 2019 Jonathan Pool rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british_irish-contemporary, booker-long-2019

June 16, 2015: ... Donald Trump announces his campaign for the presidency and first mentions his idea to build a southern border wall.

“I will build a great wall ― and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me ―and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words

John Lanchester chose a great title for his latest novel. It’s unambiguous, it has immediate resonation in this divided world, and M ...more

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Feb 07, 2019 Karen Whittaker rated it did not like it · review of another edition

John Lanchester is an established author with a big fan base and so when I saw that the Telegraph Book Club had chosen this book as its book of the month for February I felt I could not go far wrong. All the reviews I read beforehand indicated that this book was the Orwell "1984" of its time.

So definitely not the case in my opinion.

This book has at one point in the early stages a long list of words repeated over and over again - particularly the word "concrete". How boring is a list of words you ...more

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Aug 09, 2019 Anita Pomerantz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

If I don't over intellectualize to much, I have to say I quite enjoyed reading this dystopian survival story. But, other than the fact it was topical (climate change, walls/border control, younger generation blaming the elder for the world's woes), I am not really sure how this gets nominated for such a prominent literary prize.

But, I enjoyed the narrative voice of a young man serving his mandatory military service and I thought a lot of his emotions were artfully, if not beautifully, described ...more

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Sep 19, 2019 Barry Pierce rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2019

My first Lanchester and probably not the best place to start. In The Wall a wall has been built around the UK after an event called The Change and our protagonist, Kavanagh, has just began his service as a guard on the Wall. Marketed as a dystopia, I think it's more befitting to call it speculative.

Yet Lanchester doesn't really have anything to say with this novel. The whole thing feels like something Channel 4 would produce as a limited series supported by stark in-yer-face billboards and crypt ...more

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Jul 26, 2019 Krista rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019, man-booker-nod

It's cold on the Wall. That's the first thing everybody tells you, and the first thing you notice when you're sent there, and it's the thing you think about all the time you're on it, and it's the thing you remember when you're not there anymore. It's cold on the Wall.

The Wall is set in a cli-fi dystopia that extends modern realities to an admittedly believable future – global warming has raised the ocean levels and scorched the lands of developing countries, desperate refugees risk their li
It's cold on the Wall. That's the first thing everybody tells you, and the first thing you notice when you're sent there, and it's the thing you think about all the time you're on it, and it's the thing you remember when you're not there anymore. It's cold on the Wall.

The Wall is set in a cli-fi dystopia that extends modern realities to an admittedly believable future – global warming has raised the ocean levels and scorched the lands of developing countries, desperate refugees risk their lives to reach safety, heartless nationalists erect a wall to protect what they have from the greedy hands of others – and while many details of the plot are interesting and compelling, it's not very literary; even “the wall” is just “a wall”, not a metaphor in sight. (Exit West covers the exact same themes but with literary devices that engage the mind and sympathies far better than this narrative hung stiffly on the seven point story structure template.) John Lanchester has certainly captured something of the current political climate, but he hasn't really made art out of it.

Combat is like that, an undanceable rhythm: Slow, slow, slower, sudden pandemonium.

And so goes the story: slow, slow, slower, sudden pandemonium. In the beginning we are introduced to Joseph Kavanagh, a young man set to begin his mandatory two year stint as a Defender on the Wall (a ten thousand kilometre-long concrete barrier encircling the whole of Great Britain); one of three hundred thousand young people acting as Defenders at any given time. At some point in the recent past the Change occurred (whatever raised the sea levels and obliterated beaches worldwide), and having grown up in this reality, Kavanagh and his generation are resentful of their parents; those who not only allowed the world to collapse on their watch, but who are now too old to take their own turn standing guard up on the cold, cold wall. Rigorous armed defense is imperative because the Others might attack at any time: coming by sea, these homicidal would-be refugees will stop at nothing to get over the Wall, and if they do succeed, they are doomed to be put into service as the Help (little better than slaves) while those Defenders deemed responsible for the breach are fated to be put out to sea; to become “Others” themselves. Plenty of slow, but interesting, world-building, and then: sudden pandemonium. (The seven point story structure is used because it works.)

Betrayal was like tasting a liquid, the bitterest thing you've ever put in your mouth, and holding the taste just long enough to fully understand how repulsive it is, and then forcing yourself to drain the cup to its dregs.

