A review by amyhuang
Gnomon by Nick Harkaway

4.0

The first half of this book was stunning. I felt like it was written just for me. It combined the intertwingled folios of [b:Cloud Atlas|49628|Cloud Atlas|David Mitchell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1406383769s/49628.jpg|1871423], the ludic spelunking and indeed Ludovician of [b:The Raw Shark Texts|144800|The Raw Shark Texts|Steven Hall|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405099268s/144800.jpg|938197] (though let's give credit to Calvino, and Barthes whom Harkaway would call Calvino's imitator), and the speculative architectural zags of [b:BLDGBLOG|5962048|The BLDGBLOG Book|Geoff Manaugh|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348535424s/5962048.jpg|6134898] or Ballard. It evolved the noosphere/reification premise that so tickled me in Harkaway's earlier [b:The Gone-Away World|3007704|The Gone-Away World |Nick Harkaway|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328322676s/3007704.jpg|3038235]. It sets all this in an ostensibly incorruptible surveillance state that harbors all manner of too-timely dystopia: systemic injustice, what-if-phones-but-too-much, and at least one (thankfully unsympathetic) fascist antagonist.

I really hoped it wouldn't disappoint. But somewhere around the 2/3 mark, it falls down into pretty bizarre territory, and I'm not sure it recovers. Stepping back, the conclusions the protagonist draws throughout the book feel mostly unearned (intentionally?), and the dreamlike nature of it all means everything is permissible / none of the stakes are meaningful. Given the Kyriakos/Stella relationship, the comparison to The Raw Shark Texts is perhaps too close for comfort (also intentionally?) -- though in any case I feel the former made the same point about ~literature as author's mind connecting to reader's mind~ more elegantly. My final peeve bears mentioning: unlike, say, in Kushiel's Dart, here the sex is prurient, or at the very least gratuitous. I got tired of it early on, and it doesn't let up.

Up and down on this one, but 4 stars for the tremendous positives.