Literature
It’s the end of the world! Kick back and read a book…
Inspired by The Book Show’s competition to win a bookshelf full of books (see the link for details), ArtsWom decided that we should help spread the good word about good books and invite people from across the ‘net to share their recommendations for the last book to read before the end of the world.
Admittedly, this is something of a morbid topic, but when the end comes and this fragile orb finally cracks, it may be too late to panic buy, too inappropriate to copulate, and just too ironic to pray – so what else is there to do other than settle down and read a quality novel.
Industrial chemist, freelance journalist, book reviewer, soon-to-be author, and The Book Show fan, Ali Karim has already enlightened us with his decision. Selecting the yet-to-be-released Child 44, the debut novel by Tom Rob Smith.
If the sky were falling to end our world; I would need to be reminded of the best and worst traits of the human condition. Therefore I select “Child 44” a debut novel by Tom Rob Smith which does just that. This is a novel I need to re-read as it so captivating that it would absorb me completely to ease the anxiety when the end approaches. This debut had me clutching the book with both hands as if my life depended upon me completing the book in a single sitting.
The backdrop is totally original for a crime thriller – Stalin’s cruel regime that enslaved the Russian people in poverty and paranoia. The setting is a most interesting canvas to pitch the hunt of a child-murdering serial killer as the Russian-state refuses to believe that crime exists in the communist nirvana they project to the West. Then there’s the characters themselves. Leo Demidov a respected secret policeman and his wife Raisa who find themselves on the wrong-end of state politics when the case of a murdered child turns to obsession. They discover that the death on a railway-track was not an accident that the authorities concluded. Nor is the death an isolated case for a trail of child murder snakes along Russia’s railway system showing the work of a deranged mind or minds. Then we have the cruelty of the instruments of the state oppressing the people with the threat of the Gulag, contrasted against the compassion and strength of the human spirit. The brutality of this book is shocking but is placed into context of the terrible extremes of the Stalinist era.
The novel is well researched, but the level of detail is not thrown in your face, but rather subtly painted into the plot, enriching the narrative and making the hunt for a serial killer take on a fresh dimension. Child 44 at times is harrowing; at times terrifying; and at times brings you to tears such is the power of the remarkable talent of young Mr Smith.
Re-reading the motif [would be a good epitaph to the end of everything] - In the darkness of the human soul, we also have a light within the human condition that will overcome the tyranny of evil.
Child 44 is written by Tom Rob Smith and is available in the UK from March 3rd
[…] already heard back from bloggers Ali Karim, Crimeficreader and Helen of Too Many Books. You can read which titles they’ve chosen and why by […]
Posted by artsWOM • 7 February 2008 at 5:18 pm
It’s the end of the world. I want to be cheerful. I feel I should also read an end of the world apocalyptic type book. Or two (I’m a fast reader).
Therefore my choices are: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. You can’t get more apocalyptic then the Four Horse of the aforementioned running riot on the M25. Plus I think I need a laugh before I meet my maker.
And: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe. I feel a theme coming on here, but it also strikes me that if the end of the world is really upon us, it might be rather comforting to just think we are merely collateral damage in the great Space road building programme.
And who knows, by the time I’ve finished both books I might have found out a way to save the world before teatime…
Posted by Julia Williams • 18 February 2008 at 10:11 am