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Fugue for a Darkening Island
The whole of Africa is in turmoil, refugees from the continent are fleeing to anywhere they can force a landing. In their millions.
In England the trickle of refugees looking for a home, for safety, becomes a flood. Soon the South of England is overrun. Towns succumb to mob rule, pitched battles are fought over houses. The refugees gather together a government, an army and soon the Afrims are in negotiations with the British Government. Compromise is reached, promises are made. And broken.
And through these chaotic days, as extremists vie for control, as violence flares and society collapses, one man tells his story.
Alan Whitman has lost his job, his home, his family, everything. He is a desperate man . . .
In England the trickle of refugees looking for a home, for safety, becomes a flood. Soon the South of England is overrun. Towns succumb to mob rule, pitched battles are fought over houses. The refugees gather together a government, an army and soon the Afrims are in negotiations with the British Government. Compromise is reached, promises are made. And broken.
And through these chaotic days, as extremists vie for control, as violence flares and society collapses, one man tells his story.
Alan Whitman has lost his job, his home, his family, everything. He is a desperate man . . .
196 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
10 people are currently reading
551 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Priest
182 books1,075 followersChristopher Priest was born in Cheshire, England. He began writing soon after leaving school and has been a full-time freelance writer since 1968.
He has published eleven novels, four short story collections and a number of other books, including critical works, biographies, novelizations and children’s non-fiction.
He has written drama for radio (BBC Radio 4) and television (Thames TV and HTV). In 2006, The Prestige was made into a major production by Newmarket Films. Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Prestige went straight to No.1 US box office. It received two Academy Award nominations. Other novels, including Fugue For a Darkening Island and The Glamour, are currently in preparation for filming.
He is Vice-President of the H. G. Wells Society. In 2007, an exhibition of installation art based on his novel The Affirmation was mounted in London.
As a journalist he has written features and reviews for The Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, the Scotsman, and many different magazines.
He has published eleven novels, four short story collections and a number of other books, including critical works, biographies, novelizations and children’s non-fiction.
He has written drama for radio (BBC Radio 4) and television (Thames TV and HTV). In 2006, The Prestige was made into a major production by Newmarket Films. Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Prestige went straight to No.1 US box office. It received two Academy Award nominations. Other novels, including Fugue For a Darkening Island and The Glamour, are currently in preparation for filming.
He is Vice-President of the H. G. Wells Society. In 2007, an exhibition of installation art based on his novel The Affirmation was mounted in London.
As a journalist he has written features and reviews for The Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, the Scotsman, and many different magazines.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
October 23, 2019
A 1970s look at what may happen if England's shores are inundated by refugees. Africa has been destroyed by various wars and nuclear bombs. Initially the refugees are received well but gradually there is a ground swell of nationalism which is matched by the militarisation of the refugees.
The narrator is an academic who is forced from his home with his wife and daughter. While they are with a group of refugees and the wife and daughter are kidnapped by a group of Africans.
The whole book is written with a confusing mixed of timelines and locations intermixed with the racial bigotry of the storyline and the unfulfilled sexual appetite of the narrator. A mystery to me how this could be labelled a "classic catastrophe novel".
The narrator is an academic who is forced from his home with his wife and daughter. While they are with a group of refugees and the wife and daughter are kidnapped by a group of Africans.
The whole book is written with a confusing mixed of timelines and locations intermixed with the racial bigotry of the storyline and the unfulfilled sexual appetite of the narrator. A mystery to me how this could be labelled a "classic catastrophe novel".
July 22, 2025
#2 Priest: A country in decay, a man in upheaval
Christopher Priest's "Fugue for a Darkening Island" initially challenged me with its complex narrative style. However, upon completing the book, I came to appreciate that it is precisely this style that is necessary to vividly portray the escalating radicalization of the population and the deteriorating political situation after the British island is overrun by African refugees.
Priest continually shifts between different time periods, creating an intense and captivating reading experience. At one point in the timeline, we find ourselves in a time when the refugee crisis is just beginning to unfold. In this phase, the protagonist, Alan Whitman, is not directly affected by the events, but he senses the growing unease and tension in the air. Priest masterfully captures this atmosphere, leaving the reader with a foreboding sense of impending turmoil. We also get powerful glimpses of Whitman's upbringing and the intricacies of his relationship with his wife, which contribute to Whitman's personal tragedy. Later, the author transports us to a time when Whitman and his family are directly affected by the crisis. Here, the threat becomes personal, fears become palpable, and the characters must make difficult decisions to survive. However, they are at no point in control of their lives anymore. From the very first page, we are also transported to a time when Whitman navigates a dystopian, almost anarchic landscape. He is part of a small group of men who share the same fate, separated from their wives and children.
This continuous shift between narrative periods makes reading intense and at times challenging, but it imparts a unique atmosphere to the book. Throughout, I wondered, how could it have come to this? How could the country have spiraled into such chaos? While Priest effectively conveys the personal tragedy of Whitman, the causes of the crisis and the subsequent developments are intentionally left vague, the narrative's primary focus is on Whitman's journey.
Nevertheless, Priest discusses one crucial social and political message. In the face of such a crisis within one's own country, there are likely to arise three groups of people:
- Those who radicalize and are willing to use violence against the refugees if necessary. This aspect of the novel is particularly unsettling, as it reveals the darker aspects of human nature in times of fear and uncertainty.
- The second group comprises individuals who strive to integrate the refugees as best as they can. They demonstrate compassion and humanity, making efforts to provide help and support in a challenging situation.
- The third group includes those who, until the end, refuse to believe that they are affected by such a crisis. They remain neutral and want to continue their lives as usual.
This portrayal of various reactions to the refugee crisis adds remarkable depth and relevance to the novel, even though we only get to know the developments through the eyes of Whitman. It is very controversial given the recent developments in the UK and Europa in our real world. It prompted me to contemplate human nature and the challenges of dealing with such a crisis which seems nowadays to not be really far away.
Christopher Priest's "Fugue for a Darkening Island" initially challenged me with its complex narrative style. However, upon completing the book, I came to appreciate that it is precisely this style that is necessary to vividly portray the escalating radicalization of the population and the deteriorating political situation after the British island is overrun by African refugees.
Priest continually shifts between different time periods, creating an intense and captivating reading experience. At one point in the timeline, we find ourselves in a time when the refugee crisis is just beginning to unfold. In this phase, the protagonist, Alan Whitman, is not directly affected by the events, but he senses the growing unease and tension in the air. Priest masterfully captures this atmosphere, leaving the reader with a foreboding sense of impending turmoil. We also get powerful glimpses of Whitman's upbringing and the intricacies of his relationship with his wife, which contribute to Whitman's personal tragedy. Later, the author transports us to a time when Whitman and his family are directly affected by the crisis. Here, the threat becomes personal, fears become palpable, and the characters must make difficult decisions to survive. However, they are at no point in control of their lives anymore. From the very first page, we are also transported to a time when Whitman navigates a dystopian, almost anarchic landscape. He is part of a small group of men who share the same fate, separated from their wives and children.
This continuous shift between narrative periods makes reading intense and at times challenging, but it imparts a unique atmosphere to the book. Throughout, I wondered, how could it have come to this? How could the country have spiraled into such chaos? While Priest effectively conveys the personal tragedy of Whitman, the causes of the crisis and the subsequent developments are intentionally left vague, the narrative's primary focus is on Whitman's journey.
Nevertheless, Priest discusses one crucial social and political message. In the face of such a crisis within one's own country, there are likely to arise three groups of people:
- Those who radicalize and are willing to use violence against the refugees if necessary. This aspect of the novel is particularly unsettling, as it reveals the darker aspects of human nature in times of fear and uncertainty.
- The second group comprises individuals who strive to integrate the refugees as best as they can. They demonstrate compassion and humanity, making efforts to provide help and support in a challenging situation.
- The third group includes those who, until the end, refuse to believe that they are affected by such a crisis. They remain neutral and want to continue their lives as usual.
