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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
I liked the surprise twists throughout. Some were totally unexpected. However, sometimes I really wanted to know more about a specific incident and then all of a sudden it would be over and onto something new. An interesting take on the dystopian future.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If the first hundred pages of a three hundred page novel don't intrigue, it's time to move on. Is that your rule, or are you easier to convince? Perhaps because lately I have been reading a load of maximalist heavyweights that Far North, despite its admirers, seems painfully underwritten. What might have been a match for a Cormac McCarthy moral wilderness is only a superficial landscape. Makepeace isn't much of a protagonist, short on insightful reflections and short on the wily attitude a master of the wilderness ought to have.
All her plot situations, at least in the first third, reveal only her flatness. Theroux's character could have been a mysterious traveler or a philosopher of isolation, but she's neither. This novel amounts to another entry in the post-apocalyptic genre, yet sans apocalypse or world-in-collapse scenario (the hippie, Quaker and fundamentalists who found a quasi state in Siberia are standard characters).
Torture yourself with its predecessor, The Road, if you want more anguish, or Riddley Walker if you want more substance.
All her plot situations, at least in the first third, reveal only her flatness. Theroux's character could have been a mysterious traveler or a philosopher of isolation, but she's neither. This novel amounts to another entry in the post-apocalyptic genre, yet sans apocalypse or world-in-collapse scenario (the hippie, Quaker and fundamentalists who found a quasi state in Siberia are standard characters).
Torture yourself with its predecessor, The Road, if you want more anguish, or Riddley Walker if you want more substance.
roman postapocalyptique, ce roman ne nous epargne pas (mais les situations pourraient etre pire).
on y rencontre des personnages brisés par les évènements, sans reperes dans jn monde où on ne sait pas vraiment ce qui s'est passé et l'isolement est intenable.
cet isolement le lecteur le ressent egalement car nous n'avons que le point du personnnage principal. il est donc aussi perdu qu'elle.
j'ai apprecié cette lecture car elle montre a quel poitn les reperes socioculturels sont importants dans la construction d'un individu.
la fin me laisse un gout d'inachevé. je pense que j'aurai aimé continuer l'aventure avec le personnage principal.
on y rencontre des personnages brisés par les évènements, sans reperes dans jn monde où on ne sait pas vraiment ce qui s'est passé et l'isolement est intenable.
cet isolement le lecteur le ressent egalement car nous n'avons que le point du personnnage principal. il est donc aussi perdu qu'elle.
j'ai apprecié cette lecture car elle montre a quel poitn les reperes socioculturels sont importants dans la construction d'un individu.
la fin me laisse un gout d'inachevé. je pense que j'aurai aimé continuer l'aventure avec le personnage principal.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I can't decide if this story occurs after the fall of this world at some unknown point in the future or in the gloaming of some odd parallel reality to ours. Contains some well-grounded magical realism (or is Scifi more accurate?) in parts - they're interesting but don't feel out of place in this cold post-apocalyptic tale. The main character is a better-realized version of the damaged loner that is inevitably the protagonist of this kind of book. I also enjoyed the sub-arctic setting.
Personal Note: Post-apocalyptic fiction is a genre I dearly love and am increasingly wary of, both because Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD - once you've read that you can't unring that bell, and because each story's weary insistence on their version of the end seems more and more plausible as you get older.
Personal Note: Post-apocalyptic fiction is a genre I dearly love and am increasingly wary of, both because Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD - once you've read that you can't unring that bell, and because each story's weary insistence on their version of the end seems more and more plausible as you get older.
I didn’t like the first 150 pages but stuck with it. Makepeace is a great character to follow with some unexpected turns.
Great book...but you could tell that even though the narrator was a woman, the book was written by a man. Really the only fault with the book. Loved the landscape portrayed, and enjoyed the narrator.
James Lovelock—the scientist who helped the world discover ozone-hole-creating chemicals and developed the idea that life on Earth has managed the planet's temperature—says we should start planning a retreat.
“At six going on eight billion people,” Lovelock told Andrew Revkin, a New York Times reporter, “the idea of any further development is almost obscene. We’ve got to learn how to retreat from the world that we’re in. Planning a good retreat is always a good measure of generalship.”
And, Revkin writes, "The retreat, he insists, will be toward the poles."
Marcel Theroux's novel Far North imagines what it would be like to live through this retreat. I don't know if he's aware of Lovelock's idea or not. Animals and plants have the same idea, though. As the planet warms, they're moving toward the poles. Earth could wind up a much different place. Crocodiles roamed the Arctic tens of millions of years ago, and they might again, eventually.
But before that, we'll get to the not-too-distant future where Far North is set. It's an age that requires grit to get by. Villages that are doing alright have to defend themselves against those who waited too long to move north, and arrive starving and impatient. It's a world of scavenging from the fallen industrial age. It's a polarized world, where people see the fall as a reason to cling to religion, or a reason to give up on it.
“At six going on eight billion people,” Lovelock told Andrew Revkin, a New York Times reporter, “the idea of any further development is almost obscene. We’ve got to learn how to retreat from the world that we’re in. Planning a good retreat is always a good measure of generalship.”
And, Revkin writes, "The retreat, he insists, will be toward the poles."
Marcel Theroux's novel Far North imagines what it would be like to live through this retreat. I don't know if he's aware of Lovelock's idea or not. Animals and plants have the same idea, though. As the planet warms, they're moving toward the poles. Earth could wind up a much different place. Crocodiles roamed the Arctic tens of millions of years ago, and they might again, eventually.
But before that, we'll get to the not-too-distant future where Far North is set. It's an age that requires grit to get by. Villages that are doing alright have to defend themselves against those who waited too long to move north, and arrive starving and impatient. It's a world of scavenging from the fallen industrial age. It's a polarized world, where people see the fall as a reason to cling to religion, or a reason to give up on it.
I don't think in my history of reading that I've ever read something as bleak as this. The landscape is forever covered in a hoary ice; the people are puritan white and black; the only color is provided by the shimmering Northern Lights. And for all the violence, even the blood is muted and cold.
I really enjoyed the book, but I definitely will not be reading it again. It brings up questions that are neither answerable nor good for a soul to ponder too freely.
If you do pick this up, and if you like post-apocalypse fiction, I highly recommend that you, I'd suggest you balance out your reading of it with either something else funny and light to read or do as I did and watch The Big Bang Theory for the duration.
I really enjoyed the book, but I definitely will not be reading it again. It brings up questions that are neither answerable nor good for a soul to ponder too freely.
If you do pick this up, and if you like post-apocalypse fiction, I highly recommend that you, I'd suggest you balance out your reading of it with either something else funny and light to read or do as I did and watch The Big Bang Theory for the duration.