Reviews - Termush, côte Atlantique

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674 reviews for:

Termush, côte Atlantique

Sven Holm

3.4 AVERAGE

markk's review against another edition

4.5

dark reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Termush is a resort-like haven for a group of well-off citizens in some unnamed country on the Atlantic coast. It is to there that the narrator of Sven Holm’s short novel has retreated after an unspecified event has inflicted radioactive destruction upon the world. Having retreated there in advance of the devastation, he and the other guests are catered to by a staff, looked after by doctors, and protected by security personnel. Yet for all the attempts to maintain normality with regular meals and boat rides on the ocean, reality persistently intrudes. Guests are summoned to the shelters when radiation detectors sound their alarm. A slow trickle of dying survivors shows up in search of refuge and care. And as the guests and staff debate what to do in response and the management attempts to maintain an increasingly strained aura of normality, the narrator finds his will slipping away as he becomes an increasingly passive bystander to the events unfolding around him.

Holm’s novel is a simple premise that is presented in minimalist prose. And herein lies the brilliance of his approach. By stripping everything down to its basics – characters (with one exception) devoid of names, events devoid of context, descriptions based on a limited range of sensory perceptions – he creates a powerful sense of his narrator’s growing disconnection from the world around him. While this was a process that was clearly underway before the opening page of the book, its acceleration as he tries to finds his place in the post-apocalyptic world only grows with events. The irony of this comes from the context of his environment, as the harder the anonymous staff labors to maintain a façade of prewar existence, the more unreal everything becomes. No amount of wealth, Holm implies, can insulate the rich few from reality.

While the narrator recognizes this early on, as events unfold he surrenders to his passivity. Holm presents him as the perennial observer, watching as the flimsy walls of pretense in which he invested crumble around him. Instead of fighting to preserve it, or to build something new from the ruins – or even to do anything at all – he allows himself to be carried off by the tide of events. In doing so, he gradually surrenders his individuality, becoming part of the community as it is driven by the outside forces they are unable to keep out. All of this makes for an efficiently-written tale that lingers in the mind long after the last page. More than just a post-apocalyptic novel, it serves as a powerful metaphor for the divisions in our society and the falseness of the belief that privilege can spare people from events and their consequences. In that respect it’s a work as relevant today as it was when it was originally published over half a century ago.

mandamoodreads's review against another edition

4.0

I wish I were smart enough to ‘get it’. I felt like things were almost happening but then they didn’t, and I started to form theories that went nowhere, and I don’t know what the ending means.

Really enjoyed the writing, some of the imagery was -chef’s kiss-