This portrayal of various reactions to the refugee crisis adds remarkable depth and relevance to the novel, even though we only get to know the developments through the eyes of Whitman. It is very controversial given the recent developments in the UK and Europa in our real world. It prompted me to contemplate human nature and the challenges of dealing with such a crisis which seems nowadays to not be really far away.
November 30, 2012
It can be hard for us living in relatively comfortable places like Britain to really relate to and understand people living in war torn African countries where normal society has broken down, the land is split into various factions fighting for control with continuously shifting territories and bands of marauding men are wandering the countryside raping and pillaging as they go leaving countless refugees displaced from their homes with no where to go.
So how better to bring this home to people than to literally bring it home in the form of science fiction? Priest envisages the collapse of British society caused by an extremist right wing government's bad handling of a massive influx of African refugees fleeing a nuclear holocaust in their homelands. The country collapses into civil war between the nationalists who want to drive the African illegal immigrants away and those who sympathise with their plight and want to accommodate them. Foreign powers wage war with each other by proxy by supplying one side or the other with weapons, America tries to police the situation and the UN tries to intervene on humanitarian grounds. Chaos and confusion reign.
This is a bleak story, from beginning to end, which parallels the turmoil of the protagonist's external environment with his inner, emotional turmoil caused by breakdown of his marriage. The narrative is highly fragmented, nipping back and forwards in time and so we are gradually able to build up a picture of how the situation unfolded and an insight into the man himself. He is not a particularly likeable character and is both emotionally disconnected from his family and the wider conflict, always feeling like an observer, an outsider looking on.
This is one of Priest's earlier works and quite different from anything else I have read by him. An intriguing, powerful and hard hitting story that is certainly not for the feint hearted.
So how better to bring this home to people than to literally bring it home in the form of science fiction? Priest envisages the collapse of British society caused by an extremist right wing government's bad handling of a massive influx of African refugees fleeing a nuclear holocaust in their homelands. The country collapses into civil war between the nationalists who want to drive the African illegal immigrants away and those who sympathise with their plight and want to accommodate them. Foreign powers wage war with each other by proxy by supplying one side or the other with weapons, America tries to police the situation and the UN tries to intervene on humanitarian grounds. Chaos and confusion reign.
This is a bleak story, from beginning to end, which parallels the turmoil of the protagonist's external environment with his inner, emotional turmoil caused by breakdown of his marriage. The narrative is highly fragmented, nipping back and forwards in time and so we are gradually able to build up a picture of how the situation unfolded and an insight into the man himself. He is not a particularly likeable character and is both emotionally disconnected from his family and the wider conflict, always feeling like an observer, an outsider looking on.
This is one of Priest's earlier works and quite different from anything else I have read by him. An intriguing, powerful and hard hitting story that is certainly not for the feint hearted.
February 13, 2025
Christopher Priest's second novel is a fractured tale of civil war in a near future Britain ruled by a far-right government following mass immigration from an Africa devastated by nuclear war that seems as timely now as it was in 1972 when first published.
August 25, 2024
[1½ stars.]
His name is Alan Whitman, and as Fugue for a Darkening Island opens, Christopher Priest tells us all we need to know about him in two introductory paragraphs set months — and maybe years — apart. He’s as milquetoast a middle-class British white man as one could find. He has a failing marriage, perhaps mostly his fault thanks to his chronic cheating, but which has produced a daughter he genuinely loves. He’s an academic with remarkably few personal or political convictions, who responds to events unfolding around him with bland passivity. And his country is in a state of complete collapse, about which he isn’t entirely sure how to feel.
Dystopias trade in gloom, and in his second novel (revised in 2011), Christopher Priest produced one that makes the gloomiest visions of Cormac McCarthy play like an episode of the Mickey Mouse Club. This is not, to put it mildly, a novel that asks or expects to be enjoyed, which presents the critic with the age-old conundrum of whether it’s fair to critique it for succeeding too well.
Priest, even at this early stage of his career, was a skilled craftsman. In writing a tragic tale in something of an emotionally detached voice, the horrors have a way of feeling heightened. He eschews linearity, hopping back and forth through time as Whitman’s ordeal commences. This makes the narrative far more gripping than it would have been had Priest simply documented everything in sequence: the war in Africa that results in a mass exodus; the arrival in England of millions of displaced peoples; the gradual loss of day-to-day normalcy as the country descends into war and chaos; Whitman’s separation from, and search for, his family. Priest’s narrative choices, no question, result in a grisly but riveting story, even as his viewpoint narrator is as completely unlikable as they come. (Continued...)
His name is Alan Whitman, and as Fugue for a Darkening Island opens, Christopher Priest tells us all we need to know about him in two introductory paragraphs set months — and maybe years — apart. He’s as milquetoast a middle-class British white man as one could find. He has a failing marriage, perhaps mostly his fault thanks to his chronic cheating, but which has produced a daughter he genuinely loves. He’s an academic with remarkably few personal or political convictions, who responds to events unfolding around him with bland passivity. And his country is in a state of complete collapse, about which he isn’t entirely sure how to feel.
Dystopias trade in gloom, and in his second novel (revised in 2011), Christopher Priest produced one that makes the gloomiest visions of Cormac McCarthy play like an episode of the Mickey Mouse Club. This is not, to put it mildly, a novel that asks or expects to be enjoyed, which presents the critic with the age-old conundrum of whether it’s fair to critique it for succeeding too well.
Priest, even at this early stage of his career, was a skilled craftsman. In writing a tragic tale in something of an emotionally detached voice, the horrors have a way of feeling heightened. He eschews linearity, hopping back and forth through time as Whitman’s ordeal commences. This makes the narrative far more gripping than it would have been had Priest simply documented everything in sequence: the war in Africa that results in a mass exodus; the arrival in England of millions of displaced peoples; the gradual loss of day-to-day normalcy as the country descends into war and chaos; Whitman’s separation from, and search for, his family. Priest’s narrative choices, no question, result in a grisly but riveting story, even as his viewpoint narrator is as completely unlikable as they come. (Continued...)
August 15, 2024
very good idea but poorly written
August 8, 2022
Nuclear war has devastated the African continent, and refugees start trickling into the United Kingdom. Soon enough, the trickle turns into a deluge, and the right-wing government turn against the refugees, which in turn form militias. A brutal civil war ensues, and ordinary citizens increasingly end up in the crosshairs and at the mercy of the two warring factions. The result is predictable: Complete social collapse.
This is the second novel of a writer I immensely like and respect, Christopher Priest. And here I can say with all the respect I can muster: This is a very, very, very bad book, and I do not recommend it to anyone other than the most ardent Priest fans. Here and there, you can see glimpses of the style of writing and favourite topics of the later Priest, but at its core, Fugue for a Darkening Island is a poorly constructed and poorly written book with an extremely unlikable protagonist.
What I find intriguing here is the theme. Considering the effects of global warming, a mass migration wave of climate refugees from Africa or the Middle East in the coming decades is getting more and more likely by the minute. Curiously, no other writer has even dared broach the subject for decades—ostensibly because they will most likely be lynched publicly as right-wing radicals.
This is a resounding failure of modern science fiction to perform one of its most important tasks, namely to prognosticate and help avert potential social disasters. And all for the sake of political correctness. How how very, very nice.
1.5* rounded to 2*
This is the second novel of a writer I immensely like and respect, Christopher Priest. And here I can say with all the respect I can muster: This is a very, very, very bad book, and I do not recommend it to anyone other than the most ardent Priest fans. Here and there, you can see glimpses of the style of writing and favourite topics of the later Priest, but at its core, Fugue for a Darkening Island is a poorly constructed and poorly written book with an extremely unlikable protagonist.
What I find intriguing here is the theme. Considering the effects of global warming, a mass migration wave of climate refugees from Africa or the Middle East in the coming decades is getting more and more likely by the minute. Curiously, no other writer has even dared broach the subject for decades—ostensibly because they will most likely be lynched publicly as right-wing radicals.