I don't want to give away anything important, so I'll put my specific thoughts behind spoiler tags. (view spoiler)[I understand that this is a commentary on the kind of nationalistic thinking that has led to both Trump's southern border wall and Brexit, but I really question the reality of murderous hordes trying to fight their way into this future Great Britain. Between the tribal scarification of the Captain's face and the Swahili used by the Help when Kavanagh asked him if his home country had a different word for “the Change” (and I did like that his answer translated as “the End”), at least some (could it be implied most?) of the Others are Africans, and sailing/rowing in small boats into the North Atlantic seems a long way to go when there is, presumably, safe haven closer and less well defended. Why would a near-certain suicide mission against a plane-boat-and-gun-patrolled concrete wall make more sense than landing somewhere on mainland Europe? I wish Lanchester had made that clear. It's also not clear just how well-provisioned Great Britain is – there's money for the war machine and luxuries for the elites, and people still have holidays and eat at pubs, but while on the one hand Kavanagh's mother laments that she can't afford to acquire Help (which are free but one must be able to afford to feed them), on the other, she's a housewife with a cleanbot and a washbot: not exactly scratching out a knife-edge existence from some dust-choked dirt farm. If we're being led to sympathise with the Others and demonise those who would shoot at would-be refugees, I wish it was more clear what the long-term survival chances were for each side. And I suppose I should acknowledge the literary irony of the main characters not experiencing psychological growth through their journey: how despicable that upon finding safe haven and boundless resources at the oil rig, Kavanagh and Hifa's first thought is to retract the ladder that had so recently been extended to effect their own rescue. While that one plot point does elevate the whole for me (suggesting that greed and selfishness are more indicative of character than experience) it's not enough for me to call the whole artful. (hide spoiler)] I'm not unhappy that The Wall's Man Booker nomination led me to read it, but its inclusion on that list certainly led me to expect more from it. ...more

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Jul 27, 2019 David rated it liked it · review of another edition

Dystopia Lite, heavy on predictability and with more than a dash of YA seasoning, served up with extra helpings of cold (types 1 and 2).

I'm afraid the best I can do is damn this one with faint praise. It's quick. It's not terribly complicated. The story itself lies closer to potential reality than many Bleak Future fables and is therefore disturbing at times. If forced to choose between The Wall and Snap, however, Sophie would probably give them both up.

A bona fide cranky start to the 2019 Booke ...more

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Jul 29, 2019 Doug rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5, rounded down.

Had to mull this one, since I didn't want its Booker longlist nomination to cloud my judgement of the book itself, either way. I don't think it is quite the anomaly others have decried - to me it firmly belongs to the same category of 'Adventure Tales for Grown-up Boys' as such previously pegged Booker tomes as The North Water and The Narrow Road to the Deep North; as well as such dystopian parables as The Water Cure and Exit West. But then, the topic/genre itself wouldn't have ...more

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Jan 30, 2019 Kate rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian, 2019, future-history, climate-fiction, bechdel, environmental

When non-genre authors write genre fiction (in this case cli-fi, sci-fi or future history genre), they never seen willing to flesh out the details, leaving the reader having to make it up in their head.

I wanted to know more about the political situation, I wanted to know more about the climate change impacts on the world of The Wall. I wanted to know more about The Captain's experience as an Other, and to know more about the people in Britain who wanted Others to be treated better.

Instead, all I ...more

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Mar 28, 2019 Felice Laverne rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: given-to-me-by-publisher, upcoming-reviews

Review to come!

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Aug 20, 2019 Nicky rated it liked it · review of another edition

2.5* stars rounded up. A quick, easy read but more than a tad YA-ish for the Booker long-list.

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Jun 01, 2019 Carrie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Update: Longlisted for Man Booker 2019
While this is a timely book in terms of current political rhetoric and climate change deniers, this is not the most powerful dystopian or speculative fiction that has been published.

Original Review
Speculative post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction with a hint of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Kevin Costner's Waterworld film ...more

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Jul 28, 2019 Paul Fulcher rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019, booker-2019

It seems idiotic now and it seemed idiotic then, but I had no idea what else to say.

says our narrator Kavanagh early on, which is perhaps not far of my opinion of John Lanchester’s financial journalism, so I was interested if his novels were any better.

The Wall feels like a book written to hit as many topical buttons as possible within a very simple story.

The concept combines the (very important) inter-generational warnings of an imminent climate tipping point from the movement begun by Gret ...more

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Aug 02, 2019 Katie Long rated it it was ok · review of another edition

If you think, after reading the blurb, that you have the gist of this novel and know where it's going, you definitely do. Everything about it, setting, plot, characterizations, even the message the author seems to be putting across is all just too simple. There is no complexity in any of it to dig into. And yet, the plot points are still over explained. To the point that even the most crucial events, that should be exciting, lose all impact. I think I'm starting to hear a "how did this make the ...more

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Nov 14, 2018 Kathryn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: book-of-the-year, book-club, fiction-uk, literary-medium, military, bildungsroman, window, dystopian-futuristic, one-to-recommend, sense-of-place

This is a slender book and so should have been a quick read but I found myself slowing right down in order to read every single word. Not a lot happens and by the end everything, and nothing, has changed. It's really beautiful and it's made me think a lot about asylum seekers and what else I, personally, can do today to help slow climate change. ...more

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About John Lanchester

John Lanchester

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John Lanchester is the author of four novels and three books of non-fiction. He was born in Germany and moved to Hong Kong. He studied in UK. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and was awarded the 2008 E.M. Forster Award. He lives in London.

Books by John Lanchester

I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay

How to Speak Money: What the Money People Say — And What It Really Means

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Quotes from The Wall

“I’d been brought up not to think about the Others in terms of where they came from or who they were, to ignore all that—they were just Others. But maybe, now that I was one of them, they weren’t Others anymore? If I was an Other and they were Others perhaps none of us were Others but instead we were a new Us. It was confusing.” — 6 likes

“They drum that into you: discipline trumps courage. In a fight, the people who win are the ones who do what they’re told. It’s not like it is in films. Don’t be brave, just do what you’re told.” — 2 likes

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