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tashtown 's review for:
The Sudden Appearance of Hope
by Claire North
As far as I can tell Claire North has a pattern in all her novels: she chooses a perfectly average human being, and adds an element of magical realism, and lets everything else play out naturally.
In this novel, the perfectly average human is Hope, and the magical realism element is that fact that no one can remember Hope. Once you look away from her, she fades from memory, and your brain fills in the gap where Hope should be.
North, as usual, spends the majority of the first half of the book establishing Hope's character and life by unchronologically recounting random events from her life (after all, what is the progression of time to someone that does not exist in the world as we are familiar with), and it is not until the second half of the book that we get a more familiar narrative structure, and Hope is given an explicit goal.
The last Claire North book I read, Touch, I criticised for being too similar to The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, The Sudden Appearance of Hope however, is very different while still retaining North's pattern. North is very good at taking a magical element and realistically examining how that would manifest in the real world and how that would effect a real person. Hope, for example, because of her condition cannot hold down a stable job, anyone who hired her, upon meeting her would soon forget her existence. Naturally, and organically she becomes a thief in order to obtain an income and survive. North further explores smaller more detailed aspects of Hope's life, such as the fact that she finds it extremely difficult to get service in a restaurant and medical attention. These details are littered around the novel and I adore how thoroughly they interact with real life as we know it. Not only that, but North establishes the limits of what Hope can do and pushes them, you have to see Hope to forget her, you can monitor the gaps and inconsistencies in your life to deduce her presence, and Hope can be remembered through her online interactions with others.
It's also fun to watch Hope utilise her abilities and using them to aid her, for example she can restart and redo first a conversation by merely walking away, letting someone forget her, and approaching them again.
The novel also examines this extreme lifestyle's effect on someone's mental state. Being unable to form relationships with other people and being unable to be grounded by the world around her has clearly had an effect on Hope. She is desperate for affection, for attention and to be recognised, as this is something every person needs, but Hope can never obtain. This would obviously be detrimental to a person, and North knows this, as Hope is shown to scream, cry, act out and even considers ending her life. She has anxious and obsessive tendencies, and repetition is huge part of this book.
Many statements are repeated right after another and throughout this novel. After all, Hope's life really is only one big cycle of repetition, it is endless first beginnings and introductions, alone she is unable to really grow as a person and enter new stages of her life. She often reduces herself to one feature, "Empty words. I am my smile. I am my lips." As she only exists in the world to other people as what she is right now, as who she pretends to be at any given moment. She is desperate to ground herself, and is often reciting obscure and specific facts throughout out the novel as, "Knowledge is power. Knowledge is freedom. Knowledge is all I have. There is nothing in this worrld which can master me, save myself." There are many philosophical ideas about identity and existence expressed in this book in both subtle and unsubtle ways. Later in the book these ideas are expressed more explicitly.
The way that you exist in society is brought into question, and Hope can be seen attacking people that do not submerge themselves into a community and do not contribute to the world they live in. However, this novel very much condemns Das Man and the pressures of society.
This novel very overtly explores the nature of marketing and societal pressures, particularly those on women. While this novel deals wth many different topics and does not pretend to give solid answers to everything it raises, there is a very clear line drawn and condemnation of extreme views of any sort.
I really adored the topics brought up in this novel, and particularly how it wasn't Eurocentric but the one fault that I had with it, is that I couldn't really like Hope. Whether this was because of Hope herself, or because of the narrator of the audiobook I listened to, I am unsure. I found that this dislike brought down my rating of a novel that had some really really interesting ideas.
I could probably go on and on and on about those ideas forever, but I have to wrap this up sometime, so I'll finish up by saying I really adored this novel, and the manner in which it progressed from Touch, and I am looking forward to the next novel she writes.
In this novel, the perfectly average human is Hope, and the magical realism element is that fact that no one can remember Hope. Once you look away from her, she fades from memory, and your brain fills in the gap where Hope should be.
North, as usual, spends the majority of the first half of the book establishing Hope's character and life by unchronologically recounting random events from her life (after all, what is the progression of time to someone that does not exist in the world as we are familiar with), and it is not until the second half of the book that we get a more familiar narrative structure, and Hope is given an explicit goal.
The last Claire North book I read, Touch, I criticised for being too similar to The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, The Sudden Appearance of Hope however, is very different while still retaining North's pattern. North is very good at taking a magical element and realistically examining how that would manifest in the real world and how that would effect a real person. Hope, for example, because of her condition cannot hold down a stable job, anyone who hired her, upon meeting her would soon forget her existence. Naturally, and organically she becomes a thief in order to obtain an income and survive. North further explores smaller more detailed aspects of Hope's life, such as the fact that she finds it extremely difficult to get service in a restaurant and medical attention. These details are littered around the novel and I adore how thoroughly they interact with real life as we know it. Not only that, but North establishes the limits of what Hope can do and pushes them, you have to see Hope to forget her, you can monitor the gaps and inconsistencies in your life to deduce her presence, and Hope can be remembered through her online interactions with others.
It's also fun to watch Hope utilise her abilities and using them to aid her, for example she can restart and redo first a conversation by merely walking away, letting someone forget her, and approaching them again.
The novel also examines this extreme lifestyle's effect on someone's mental state. Being unable to form relationships with other people and being unable to be grounded by the world around her has clearly had an effect on Hope. She is desperate for affection, for attention and to be recognised, as this is something every person needs, but Hope can never obtain. This would obviously be detrimental to a person, and North knows this, as Hope is shown to scream, cry, act out and even considers ending her life. She has anxious and obsessive tendencies, and repetition is huge part of this book.
Many statements are repeated right after another and throughout this novel. After all, Hope's life really is only one big cycle of repetition, it is endless first beginnings and introductions, alone she is unable to really grow as a person and enter new stages of her life. She often reduces herself to one feature, "Empty words. I am my smile. I am my lips." As she only exists in the world to other people as what she is right now, as who she pretends to be at any given moment. She is desperate to ground herself, and is often reciting obscure and specific facts throughout out the novel as, "Knowledge is power. Knowledge is freedom. Knowledge is all I have. There is nothing in this worrld which can master me, save myself." There are many philosophical ideas about identity and existence expressed in this book in both subtle and unsubtle ways. Later in the book these ideas are expressed more explicitly.
The way that you exist in society is brought into question, and Hope can be seen attacking people that do not submerge themselves into a community and do not contribute to the world they live in. However, this novel very much condemns Das Man and the pressures of society.
This novel very overtly explores the nature of marketing and societal pressures, particularly those on women. While this novel deals wth many different topics and does not pretend to give solid answers to everything it raises, there is a very clear line drawn and condemnation of extreme views of any sort.
I really adored the topics brought up in this novel, and particularly how it wasn't Eurocentric but the one fault that I had with it, is that I couldn't really like Hope. Whether this was because of Hope herself, or because of the narrator of the audiobook I listened to, I am unsure. I found that this dislike brought down my rating of a novel that had some really really interesting ideas.
I could probably go on and on and on about those ideas forever, but I have to wrap this up sometime, so I'll finish up by saying I really adored this novel, and the manner in which it progressed from Touch, and I am looking forward to the next novel she writes.