This is a resounding failure of modern science fiction to perform one of its most important tasks, namely to prognosticate and help avert potential social disasters. And all for the sake of political correctness. How how very, very nice.
1.5* rounded to 2*
September 30, 2012
Firstly - really, how bad is that cover image? It's not just an awful image, it's an inappropriate image, which doesn't really have any connection with the story of Fugue For A Darkening Island. I love a good vintage copy of a book, but seriously - what were they thinking at Pan when they decided to go with this image?! It's sort of grotesque-kitsch.
Anyway. I've read a few books by Christopher Priest before - The Prestige, which is superb (do not bother with the film "adaptation" though, it's poor, irrelevant and misses everything that's great abgout the book), and The Separation, which I just didn't get.
This one is from much earlier in his career, and while it still features a distinctive approach to narrative (in this case, achronological), it's a very dated book. It's been suggested that in genre terms it connects with the portraits of apocalyptic British social collapse presented by John Wyndham, in such books as The Day of the Triffids or The Kraken Wakes, but it's 20 years more recent. It reminded me a little more of books by Samuel Youd, aka John Christopher, such as The Death of Grass or A Wrinkle in the Skin, but again, it's more recent than them, and from, arguably, a harsher era - late into the Vietnam war etc.
It's still very much a product of the early-1970s though, and as such can be hard to read. Its premise is strong - an atomic exchange in Africa has brought about mass migrations. When immigrants arrive in a Britain, run by a strong rightwing government, violence and civil war ensue. But Priest's notion of Africans, here "Afrims", is oddly generic, and although the book isn't exactly racist, its use of terms like "Negro" and "coloured" are unpalatable.
Most of all, though, I found the book oddly unsatisfactory. Priest cross-cuts between the collapse of Britain with the collapse of the protagonist's relationship with his wife. She's got some kind of sexual disorder (it's vague; she's just not interested in him sexually), he philanders. When the social collapse comes they're separated. He tries to find her, and their daughter, again. We get vignettes of his travels with refugees, the varied communities emerging in southern England, violence, debasement, disarray. But ultimately, it just, well... ends. There is a nominally narratively significant, even symbolic conclusion, but it felt perfunctory to me.
The book features some solid imagery of an alternative Britain, and an interesting idea, but really, I would rather give it 2.5 stars. An average score.
Anyway. I've read a few books by Christopher Priest before - The Prestige, which is superb (do not bother with the film "adaptation" though, it's poor, irrelevant and misses everything that's great abgout the book), and The Separation, which I just didn't get.
This one is from much earlier in his career, and while it still features a distinctive approach to narrative (in this case, achronological), it's a very dated book. It's been suggested that in genre terms it connects with the portraits of apocalyptic British social collapse presented by John Wyndham, in such books as The Day of the Triffids or The Kraken Wakes, but it's 20 years more recent. It reminded me a little more of books by Samuel Youd, aka John Christopher, such as The Death of Grass or A Wrinkle in the Skin, but again, it's more recent than them, and from, arguably, a harsher era - late into the Vietnam war etc.
It's still very much a product of the early-1970s though, and as such can be hard to read. Its premise is strong - an atomic exchange in Africa has brought about mass migrations. When immigrants arrive in a Britain, run by a strong rightwing government, violence and civil war ensue. But Priest's notion of Africans, here "Afrims", is oddly generic, and although the book isn't exactly racist, its use of terms like "Negro" and "coloured" are unpalatable.
Most of all, though, I found the book oddly unsatisfactory. Priest cross-cuts between the collapse of Britain with the collapse of the protagonist's relationship with his wife. She's got some kind of sexual disorder (it's vague; she's just not interested in him sexually), he philanders. When the social collapse comes they're separated. He tries to find her, and their daughter, again. We get vignettes of his travels with refugees, the varied communities emerging in southern England, violence, debasement, disarray. But ultimately, it just, well... ends. There is a nominally narratively significant, even symbolic conclusion, but it felt perfunctory to me.
The book features some solid imagery of an alternative Britain, and an interesting idea, but really, I would rather give it 2.5 stars. An average score.
November 22, 2020
I came to Christopher Priest’s book while rummaging through the discount bin in a multimedia store. Intrigued by the image on the front and the description on the back cover that suggested extraordinary foresight for a work originally published in 1972, I decided to give it a try. While the book proved to be less prescient than I expected, it was no less interesting for it. Part of what engaged me was Priest’s way of scattering the three parts of his narrator’s account – corresponding to the various stages of an extended refugee crisis that causes English society to fracture – throughout the narrative, which forced me to piece together the events like assembling the portions of a jigsaw puzzle.
As I did so, I found myself questioning some of the elements of his story. The premise of a devastating war in Africa creating a global refugee crisis was a fine one, but I found myself questioning the presumption that England somehow bears the brunt of it, as is hinted at throughout the book. Nevertheless, his implication that the resulting crisis was caused less by the refugees themselves than the challenges in absorbing them did indeed show a real appreciation for a social dynamic that has played out all too often in the decades since. In the end, though, it is a book that should be read less as a warning of the future than a commentary on the social upheavals of the early 1970s that Priest cites in the foreword to the revised edition as the inspiration for the elements of his book. In that respect it accomplishes what any great science fiction work should, which is to shed light on the world in which live.
As I did so, I found myself questioning some of the elements of his story. The premise of a devastating war in Africa creating a global refugee crisis was a fine one, but I found myself questioning the presumption that England somehow bears the brunt of it, as is hinted at throughout the book. Nevertheless, his implication that the resulting crisis was caused less by the refugees themselves than the challenges in absorbing them did indeed show a real appreciation for a social dynamic that has played out all too often in the decades since. In the end, though, it is a book that should be read less as a warning of the future than a commentary on the social upheavals of the early 1970s that Priest cites in the foreword to the revised edition as the inspiration for the elements of his book. In that respect it accomplishes what any great science fiction work should, which is to shed light on the world in which live.
June 3, 2022
This is set in the UK and the context is that war is rife in Africa, so millions of desparate refugees have fled to the UK and other similar nations. But England struggles to cope with the sheer weight of numbers and the world is soon seriously divided into: the refugees and their supporters; the right-wing government and its fanbase; and the new but growing, British civilian refugee group (which have arisen as a result of being displaced themselves).
Alan and Isobel Whitman and their daughter Sally flee the violence and head for to Bristol to seek shelter with relatives. When their car breaks down, the Whitmans in a world of chaos and conflict. And they are also separated in the whole process.
This is an OK novel, but more of its time. The Prestige is a far less ephemeral piece. The work has, what I believe, unintended racist connotations, which simply don't pass the modern day pub test. As a result, this is one of those novels that will disappear over time, and perhaps deservedly so.
Alan and Isobel Whitman and their daughter Sally flee the violence and head for to Bristol to seek shelter with relatives. When their car breaks down, the Whitmans in a world of chaos and conflict. And they are also separated in the whole process.
This is an OK novel, but more of its time. The Prestige is a far less ephemeral piece. The work has, what I believe, unintended racist connotations, which simply don't pass the modern day pub test. As a result, this is one of those novels that will disappear over time, and perhaps deservedly so.
August 21, 2015
Fugue For A Darkening Island presents a tale of gradual social collapse that should be familiar to anyone who's ever read Wyndham or Christopher; typically the only variable in these stories is what causes the collapse. In this case it's a nuclear war in Africa sending millions of refugees flooding onto British shores.
And this is the disturbing part. For much of the book, I thought it was severely racist: a story of thuggish blacks invading the white British homeland and causing death, anarchy and destruction. It was written more than thirty-five years ago, before the UK became the multi-cultural melting pot it is today, when the idea may have reflected the concerns of many British citizens (or, alternatively, the concerns of many citizens in modern-day Australia). As the book progressed, it seemed somewhat less racist - the British government in the story is extremely right-wing, fascist and engaged in overt genocide, and the narrator is portrayed as a hapless civilian refugee caught up between the two forces, light and dark. He sums it up in the last few pages:
In my unwitting role as a refugee I had of neccesity played a neutral role. But it seemed to me it would be impossible for this to continue in the future. I could not stay uncommitted forever.
