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A review by severina2001
The Pesthouse by Jim Crace
2.0
In a future that has regressed to pioneer-style days, two strangers join together in an attempt to make it to the coast and flee America.
This is post-apocalyptic America. There is no central government, just degrading and toxic land, bandits, illness, superstition, and occasionally small towns trying to stay afloat. Franklin discovers Margaret in the "pesthouse", an isolated hut set well apart from town because she has some sort of plague-like sickness so she must be isolated until she either recovers or dies. They decide to travel together to the coast, where they have heard that ships will ferry them to Europe, an almost mythical place to them where everybody is happy and there is plenty of food and shelter to go around. Along the way they encounter slavers, thieves, and a strange religious cult that deems anything made of metal to be of the devil.
All of this is told in a dry, dispassionate, detached way. There is no excitement because the point of view is just so passive. It is like reading an old journal entry describing what happened. There's just no immediacy, so it was a slog to get through.
This is post-apocalyptic America. There is no central government, just degrading and toxic land, bandits, illness, superstition, and occasionally small towns trying to stay afloat. Franklin discovers Margaret in the "pesthouse", an isolated hut set well apart from town because she has some sort of plague-like sickness so she must be isolated until she either recovers or dies. They decide to travel together to the coast, where they have heard that ships will ferry them to Europe, an almost mythical place to them where everybody is happy and there is plenty of food and shelter to go around. Along the way they encounter slavers, thieves, and a strange religious cult that deems anything made of metal to be of the devil.
All of this is told in a dry, dispassionate, detached way. There is no excitement because the point of view is just so passive. It is like reading an old journal entry describing what happened. There's just no immediacy, so it was a slog to get through.