Synopsis:
From the bestselling, award-winning master of uncanny fiction comes a defining work, twenty years in the making – a deeply moving, decade- and continent-spanning epic of grief, global tumult, and grim conspiracy.
Maur’s life has been shaped by an unbearable loss. But in the aftermath of what is an apparently ordinary tragedy, deeper, stranger questions arise . . . Their answers may lie within the dark heart and darker history of an old soldier who shares Maur’s obsessions – and is violently pursued by the same unknown, unquiet forces.
So begins The Rouse, a masterpiece unlike any other: at once a sprawling saga of the bloody twentieth century, and the intimate story of two lives, their loves, regrets and secrets – and a terrifying journey into infinite mystery.
Review:
Was this 20-years-in-the-making novel worth the 1,300 pages?
I feel like I need to be roused from an unsettling and unsatisfying sleep after finishing this.
If you are familiar with Miéville‘s works, you will know he is one of the most unique and avant garde authors writing at the moment. He writes in wide ranging genres and manages to make each story totally unique and strange.
The Rouse follows a grieving mother who is trying to discover answers about her dead soldier son. She meets an old, cynical soldier who is pursued by unknown, supernatural forces.
It is a spy thriller, war novel, ghost story, and family saga against the violent backdrop of the 20th century.
The first part grabbed me – Miéville emotionally encapsulate a floundering, grieving mother estranged from her son struggling with guilt. Fair warning, there are no quotation marks – you are left to puzzle out what is dialogue, thought, or narration.
To be a mother. You remember what it was? Are you still a mother? To walk alongside shy alien agency. Time-travel through witness. Her tiny boy, say, raising a bath sponge to chew and suck on at once, Maur seeing it and gasping to recall and feel her own young mouth doing the same. Feeling the exactitude of jumps two-feet-together into puddles when he performed them. As if his hand she had held was also her own.
Then, it is almost as if it is a new book as we swap to a Cold War soldier – an account which is violent and horrifying. Ultimately, a warning against Western imperialism and the complicated chain of command.
The storylines take a while, but they do converge. It takes patience and a trust in the author.
However, this experience left me floundering and confused for the majority of the novel. At 40%, I still had no idea where we were headed. At 80%, I remained mostly confused.
This is a book that is pretentious. I hate calling a book that as I think a good author can make a book accessible to different levels of audiences. However, this requires deep focus. There are references to 20th century English history, to literature and political theory, as well as leftist and liberation groups.
A lot of the commentary probably went over my head. This was so packed with allusions that I often felt intimidated rather than eager to pick it up.
I appreciated the depictions of fascism, portrayals of masculinity, the duty of a soldier, and the responsibilities of a citizen of a state. The prose and formatting was also genius, although I can’t say to understand the purpose behind some of the random words and disjointed formatting:
weeping dust, speaking dust, pissing dust, exhaustedly turned their dust attention in her dust direction voice, voices familiar, a beat left for a curse, urgent, declaiming and declaimed to, disputation.
Don’t get me wrong. That sounds amazing, but what does it mean?
That was my biggest problem with this novel: it is incredibly ambitious and the genius behind it is apparent, but as a reader I was left confused and frustrated. As someone who has loved previous works by Miéville, I was ready for this to be a new favourite. I was ready to dedicate time and focus, trusting that the pay off would be worth it.
Alas, I dragged myself through more than half of this book, grappling with a slow pace, a dense, mostly unexciting plot, unlikable yet complex characters, and a frustration that I’m not ‘clever’ enough to get it.
I’m sure this book will be a masterpiece to many. I’m sure critics will find it incredibly impressive and genre-defying.
I felt like I had beaten over the head with a bloated 1,300 book whose supernatural elements are as vague as shapes in the dark.
One of my biggest disappointments in recent years, but I acknowledge this is a VERY personal opinion.
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