In what I had seen and heard of the activities of the Secessionist forces, it had always appeared to me that they had adopted a more humanitarian attitude to the situation. It was not morally right to deny the African immigrants an identity or a voice. The war must be resolved one way or another in time, and it was now inevitable that the Africans would stay in Britain permanently.
On the other hand, the extreme actions of the Nationalist side, which stemmed initially from the conservative and repressive policies of Tregarth's government (an administration I had distrusted and disliked) appealed to me on an instinctive level. It had been the Africans who had indirectly deprived me of everything I once owned. Ultimately, I knew the question depended on finding Isobel. If she and Sally had not been harmed my instincts would be quieted...
Priest appears to be arguing here that while we will always harbour a natural instinct to distrust the Other, defend our family and fight off outsiders, we should rise above that with our intelligence and civilisation, and hold to the better part of human nature. This is a wise argument, which is also the defining theme of Cloud Atlas, one of my favourite books of all time.
Yet there are certain elements of Fugue For A Darkening Island that still seem racist - white Secessionist forces always treat the protagonist more humanely than black militants, there's an unrealistic shallowness to the portrayal of African refugees (a fairly unified force that speaks Swahili across the board), and there's the squirming feeling I get simply from reading this scenario put into words. It's not an unreasonable hypothesis - the population of the Third World greatly outnumbers that of the First, and Europe and Africa are geographically close... though you'd think continental Europe would cop the brunt of it, rather than Britain. I would be remiss if I didn't point out the handful of Muslim riots in France, which right-wingers interpret as evidence that immigration has turned Paris into a corpse-strewn wasteland identical to Mogadishu, and that some kind of apartheid should naturally be introduced.
I digress. I don't want to accuse Priest of being racist. Science fiction is all about exploring speculative scenarios, especially with a political bent to them, and while significant parts of the book made me uneasy I'm not going to cast judgement on his decision to write it.
But, having barely cleared the political correctness board, Priest must now pass the literary merit test. And he fails. Fugue For A Darkening Island, allegations of racism aside, is simply not a very good book. The bulk of it consists of the protagonist scavenging, conflicting with other parties of survivors, picking up what bits of news that he can and wandering through refugee camps and ruined towns looking for his family. It's not a badly realised world, but neither is it an original or compelling one. This isn't helped by Priest's decision to tell the story in four different timeframes at once, rapidly switching between them, mixing up pointless adolescent sexual misadventures and taking us through the protagonist's marriage problems. Finally, the cold and detached tone that seemed perfectly natural in Inverted World does him a great disservice here, portraying the narrator as an emotionless bastard with a tediously analytical mind. Fugue For A Darkening Island is a fairly unremarkable book, which is why I was so puzzled at the decision to bundle it with Inverted World, an excellent science fiction classic.
And this is the disturbing part. For much of the book, I thought it was severely racist: a story of thuggish blacks invading the white British homeland and causing death, anarchy and destruction. It was written more than thirty-five years ago, before the UK became the multi-cultural melting pot it is today, when the idea may have reflected the concerns of many British citizens (or, alternatively, the concerns of many citizens in modern-day Australia). As the book progressed, it seemed somewhat less racist - the British government in the story is extremely right-wing, fascist and engaged in overt genocide, and the narrator is portrayed as a hapless civilian refugee caught up between the two forces, light and dark. He sums it up in the last few pages:
In my unwitting role as a refugee I had of neccesity played a neutral role. But it seemed to me it would be impossible for this to continue in the future. I could not stay uncommitted forever.
In what I had seen and heard of the activities of the Secessionist forces, it had always appeared to me that they had adopted a more humanitarian attitude to the situation. It was not morally right to deny the African immigrants an identity or a voice. The war must be resolved one way or another in time, and it was now inevitable that the Africans would stay in Britain permanently.
On the other hand, the extreme actions of the Nationalist side, which stemmed initially from the conservative and repressive policies of Tregarth's government (an administration I had distrusted and disliked) appealed to me on an instinctive level. It had been the Africans who had indirectly deprived me of everything I once owned. Ultimately, I knew the question depended on finding Isobel. If she and Sally had not been harmed my instincts would be quieted...
Priest appears to be arguing here that while we will always harbour a natural instinct to distrust the Other, defend our family and fight off outsiders, we should rise above that with our intelligence and civilisation, and hold to the better part of human nature. This is a wise argument, which is also the defining theme of Cloud Atlas, one of my favourite books of all time.
Yet there are certain elements of Fugue For A Darkening Island that still seem racist - white Secessionist forces always treat the protagonist more humanely than black militants, there's an unrealistic shallowness to the portrayal of African refugees (a fairly unified force that speaks Swahili across the board), and there's the squirming feeling I get simply from reading this scenario put into words. It's not an unreasonable hypothesis - the population of the Third World greatly outnumbers that of the First, and Europe and Africa are geographically close... though you'd think continental Europe would cop the brunt of it, rather than Britain. I would be remiss if I didn't point out the handful of Muslim riots in France, which right-wingers interpret as evidence that immigration has turned Paris into a corpse-strewn wasteland identical to Mogadishu, and that some kind of apartheid should naturally be introduced.
I digress. I don't want to accuse Priest of being racist. Science fiction is all about exploring speculative scenarios, especially with a political bent to them, and while significant parts of the book made me uneasy I'm not going to cast judgement on his decision to write it.
But, having barely cleared the political correctness board, Priest must now pass the literary merit test. And he fails. Fugue For A Darkening Island, allegations of racism aside, is simply not a very good book. The bulk of it consists of the protagonist scavenging, conflicting with other parties of survivors, picking up what bits of news that he can and wandering through refugee camps and ruined towns looking for his family. It's not a badly realised world, but neither is it an original or compelling one. This isn't helped by Priest's decision to tell the story in four different timeframes at once, rapidly switching between them, mixing up pointless adolescent sexual misadventures and taking us through the protagonist's marriage problems. Finally, the cold and detached tone that seemed perfectly natural in Inverted World does him a great disservice here, portraying the narrator as an emotionless bastard with a tediously analytical mind. Fugue For A Darkening Island is a fairly unremarkable book, which is why I was so puzzled at the decision to bundle it with Inverted World, an excellent science fiction classic.
November 28, 2013
This book is strange. Not in the plot or anything like that. It's strange because beyond the big theme pervading it (I can sum it up as racism vs tolerance, how absurd it is to try to stay neutral and also how difficult it is to remain tolerant in the face of horror), the main character's arc is kind of... pointless.
Spoilers (maybe)
The thing is, the main character (Alan Whitman) is not only unlikeable. You want to curse him for his inaction or stupidity at different points of the story, but I get that we're supposed to feel identified with his inaction in the face of coming disaster. But the fact that he remains so non-committed to any of the different postures regarding the war, the exiles, etc, just makes it seem... a little fantastic. Not even the most mild-mannered, wimpy academic would remain aloof from the atrocities and the injustices he sees.
The recurring flashbacks (or rather, back and forth jumps) try to show the time before, during and after the deluge of refugees that spawns the civil war and its horror. But it doesn't work, mainly because we spend too much time watching Alan stroll through his earlier life, focusing on women he pursued and trying to explain his distance from his wife. Is it really important to show he had a misguided sense of romance? No, I don't think so. Also, his wife is barely above two-dimensional, and the poor daughter of the pair (Sally) doesn't even get a couple of lines of dialogue. All of her actions are narrated, stripping her completely of agency and personality. That, to me, is the most egregious offense in the book. If some people mistook this story as somehow being racist, well, they're just bad readers. What it is is a truly sexist book. It's all about Alan, so we don't even care about what happens to the mannequin-like wife and daughter. For a book that's supposed to make us care for their plight, it fails horribly.
