Having dealt so memorably with death in The End of the Day, Claire North sets her sights on life in 84K, a powerful and provocative novel that nods to George Orwell at the same time as narrating a tale not even he could tell so well. It’s not an easy read—not that you’d take Nineteen Eighty-Four to the beach either—but buckle up, because what it is is brilliant ... both stylistically and structurally, North goes out of her way in 84K to stress the disconnectedness of her new world. In this future—a future that is not so far removed from our own as we might like to tell ourselves—people have become disconnected from one another, and some, such as Theo, have become disconnected from themselves, from their own thoughts and feelings and ambitions and beliefs ... It’s a brutal but truthful book about losing touch with what matters most, and maybe, just maybe, finding it again.
On the one hand, it’s a terrifying look at capitalism’s slippery slopes and a realistic depiction of how a person’s will can shrivel into apathy and fear. On the other, it’s not an easy reading experience ... random line breaks combine with almost constant ellipses to lend the novel a distracted air, where no one seems able to carry a thought to its conclusion. This is a deliberate stylistic choice—but it’s also exasperating ... That aside, 84K is absorbing and timely; a book to wrestle and argue with, but first and foremost, to read.
There's Theo figuring stuff out and then there's Theo doing things about what he has learned and then there's Theo remembering things from the past (mostly, how he became Theo and how the world became the world). But North handles it. With style and voice and a wicked grip that never lets the three-way plot spiral out of control. Long sections run in an almost stream-of-consciousness style, with words just rolling out of her. Others are surgically precise, describing the thousand small horrors of the world that Theo, Dani and the rest occupy. And all together they make a story that is rare—one of those that is so good I didn't want it to end, but so sad I didn't want to read another page.
84K’s title deliberately invokes 1984 ... But the dystopia Claire North builds here is a uniquely British one, with callbacks and allegiances to everything from Brave New World to The Children of Men ... Even in our existing world (whether it qualifies as a dystopia or not depending on your point of view), the neighborhoods and waterways of London and its surrounding communities are laid out like a map of the social order ... Though 84K is clearly part of a tradition, I don’t mean to imply it’s some humdrum regurgitation; it has its own unique voice. The narration is deliberately off-putting, written in a form of stream of consciousness that sometimes requires you to double back, or just let go and flow forward ... This is a challenging novel, with an uncomfortable protagonist written in a way that’s distancing and divisive. You’re going to have to work for it, and what it’s worth is no easy equation. Not like life and death in this near future, where everything has a price.
Part Arthurian quest, part dystopian satire, Claire North’s new novel is set in a Britain recognizable physically and linguistically: she reproduces the slurring and syncopation of everyday speech with amused exactitude. Politically, though, we’re in a parallel reality ... North plays around with language with the ease of one so certain of the right way she can risk taking the wrong one without danger. Sentences without verbs. Sentences that just peter out ... She segues smoothly from romance to thriller ... 84K is a nicely judged parable about the area where popular culture and religion overlap; it’s also funny ... she demonstrates again that her imaginative energy is as prodigious as her output.
Here passages written in a sort of prose-poetic style (sentences end or begin midway through; thoughts are interrupted; punctuation is left out) vividly convey the dramatic tone of the moment. Another captivating novel from one of the most intriguing and genre-bending novelists currently working in the intersection between thriller and science fiction.
...a compellingly dark and gritty world where everything has a price and those who can’t pay aren’t treated as human. The sometimes stream of consciousness of the story, with past and present folding over on one another, does distance the reader from events and reduces the tension of Theo’s quest to uncover the truth. Still, the story is strong enough to keep the reader interested. Style gets in the way of substance here, but North is an original and even dazzling writer, and fans of her work will enjoy this grim tale of capitalism taken to a terrifying extreme.Style gets in the way of substance here, but North is an original and even dazzling writer, and fans of her work will enjoy this grim tale of capitalism taken to a terrifying extreme.
Lyrical language, stream-of-consciousness dialogue, and a nonlinear structure complicate this otherwise straightforward tale of entrapment within, and resistance against, a future England where every crime can be resolved through financial restitution or indentured servitude ... North...paints a vivid and disturbing picture of a corporate-run future devoid of human rights. The complex intricacy of her narrative voice makes this more of a poetic vision quest than a straightforward adventure, and the experimental style and tangled plotline show an admirable grasp of technique but may frustrate readers expecting a more conventional dystopian thriller.
