Lior Tirosh, an author of pulp detective novels, leaves Berlin and travels home, where he grew up with a famous, militaristic father. His niece has gone missing: she’s a student who was investigating the construction of a great wall around the nation. Home for Tirosh is Palestina, a Jewish homeland established near Uganda, on land offered by the British. In our world, this offer was turned down in the 1900s; in this world, it was accepted, and so the Jews escaped the Holocaust. But this is not a utopia, and a familiar problem remains: how to handle the claims of others to the same land, and maintain security, when the surrounding territory was long since relinquished by the British.
The book is written in the first, second and third person, depending on which character the narrative is following. Bloom is the first person, a Jewish agent from another reality who has settled in Palestina. Nur Al-Hassaini, a field agent, is the second person. Tirosh is the third person, watched by Bloom as he stumbles through it all. All three have the ability to shift between realities, though Tirosh isn’t aware he is doing it. When they shift, they begin to assimilate, to forget their old lives, and remember the new ones. Even objects change, for example a mobile phone turning into a glasses case, until it receives a call and people on the street stare in bafflement.
This is really quite terrific. The story of the missing woman is intriguing, a proper detective novel plot, while the reality-shifting elements play an important role and reach an astonishing apotheosis towards the end in a sequence that puts Lovecraft to shame. It’s another Lavie Tidhar book that is full of ideas and unafraid to tackle big, controversial, important issues. Warren Ellis compares him to Michael Moorcock in an afterword, and like Moorcock, Tidhar writes books that are unpredictable and experimental, consistently and reliably surprising, yet always readable and engaging. Unholy Land is another corker. Stephen Theaker ****
No comments:
Post a Comment