A shame, because I liked "The Affirmation" so much. But this is Priest's earliest works, so I'll just read the rest and see if they achieve the heights of that other book.
Spoilers (maybe)
The thing is, the main character (Alan Whitman) is not only unlikeable. You want to curse him for his inaction or stupidity at different points of the story, but I get that we're supposed to feel identified with his inaction in the face of coming disaster. But the fact that he remains so non-committed to any of the different postures regarding the war, the exiles, etc, just makes it seem... a little fantastic. Not even the most mild-mannered, wimpy academic would remain aloof from the atrocities and the injustices he sees.
The recurring flashbacks (or rather, back and forth jumps) try to show the time before, during and after the deluge of refugees that spawns the civil war and its horror. But it doesn't work, mainly because we spend too much time watching Alan stroll through his earlier life, focusing on women he pursued and trying to explain his distance from his wife. Is it really important to show he had a misguided sense of romance? No, I don't think so. Also, his wife is barely above two-dimensional, and the poor daughter of the pair (Sally) doesn't even get a couple of lines of dialogue. All of her actions are narrated, stripping her completely of agency and personality. That, to me, is the most egregious offense in the book. If some people mistook this story as somehow being racist, well, they're just bad readers. What it is is a truly sexist book. It's all about Alan, so we don't even care about what happens to the mannequin-like wife and daughter. For a book that's supposed to make us care for their plight, it fails horribly.
A shame, because I liked "The Affirmation" so much. But this is Priest's earliest works, so I'll just read the rest and see if they achieve the heights of that other book.
December 1, 2013
‘Fuga para un isla’, publicada originalmente en 1972, es una visión oscura y perturbadora de un futuro que, desgraciadamente, podría estar demasiado cercano. Christopher Priest se sirve del protagonista de la novela para plantearnos un posible escenario: África se ha visto asolada por una guerra atómica, donde los supervivientes, huyendo de la miseria y la radiación, buscan refugio en el Reino Unido. Los cargueros no hacen más que llegar repletos de inmigrantes africanos, alcanzando la cifra de los dos millones. Pero el estado, que en estos momentos está gobernado por un partido ultraconservador, no es capaz de buscar solución a este problema y sólo se le ocurren medidas represivas. El conflicto y la guerra civil son inminentes.
Alan Whitman, el narrador, que vive con su mujer, Isobel, y su hija, Sally, lleva una vida monótona y sin afecto hasta el momento de la llegada de los refugiados. Al poco tiempo, las casas son saqueadas y sus dueños expulsados de las mismas por los africanos y los que son afines a su causa. El resentimiento contra los negros no tarda en llegar, provocando la guerra civil. A Alan y su familia no les queda otra que buscar refugio allá donde pueden, entre personas de todo tipo. El infierno está servido.
La historia está narrada de forma fragmentaria, al más puro estilo new wave de la época, lo que hace que la novela sea un tanto confusa, aunque enseguida te acostumbras. Las diversas tramas van intercalándose, de esta manera sabemos de la infancia y adolescencia de Alan, de sus primeras experiencias sexuales, de su insatisfacción matrimonial, al mismo tiempo que se nos cuenta cómo fueron llegando los barcos de refugiados, y cómo es la vida posterior al conflicto, entre la barbarie.
No es la mejor novela de Christopher Priest, que tiene verdaderas obras maestras, como son ‘La afirmación’, ‘Un mundo invertido’, ‘El prestigio’ o ‘Un verano infinito’. Se trata de una distopía, deprimente y una tanto ambigua, aunque interesante.
Alan Whitman, el narrador, que vive con su mujer, Isobel, y su hija, Sally, lleva una vida monótona y sin afecto hasta el momento de la llegada de los refugiados. Al poco tiempo, las casas son saqueadas y sus dueños expulsados de las mismas por los africanos y los que son afines a su causa. El resentimiento contra los negros no tarda en llegar, provocando la guerra civil. A Alan y su familia no les queda otra que buscar refugio allá donde pueden, entre personas de todo tipo. El infierno está servido.
La historia está narrada de forma fragmentaria, al más puro estilo new wave de la época, lo que hace que la novela sea un tanto confusa, aunque enseguida te acostumbras. Las diversas tramas van intercalándose, de esta manera sabemos de la infancia y adolescencia de Alan, de sus primeras experiencias sexuales, de su insatisfacción matrimonial, al mismo tiempo que se nos cuenta cómo fueron llegando los barcos de refugiados, y cómo es la vida posterior al conflicto, entre la barbarie.
No es la mejor novela de Christopher Priest, que tiene verdaderas obras maestras, como son ‘La afirmación’, ‘Un mundo invertido’, ‘El prestigio’ o ‘Un verano infinito’. Se trata de una distopía, deprimente y una tanto ambigua, aunque interesante.
November 24, 2018
Having enjoyed getting my mind broken by Christopher Priest’s THE INVERTED WORLD a few years ago I decided to go back to the beginning of his career and work my way through. His debut novel, INDOCTRINAIRE, turned out to be a disappointment, undercooked and zest-free. FUGUE..., sadly, is even worse. In the introduction to the revised edition, the author describes how he was influenced by the “cool detachment” he detected in the British New Wave, which allowed for “the description of thrilling or horrific events in unemotional language.” Although the rewrite was intended to let the “anger find a voice”, the dispassion remains. The characters are little more than names and genders; the technique of rapidly shifting between four different time lines succeeds in doing what it may have originally been intended to do, and keeps the reader at a distance, never letting us engage with a narrative; there is an awful lot of telling and almost no showing.
Other reviewers have done a better job than I ever could of addressing the racial attitudes on display (for the record, I think some good intentions are dangerously sullied by poor execution) but just as a piece of storytelling, I disliked it. Which is another way of saying I was bored.
Other reviewers have done a better job than I ever could of addressing the racial attitudes on display (for the record, I think some good intentions are dangerously sullied by poor execution) but just as a piece of storytelling, I disliked it. Which is another way of saying I was bored.
February 24, 2022
One of the most upsetting stories I have ever read.
I’ve read genuine horror stories that have affected me less then this book has.
Reading this was like reading a John Wyndham story (perhaps my favourite Scifi author) on steroids…in major ‘bad-reaction’ mode. I won’t mention what happens to the hero’s wife and daughter…beyond the fear from early on that ‘it’ might happen, but gosh, the description Isobel flute most harrowing things I have ever read….made more poignant by how few words were used to describe it. I’ve been disturbed by those paragraphs for years…
It’s a brilliant, upsetting and disturbingly believable tale. And Priest writes in a way that is engaging / impossible put down, which is particularly difficult when it is 2 am… that time is not when you want to be reading the parts that remind you how awful people can be.
I’ve read genuine horror stories that have affected me less then this book has.
Reading this was like reading a John Wyndham story (perhaps my favourite Scifi author) on steroids…in major ‘bad-reaction’ mode. I won’t mention what happens to the hero’s wife and daughter…beyond the fear from early on that ‘it’ might happen, but gosh, the description Isobel flute most harrowing things I have ever read….made more poignant by how few words were used to describe it. I’ve been disturbed by those paragraphs for years…
It’s a brilliant, upsetting and disturbingly believable tale. And Priest writes in a way that is engaging / impossible put down, which is particularly difficult when it is 2 am… that time is not when you want to be reading the parts that remind you how awful people can be.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 24, 2019
I enjoyed this early Priest from 1972 in this version which revised the story in 2011 and which feels especially relevant here in 2019. Society is breaking down due to a sudden influx of immigration. A right-wing government is in place. Ordinary people are being impositioned. Sounds very familiar, doesn't it, in the run up to Brexit? Terribly familiar.
Priest's novel deals with the middle-ground for most of its length with the extremes sketched in due to the protagonist's lack of media information. And this unknowing dislocation works well. The prose is generally matter-of-fact, however, which drops a star for me. The plot feels realistic and the ending is excellent.
