Victoria Silverwolf
Vegetarian Werewolf
SIGNS OF LIFE by M. John Harrison (1998)
I first came across the writings of M. John Harrison with his first novel, THE PASTEL CITY. It had a fairly typical heroic fantasy plot, but it was unusually imaginative and well-written. Since then, what I have seen of Harrison's work has continued to be stylish, but has also been surrealistic, experimental, and sometimes incomprehensible.
SIGNS OF LIFE is something else again. For at least 90% percent of the book, it reads like a realistic mainstream literary novel. The style is not experimental, although it often becomes quite poetic. The plot (what little there is) is quite clear, and never confusing. (There are many references to persons and things which I did not understand, but these did not play a large part in the novel. I assume this was due to my general ignorance, and to the fact that this was an extremely British novel.)
The narrator is Mick, usually called China. The book opens as he meets Isobel, and they soon become passionate lovers. Isobel is obsessed with the idea of flying. Meanwhile, China and a fellow named Choe (rhymes with Joey) operate a courier service specializing in the transportation of biologicals. Much of their work seems to border on the illegal. Isobel takes a doctor working in genetics as a lover and leaves China. Some time later, she returns from a clinic operated by the doctor, apparently deathly ill. Near the end of the book, the exact nature of Isobel's physical condition is revealed, as the novel leaves realism behind and becomes highly speculative science fiction.
I have made the plot of SIGNS OF LIFE sound much more linear than it is. Most of the novel consists of character studies as people drive around, go to restaurants and pubs, travel to Europe and meet shady characters, and so on. The other major character in the novel is Choe's lover Christiana, who plays little or no role in the main plot I have outlined above, but who plays a very important role in the lives of the other characters.
SIGNS OF LIFE is a book which is difficult to love. It is relentlessly depressing, with the exception of the early stages of the love affair between Isobel and China. Choe is an utterly obnoxious, loathsome character, the kind of person you wouldn't spend five seconds with; yet, in some ways, he is the center of the novel. (I haven't mentioned the major subplot of the novel, in which Choe reveals a mystical experience he had in the woods when he was a young man. Since Choe, among other faults, is a habitual liar, it's hard to know if the reader is expected to accept this story, which contains elements of pure fantasy, as real or not.)
Readers of genre fiction will need a lot of patience to make it to the book's extraordinary conclusion. Readers of mainstream fiction will find the ending bizarre or absurd. If you can appreciate both, you may get something out of this novel.
SIGNS OF LIFE might have been a classic short story. As a novel, it intrigues and disappoints.
I first came across the writings of M. John Harrison with his first novel, THE PASTEL CITY. It had a fairly typical heroic fantasy plot, but it was unusually imaginative and well-written. Since then, what I have seen of Harrison's work has continued to be stylish, but has also been surrealistic, experimental, and sometimes incomprehensible.
SIGNS OF LIFE is something else again. For at least 90% percent of the book, it reads like a realistic mainstream literary novel. The style is not experimental, although it often becomes quite poetic. The plot (what little there is) is quite clear, and never confusing. (There are many references to persons and things which I did not understand, but these did not play a large part in the novel. I assume this was due to my general ignorance, and to the fact that this was an extremely British novel.)
The narrator is Mick, usually called China. The book opens as he meets Isobel, and they soon become passionate lovers. Isobel is obsessed with the idea of flying. Meanwhile, China and a fellow named Choe (rhymes with Joey) operate a courier service specializing in the transportation of biologicals. Much of their work seems to border on the illegal. Isobel takes a doctor working in genetics as a lover and leaves China. Some time later, she returns from a clinic operated by the doctor, apparently deathly ill. Near the end of the book, the exact nature of Isobel's physical condition is revealed, as the novel leaves realism behind and becomes highly speculative science fiction.
I have made the plot of SIGNS OF LIFE sound much more linear than it is. Most of the novel consists of character studies as people drive around, go to restaurants and pubs, travel to Europe and meet shady characters, and so on. The other major character in the novel is Choe's lover Christiana, who plays little or no role in the main plot I have outlined above, but who plays a very important role in the lives of the other characters.
SIGNS OF LIFE is a book which is difficult to love. It is relentlessly depressing, with the exception of the early stages of the love affair between Isobel and China. Choe is an utterly obnoxious, loathsome character, the kind of person you wouldn't spend five seconds with; yet, in some ways, he is the center of the novel. (I haven't mentioned the major subplot of the novel, in which Choe reveals a mystical experience he had in the woods when he was a young man. Since Choe, among other faults, is a habitual liar, it's hard to know if the reader is expected to accept this story, which contains elements of pure fantasy, as real or not.)
Readers of genre fiction will need a lot of patience to make it to the book's extraordinary conclusion. Readers of mainstream fiction will find the ending bizarre or absurd. If you can appreciate both, you may get something out of this novel.
SIGNS OF LIFE might have been a classic short story. As a novel, it intrigues and disappoints.
