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A review by jakesheppard
The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff
5.0
In this, perhaps more obscure novel, given the large, dyanmic and vibrant wider canon of dystopian fiction, Sherriff imagines a world that is existentially threatened by the Moon; it has been mysteriously knocked from its orbit and the threat of it crashing into Earth, with apocalyptic consequences, looms large.
This book, perhaps from the first ten pages, establishes itself as a 5-star text. The prologue states that the eponymous Manuscript has been recovered from the ruins of Notting Hill by the Royal Abyssinian Society; evidently, the locus of intellectual progress has shifted to the Global South. This subtle way of reflecting the total and absolute inversion of global networks of capital and international relations is an absolutely foundational tenet of future dystopian/sci-fi novels - one of which, The World in Winter by John Christopher, is excellent and innovative in and of itself.
The Hopkins Manuscript is unusually and extremely prescient. It envisions a world where a looming existential threat is met with indifference, apathy and ignorance, only for the ramifications of such a disaster to challenge humanity in a much more egocentric and sophisticated way. In this sense, the reader pulls many allegories from the layered, rich text that flows seemlessly through the pages of the Manuscript. The first allegory that comes to mind is climate change. The Moon's eventual crash-landing into the Atlantic displaces large amounts of water into the low-lying areas of Southern England, and the overcoming of this intial trauma is threatened by the recalibration of both England's ecology and human relations; this is a challenge that is overcome, but only in the narrator's narrow milieu of Beadle and Mulcaster. In the opening sentences of the Manuscript, we learn that only c.700 people remain in London. They live introverted and solipsistic lives because their conceptions of space and time have been shattered.
The second allegory is to war; Hopkins experienced WWI and this contemporaneously was known as The War to End All Wars. Hopkins observed the rise of fascism in continental Europe and the inadequacies of social democracy in challenging it, both internally and internationally. The eventual conflict between the European states over the Moon's resource-rich surface, now accessible as a form of proto-continent, *established* in media the cliche that humans are the real enemy in the wake of existential disaster. In this way, it could be argued that the The Hopkins Manuscript presages what would become the genre of zombie horror. Nearly all forms of apocalyptic zombie media frame other, functional groups of humans as obstacles to the success of human nature over the elements.
The third parallel that springs to mind is Brexit and polarisation of politics. The incumbent Tory government of the United Kingdom, throughout the Brexit process, has evidenced that they see "fairness" and "compromise" as equivolent to national "humiliation", much in the same way the revolutionary English government does towards the end of the novel (p. 282). So long as humans operate, some thriving, in the same networks of relations, power, capital, and force, we continue to be our own obstacle to spiritual and civilisational ascendancy.
This book, perhaps from the first ten pages, establishes itself as a 5-star text. The prologue states that the eponymous Manuscript has been recovered from the ruins of Notting Hill by the Royal Abyssinian Society; evidently, the locus of intellectual progress has shifted to the Global South. This subtle way of reflecting the total and absolute inversion of global networks of capital and international relations is an absolutely foundational tenet of future dystopian/sci-fi novels - one of which, The World in Winter by John Christopher, is excellent and innovative in and of itself.
The Hopkins Manuscript is unusually and extremely prescient. It envisions a world where a looming existential threat is met with indifference, apathy and ignorance, only for the ramifications of such a disaster to challenge humanity in a much more egocentric and sophisticated way. In this sense, the reader pulls many allegories from the layered, rich text that flows seemlessly through the pages of the Manuscript. The first allegory that comes to mind is climate change. The Moon's eventual crash-landing into the Atlantic displaces large amounts of water into the low-lying areas of Southern England, and the overcoming of this intial trauma is threatened by the recalibration of both England's ecology and human relations; this is a challenge that is overcome, but only in the narrator's narrow milieu of Beadle and Mulcaster. In the opening sentences of the Manuscript, we learn that only c.700 people remain in London. They live introverted and solipsistic lives because their conceptions of space and time have been shattered.
The second allegory is to war; Hopkins experienced WWI and this contemporaneously was known as The War to End All Wars. Hopkins observed the rise of fascism in continental Europe and the inadequacies of social democracy in challenging it, both internally and internationally. The eventual conflict between the European states over the Moon's resource-rich surface, now accessible as a form of proto-continent, *established* in media the cliche that humans are the real enemy in the wake of existential disaster. In this way, it could be argued that the The Hopkins Manuscript presages what would become the genre of zombie horror. Nearly all forms of apocalyptic zombie media frame other, functional groups of humans as obstacles to the success of human nature over the elements.
The third parallel that springs to mind is Brexit and polarisation of politics. The incumbent Tory government of the United Kingdom, throughout the Brexit process, has evidenced that they see "fairness" and "compromise" as equivolent to national "humiliation", much in the same way the revolutionary English government does towards the end of the novel (p. 282). So long as humans operate, some thriving, in the same networks of relations, power, capital, and force, we continue to be our own obstacle to spiritual and civilisational ascendancy.