Hopefully, in 2019, Brexit will be stopped and the events of this book won't form a horrible prophesy. I guess we'll find out shortly. Stockpile now.
Priest's novel deals with the middle-ground for most of its length with the extremes sketched in due to the protagonist's lack of media information. And this unknowing dislocation works well. The prose is generally matter-of-fact, however, which drops a star for me. The plot feels realistic and the ending is excellent.
Hopefully, in 2019, Brexit will be stopped and the events of this book won't form a horrible prophesy. I guess we'll find out shortly. Stockpile now.
December 19, 2023
Le personnage principal était assez antipathique (mais je pense que c'est totalement voulu), mais l'intrigue était très rythmée grâce aux multiples lignes de temporalités entremêlées et à l'écriture détachée. J'ai trouvé le résumé trompeur (on ne développe pas vraiment la question du colonialisme) mais les thématiques abordées n'en restaient pas moins intéressantes (la guerre civile, les réfugiés, comment rester neutre, le déni...). En revanche, je n'ai pas du tout compris où l'auteur voulait nous emmener par son dénouement final qui ne m'a pas du tout satisfaite.
July 30, 2025
Fugue for a Darkening Island was written by a 29 year old Christopher Priest in 1972 at the height of the British New Wave. Shout out to Stephen E. Andrews and his YouTube channel for teaching many, including me, about all things great in SF.
This is one prophetic book. England is being over run with immigrants and society descends into roving gangs, refugees, assorted militia and Civil War.
The things that are happening today happen in this book, such as murder and sexual assault. The writing is so easy to read, just wonderful prose from such a young guy, even though the story is non-lineal with a deliciously downbeat ending. Can't wait to read more Priest.
One incredibly prophetic sentence reads thus; "... our modes of behaviour had already adapted subtly to allow for the presence of the Afrims and their sympathisers."
This is one prophetic book. England is being over run with immigrants and society descends into roving gangs, refugees, assorted militia and Civil War.
The things that are happening today happen in this book, such as murder and sexual assault. The writing is so easy to read, just wonderful prose from such a young guy, even though the story is non-lineal with a deliciously downbeat ending. Can't wait to read more Priest.
One incredibly prophetic sentence reads thus; "... our modes of behaviour had already adapted subtly to allow for the presence of the Afrims and their sympathisers."
August 19, 2020
In the preface to this edition Priest says:
This version of Fugue for a Darkening Island is fully revised. I have wanted a chance to modify the book for many years, for a number of reasons.
The main one was that as time went by sensibilities about the subject matter began to change, attitudes to it changed, even the vocabulary of it changed. The story, which I saw as an attempt to describe a global disaster in the ironic and liberal terms of its day, gradually became misunderstood.
It is interesting to read something like this before getting to the novel itself. I am not a big propagator of changing the text to better suit the climate just as well as I am not in favor of removing books from print as they can be too dangerous or give wrong ideas (like Rage for instance). Yet I had a chance to compare the original text in this case and it does read completely different. Therefore I approve Priest's decision to update it in order to stay closer to original intention (though I really don't see a need for some name changes).
This is a bleak novel. In the most obvious way it could be read as a white male's fear of losing world's dominance. But there is also a more personal story that strangely reflects modern day families and the impossibility of dealing with circumstances as dire as described here. It is a disaster on all levels.
The actual execution of this idea in the novel I didn't like so much. The style hovers between postmodernism and absurdism and the main protagonist is so dislikable in his passivity and inability to make sound decisions that he becomes an anti-hero. L' Etranger mixed with Mad Max. And yet, even more today, it is uncomfortably close to reality in many aspects.
Writing this review with a couple of months delay, I realize that I remember more than I initially thought and the impact it left on me is quite high. Another proof of Priest's mastery considering this is an early work dealing with a very difficult subject matter.
This version of Fugue for a Darkening Island is fully revised. I have wanted a chance to modify the book for many years, for a number of reasons.
The main one was that as time went by sensibilities about the subject matter began to change, attitudes to it changed, even the vocabulary of it changed. The story, which I saw as an attempt to describe a global disaster in the ironic and liberal terms of its day, gradually became misunderstood.
It is interesting to read something like this before getting to the novel itself. I am not a big propagator of changing the text to better suit the climate just as well as I am not in favor of removing books from print as they can be too dangerous or give wrong ideas (like Rage for instance). Yet I had a chance to compare the original text in this case and it does read completely different. Therefore I approve Priest's decision to update it in order to stay closer to original intention (though I really don't see a need for some name changes).
This is a bleak novel. In the most obvious way it could be read as a white male's fear of losing world's dominance. But there is also a more personal story that strangely reflects modern day families and the impossibility of dealing with circumstances as dire as described here. It is a disaster on all levels.
The actual execution of this idea in the novel I didn't like so much. The style hovers between postmodernism and absurdism and the main protagonist is so dislikable in his passivity and inability to make sound decisions that he becomes an anti-hero. L' Etranger mixed with Mad Max. And yet, even more today, it is uncomfortably close to reality in many aspects.
Writing this review with a couple of months delay, I realize that I remember more than I initially thought and the impact it left on me is quite high. Another proof of Priest's mastery considering this is an early work dealing with a very difficult subject matter.
February 25, 2022
During the covid pandemic I've seen people say they never knew that the end of the world was going to be so dull. Given the drama that this book is about, it is really dull.
This is the revised version of 2011. Originally written in the 1970s, Priest's story tells of a mass fleeing from Africa (just a great big generic mass of "Africa"), with hundreds of thousands of refugees turning up. In the UK, this causes a lot of social problems, which lead to civil war, "Afrims" vs the right-wing government vs left-wing opposition. Brits are chased out of their homes and turned into refugees in their own country. Priest stresses that this isn't meant to be a political book but rather a look at the individual person and how all of this uproar affects him. But he's created such an unlikeable and apathetic, emotionless main character that I can't say I really felt anything. And that tragedy at the end really loses any punch it could have had because of it. The story jumps about to different points in the life of Alan Whitman, including before the entire Afrim disaster. So it can get a bit confusing where you are in the timeline, although you do pick it up eventually. And I suppose as he's narrating this after the fact, and he's now a shell of himself, he's telling it in this factual, emotionless way. But... yeah, it really brings nothing to the table for the reader. There's also a lot about his sex life, just as casual and apathetic at the rest of the story, which gets very tiresome very quick.
I suppose there's a lot of worthy points in here about racism, the legacy of colonialism and empire building, the need for humanity and communication, how easy it is to ignore wars and the plights of people as long as you're comfortable (felt a bit unbelieveable that the south of England was a war zone except the strip along the coast that was behaving as though nothing had happened.) - which seems particularly poignant just now as everything's kicking off in the Ukraine. And of course, how it's not so much fun when you get to experience being a refugee, losing everything, being on the run, going to refugee camps and so on.
Priest is a funny one for me, either his books are brilliant or rather meh. He doesn't seem to do somewhere in between.
This is the revised version of 2011. Originally written in the 1970s, Priest's story tells of a mass fleeing from Africa (just a great big generic mass of "Africa"), with hundreds of thousands of refugees turning up. In the UK, this causes a lot of social problems, which lead to civil war, "Afrims" vs the right-wing government vs left-wing opposition. Brits are chased out of their homes and turned into refugees in their own country. Priest stresses that this isn't meant to be a political book but rather a look at the individual person and how all of this uproar affects him. But he's created such an unlikeable and apathetic, emotionless main character that I can't say I really felt anything. And that tragedy at the end really loses any punch it could have had because of it. The story jumps about to different points in the life of Alan Whitman, including before the entire Afrim disaster. So it can get a bit confusing where you are in the timeline, although you do pick it up eventually. And I suppose as he's narrating this after the fact, and he's now a shell of himself, he's telling it in this factual, emotionless way. But... yeah, it really brings nothing to the table for the reader. There's also a lot about his sex life, just as casual and apathetic at the rest of the story, which gets very tiresome very quick.
