The Separation

by Christopher Priest

Christopher Priest excels at rethinking SF themes, lifting them above genre expectations into his own tricky, chilling, metaphysically dangerous territory. The Separation suggests an alternate history lying along a road not taken in World War II. But there are complications.

In 1999, history author Stuart Gratton is intrigued by a minor mystery of the European war which ended on 10 May 1941. The British-German armistice signed that month has had far-reaching consequences, including a resettlement of European Jews in Madagascar.

In 1936, the identical twin brothers Joe and Jack Sawyer win a rowing medal for Britain in the Berlin Olympics: it's presented to them by Rudolf Hess. The brothers are separated not only by a twin's fierce need "to be treated as a separate human being", but by sexual rivalry and even ideology. When war breaks out Jack becomes a gung-ho bomber pilot, Joe a conscientious objector. Still they're inescapably linked, and sometimes confused. Both suffer injuries and hauntingly similar ambulance journeys. Churchill writes a puzzled memo (later unearthed by Gratton) about the anomaly of a registered-pacifist Red Cross worker flying planes for Bomber Command. Hess has significant, eventually incompatible meetings with both men. Contradictions are everywhere.

As in his magical 1995 novel The Prestige Priest is fruitfully fascinated by the legerdemain of twins, doubles, impostors, symmetrical roles. Churchill's double briefly appears. So does the famous conspiracy theory that the Hess who flew to Britain with his quixotic peace deal wasn't the real Hess ring true? Clearly The Separation was impressively, extensively researched. Its evocations of bombing raids--from either side of the bomb sites--are memorable.

The unfolding story strands become increasingly disorienting and hallucinatory; the easy escape route of dismissing one strand as delusion is itself subtly undermined. The Separation is filled with a sense of the precariousness of history; of small events and choices with extraordinary consequences. --David Langford

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Alternate History, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, War, World War II

338 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Christopher Priest was born in Cheshire, England. He began writing soon after leaving school and has been a full-time freelance writer since 1968.

He published eleven novels, four short story collections and a number of other books, including critical works, biographies, novelizations and children’s non-fiction.

He also wrote 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 was 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 wrote features and reviews for The Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, the Scotsman, and many different magazines.

Reviews

[Ivo]

Kaum ein Autor übt eine derart magische Anziehungskraft auf mich aus, wie Priest. Und auch dieses Meisterwerk, das 2003 mit dem Arthur C. Clarke Award ausgezeichnet wurde, begeistert auf ganzer Linie.

Auf den ersten Blick ein „Alternate History“-Roman, der eine Realität beschreibt, in der die vermeintliche Friedensmission von Rudolf Heß 1941 Erfolg hat und zu einem Friedensschluss zwischen dem Vereinigten Königreich und Hitler-Deutschland führt.

Es ist aber viel mehr als das: Alternative Realitäten verschwimmen und verzahnen sich miteinander, sowohl auf historischer Ebene als auch in der persönlichen Historie der beiden Protagonisten: zweier eineiiger Zwillinge, die durch die Wirren des Krieges getrennt werden und einen sehr unterschiedlichen Lebensweg verfolgen: der eine als Bomberpilot, der andere als Kriegsdienstverweigerer und Rot-Kreuz-Helfer. Historische Figuren tauchen mehrfach auf, doch sind es die echten oder nur Doppelgänger?

Man wird hineingesogen in die Ich-Erzählungen der Protagonisten. Die von Priest gerne verwendete Erzähltechnik des „unreliable narrators“ macht es hierbei nicht einfach, Wahn und Wirklichkeit zu unterscheiden.

Man schließt das Buch am Ende atemlos, in dem Wissen, nicht wirklich alles verstanden zu haben, aber dem sicheren Gefühl, ein geniales Buch gelesen zu haben.

PS: Mir hat es geholfen, dass ich mir die historischen Hintergründe zur „Friedensmission“ von Heß nochmal in Erinnerung zu rufen, der Absatz „Flug nach Großbritannien“ im entsprechenden Wikipedia-Eintrag reicht hier völlig (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_...)