I suppose there's a lot of worthy points in here about racism, the legacy of colonialism and empire building, the need for humanity and communication, how easy it is to ignore wars and the plights of people as long as you're comfortable (felt a bit unbelieveable that the south of England was a war zone except the strip along the coast that was behaving as though nothing had happened.) - which seems particularly poignant just now as everything's kicking off in the Ukraine. And of course, how it's not so much fun when you get to experience being a refugee, losing everything, being on the run, going to refugee camps and so on.
Priest is a funny one for me, either his books are brilliant or rather meh. He doesn't seem to do somewhere in between.
July 24, 2016
This is one of those books in which the reader comes across language and imagery that is so offensive that one feels the need to warn other potential readers.
While parts of this book seem prescient:
"The emigrants headed for nowhere in particular. . . only away from Africa.
They landed in due course in countries all over the world: India,
France, Turkey, the Middle East, America, Greece. In the period of evacuation,
it was estimated that between seven and eight million people left Africa. In
the course of about a year, just over two millions of them landed in Britain.
The Africans, the Afrims, were welcome nowhere. But where they landed,
they stayed. Everywhere they caused social upheaval; but in Britain, where a
neo-racist government had come to power on an economic-reform ticket, they did
much more."
I found it nearly unreadable for the level of racism, sexism, and classism.
I am old enough to have been an adult when this book was first published and no, the context of the time does not excuse the level of racism and misogyny reflected in the writing. Throughout the entire book there is not a single completely realized female character, nor a completely realized Black person, nor a completely realized member of the working class.
Yes, I am aware that the protagonist is not supposed to be likeable but the underlying attitudes of the author pervade the entire book.
While parts of this book seem prescient:
"The emigrants headed for nowhere in particular. . . only away from Africa.
They landed in due course in countries all over the world: India,
France, Turkey, the Middle East, America, Greece. In the period of evacuation,
it was estimated that between seven and eight million people left Africa. In
the course of about a year, just over two millions of them landed in Britain.
The Africans, the Afrims, were welcome nowhere. But where they landed,
they stayed. Everywhere they caused social upheaval; but in Britain, where a
neo-racist government had come to power on an economic-reform ticket, they did
much more."
I found it nearly unreadable for the level of racism, sexism, and classism.
I am old enough to have been an adult when this book was first published and no, the context of the time does not excuse the level of racism and misogyny reflected in the writing. Throughout the entire book there is not a single completely realized female character, nor a completely realized Black person, nor a completely realized member of the working class.
Yes, I am aware that the protagonist is not supposed to be likeable but the underlying attitudes of the author pervade the entire book.
October 3, 2014
I have been trying to find this book literally for years, but have only recently managed to do so without spending a fortune. While it had its good points, it didn't really live up to my expectations. However, this book features on a lot of lists of apocalyptic fiction, which was the reason for me buying it, and I think my disappointment was mainly due to the fact that I don't really think it belongs in that genre. I only enjoyed it enough to score 3 stars, but I think it really deserves 4, hence my rating.
The story centres around a man struggling to survive a civil war raging between three sides throughout the UK. The conflict essentially arises from a tide of African immigrants arriving in the UK as they attempt to flee a nuclear war occurring within Africa itself. It is told in a non-chronological order with three main strands - one set in the far past when he met his wife, one in the recent past at the outbreak of the conflict, and a third in the present, during the war. The tale jumps between these periods, with small passages that reveal the story gradually. It's not a brilliant book but it did keep me reading and is certainly worth picking up if you can find it.
The story centres around a man struggling to survive a civil war raging between three sides throughout the UK. The conflict essentially arises from a tide of African immigrants arriving in the UK as they attempt to flee a nuclear war occurring within Africa itself. It is told in a non-chronological order with three main strands - one set in the far past when he met his wife, one in the recent past at the outbreak of the conflict, and a third in the present, during the war. The tale jumps between these periods, with small passages that reveal the story gradually. It's not a brilliant book but it did keep me reading and is certainly worth picking up if you can find it.
June 26, 2015
This was a re-read from about fifteen years ago, prompted by the current scenes of chaotic immigration. The book is a very bleak picture, somewhat strange as a novel. We have an unlikeable protagonist whom we follow, jumping in short passages backwards and forwards through a period of societal breakdown. Gradually we piece together his story, though his direct, unemotional rendition rather distances us from the horror. His quest ends, and he wanders off into the lawless countryside, allied to no one, with nowhere to go.
I generally enjoy Christopher Priest's books. This shares his direct, but unsettling style, but there is an incompleteness here which deprives the reader of a sense of a satifactory read. We can only hope that the basis of his sketch, where the different responses to desperate immigration lead to a civil war, stays on the page in this most disturbing time.
I generally enjoy Christopher Priest's books. This shares his direct, but unsettling style, but there is an incompleteness here which deprives the reader of a sense of a satifactory read. We can only hope that the basis of his sketch, where the different responses to desperate immigration lead to a civil war, stays on the page in this most disturbing time.
May 8, 2019
I read the 2011 revised edition, so casual 70s attitudes to race and women have been excised whilst still keeping the general feel and of course it's set in the 'future past' so it's all phone boxes and transistor radios still. The narrative is slightly confusing, there's three threads that bounce about, with the two set after the breakdown of civil liberties being quite similar so it's difficult to place which thread is which sometimes. There's womanising college lecturer before the aftermath of a huge African refugee crisis, and the post civil war anarchy, with his wife and daughter, and alone. There's so much here that is still relevant today, but even with revision the story is just not that great. Bleak survivalist fiction has been done bigger and better.
April 3, 2025
Superficially, and certainly in the book description, this is a post-apocalyptic story, but the reading experience does not always reflect that theme; I have been told Fugue is an intentionally confusing book, it fulfills it's intention fully.
Britain has been invaded by a series of ‘plague ships’ from Africa which have unbalanced the British society to an exceptional extent. We learn about this in a series of ‘flash scenes’ from our protagonist Alan Whitman, who introduces himself in the first paragraphs and who is out main protagonist, the story is %100 Alan’s POV. Also it is phrased in the past tense, so we have a very narrow perception of events.
The ‘flash scenes’ are generally short, usually less than a page each and these short scenes go back over numerous past periods with numerous different events and people and it is often only through internal context that you can figure out when they are occurring.
Until quite late in the book one has no solid idea what has led to the instability we are reading about and there is no hint of anything science based, no war, no aliens no catastrophic event (aside from on the annoying back cover). Rather, what we see through tiny snippets, is that while Alan and his wife and daughter are going about their daily lives, a series of these ‘plague ships’ arrive from Africa full of sick, dying and dead refugees (Priest does not call them refugees, incidentally until much later in the book and they do not seem to be treated like refugees). The modern reader can be forgiven for a chill up their spine at this, considering the refugee issues common in Europe these few years.
This book has beautiful diction with lovely writing and even pacing matched with a very early British cultural/social feel, but Priest does something here (as in some other works I have read) is pretty much wholly a single POV, other characters are just lightly sketched in, even when they seem important to the plot they are never fleshed out into reality. This can be slow to read.
Also, Priest is not big on conversation between characters, he is not really clear about any given scene as we read it. Rather, we have misty lenses memories scenes, out of sequence to slowly build our narrative. Several of these scenes are Alan’s backstory, him as a child playing in a barn, him as a child playing on an empty lot and getting his first sexual experiences. Because of this Vaseline lens type scene writing, we end up with a far LESS exciting story than this narrative could be, differently written.
Priest seems pretty focused on letting us know that Alan and Isobel’s relationship was on the breakdown before the Afrim issues, and he does that mostly by flashbacks of how many affairs Alan was engaging in and that… neither makes him more real as a character nor more relatable if that is what it is meant to do. Now, these flashbacks slowly come to hint at the fact that a right-Wing government with an elected official no one likes, in combination with the thousands, nay, possibly millions of Afrim pouring into the country are the cause of the social breakdown. But since we mostly get this from Alan’s fairly disinterested POV; “Although it was of course essential to keep abreast of the developing situation…” is about his level of personal investment.
There are some really... quaint... themes in this book. We have Alan/Priest's strong fascination with unerotic and unapealing sex scenes. We have the refugee and racist subtexts, we have strong elements of xenophobia in a few different ways. There are some attitudes toward politics that I just can't figure out what the points being made are.
These elements make one wonder a bit about the author: Who exactly is Christopher Priest, and what is he trying to achieve with this narrative? Is Alan merely a fall guy of a character, used as the British 'common man' of the era the book is from with his social landscape meant to be a social critique? One hopes so though it comes across as such a cold, bloodless critique that I went to research Priest a bit.
There is an element to the plague ships, which feels incomplete and which rings oddly to a modern reader – that is all I will say, but absolutely dated the book in terms of political responses.
Now, in a way I think the small flashes, the unemotional narrative and the detached behaviour is effect in telling this story. An individual experiencing a catastrophic event often does not know how to act. We, as more sophisticated readers, of the catastrophic event, are often inclined to critique in our heads the events. ‘Don’t do that!’ we urge the character and we formulate plans that are better than theirs. But in a catastrophic event that has not been planned for, people lack that overview, so by giving us tiny flashes of the events Priest actually gives us a view that is more organic to Alan's experience than a more exciting, linear narrative might be. Alan Whitman never came to life for me as a character. As a protagonist, through whom we read the breakdown of Britain as (we/Priest knew it) he does well enough but as a individual who feels real (never mind likable or not) he never took shape for me. His sexual exploits made him rather horrid to a modern reader.
So, while beautifully written this lacked something in the reading experience for me, as I read it. It is definitely a mood read and I was in the mood for a more focused narrative, rather than a diffuse one that keeps you adrift and guessing.
That said: Having picked it up I had no desire to put it down so I kept reading and if I come to re-read it when in the right mood, I might well absolutely love the nostalgic, ephemeral style of writing.
Britain has been invaded by a series of ‘plague ships’ from Africa which have unbalanced the British society to an exceptional extent. We learn about this in a series of ‘flash scenes’ from our protagonist Alan Whitman, who introduces himself in the first paragraphs and who is out main protagonist, the story is %100 Alan’s POV. Also it is phrased in the past tense, so we have a very narrow perception of events.
The ‘flash scenes’ are generally short, usually less than a page each and these short scenes go back over numerous past periods with numerous different events and people and it is often only through internal context that you can figure out when they are occurring.
Until quite late in the book one has no solid idea what has led to the instability we are reading about and there is no hint of anything science based, no war, no aliens no catastrophic event (aside from on the annoying back cover). Rather, what we see through tiny snippets, is that while Alan and his wife and daughter are going about their daily lives, a series of these ‘plague ships’ arrive from Africa full of sick, dying and dead refugees (Priest does not call them refugees, incidentally until much later in the book and they do not seem to be treated like refugees). The modern reader can be forgiven for a chill up their spine at this, considering the refugee issues common in Europe these few years.
This book has beautiful diction with lovely writing and even pacing matched with a very early British cultural/social feel, but Priest does something here (as in some other works I have read) is pretty much wholly a single POV, other characters are just lightly sketched in, even when they seem important to the plot they are never fleshed out into reality. This can be slow to read.
Also, Priest is not big on conversation between characters, he is not really clear about any given scene as we read it. Rather, we have misty lenses memories scenes, out of sequence to slowly build our narrative. Several of these scenes are Alan’s backstory, him as a child playing in a barn, him as a child playing on an empty lot and getting his first sexual experiences. Because of this Vaseline lens type scene writing, we end up with a far LESS exciting story than this narrative could be, differently written.
Priest seems pretty focused on letting us know that Alan and Isobel’s relationship was on the breakdown before the Afrim issues, and he does that mostly by flashbacks of how many affairs Alan was engaging in and that… neither makes him more real as a character nor more relatable if that is what it is meant to do. Now, these flashbacks slowly come to hint at the fact that a right-Wing government with an elected official no one likes, in combination with the thousands, nay, possibly millions of Afrim pouring into the country are the cause of the social breakdown. But since we mostly get this from Alan’s fairly disinterested POV; “Although it was of course essential to keep abreast of the developing situation…” is about his level of personal investment.
There are some really... quaint... themes in this book. We have Alan/Priest's strong fascination with unerotic and unapealing sex scenes. We have the refugee and racist subtexts, we have strong elements of xenophobia in a few different ways. There are some attitudes toward politics that I just can't figure out what the points being made are.
These elements make one wonder a bit about the author: Who exactly is Christopher Priest, and what is he trying to achieve with this narrative? Is Alan merely a fall guy of a character, used as the British 'common man' of the era the book is from with his social landscape meant to be a social critique? One hopes so though it comes across as such a cold, bloodless critique that I went to research Priest a bit.
There is an element to the plague ships, which feels incomplete and which rings oddly to a modern reader – that is all I will say, but absolutely dated the book in terms of political responses.
Now, in a way I think the small flashes, the unemotional narrative and the detached behaviour is effect in telling this story. An individual experiencing a catastrophic event often does not know how to act. We, as more sophisticated readers, of the catastrophic event, are often inclined to critique in our heads the events. ‘Don’t do that!’ we urge the character and we formulate plans that are better than theirs. But in a catastrophic event that has not been planned for, people lack that overview, so by giving us tiny flashes of the events Priest actually gives us a view that is more organic to Alan's experience than a more exciting, linear narrative might be. Alan Whitman never came to life for me as a character. As a protagonist, through whom we read the breakdown of Britain as (we/Priest knew it) he does well enough but as a individual who feels real (never mind likable or not) he never took shape for me. His sexual exploits made him rather horrid to a modern reader.
So, while beautifully written this lacked something in the reading experience for me, as I read it. It is definitely a mood read and I was in the mood for a more focused narrative, rather than a diffuse one that keeps you adrift and guessing.
That said: Having picked it up I had no desire to put it down so I kept reading and if I come to re-read it when in the right mood, I might well absolutely love the nostalgic, ephemeral style of writing.
July 20, 2016
Ohhhh hmmm its grim, violet, sexist, somewhat dated despite its apparent update, thoroughly depressing and stylistically annoying because it hops from time period to time period with no sense of cohesion. Also the lead character is a whiney everyman and there are no women ( except as victims either of the violence or his inability to commit). Avoid if you are either female, optimistic, under 75,and/or non-white; it will make you seethe with anger. Grump grump grump - makes Death of Grass seem like a cheerful read. And I like apocalyptic fiction so I am slightly more tolerant of its failings but really....on your own head be it.....
November 1, 2020
I recently re-read the novel that introduced me to Priest's work, all those years ago, a chilling vision of a Britain - and a world - gone wrong. Some of the details, and concerns, have changed during the intervening years, but we seem closer to Priest's hellish vision now than when he wrote it.
Real people, caught up in a reality outside their control, in a world without comfort or hope. Fly me away to one of the happier islands of the Dream Archipelago!
Real people, caught up in a reality outside their control, in a world without comfort or hope. Fly me away to one of the happier islands of the Dream Archipelago!
July 16, 2014
An excellent science fiction novel that asks the right questions about an omnipresent contemporary problem. A great human epic transcribed through the eyes of a man lost in a chaotic world.
The complete book review : http://leatouchbook.blogspot.fr/2014/...
The complete book review : http://leatouchbook.blogspot.fr/2014/...
July 22, 2019
Tough to get into at first, especially because of the way the timelines are threaded, but a compelling story once you get used to that. Prescient.
Can't help but laugh at the one-star reviews here by the scandalized who've only ever been presented with things they agree with.
Can't help but laugh at the one-star reviews here by the scandalized who've only ever been presented with things they agree with.
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