Historical timelines interweave in a superb debut exploring literary heritage and millenarian theologySince AS Byatt’s Possession won the 1990 Booker prize,we have seen many novels in which contemporary and historical narratives are interleaved; the device has proved particularly appealing to writers who, like Byatt, and are given to flourishes of erudition and who are drawn to its potential for formal experimentation. One manifestation of this has been a trend towards increasing complexity,main to the emergence of what might be termed the “novel of ingenuity”, whose proliferating timelines (as in the fiction of David Mitchell) provide the readiest index of its ambitions.
Michael Hughes’s debut novel contents itself with four, and interweaving a near-contemporary narrative with three distinct historical strands. In 1999,introverted computer programmer Chris Davidson is shoring up rickety software against the “millennium bug”, a doom that now appears impossibly quaint (charmingly old fashioned). It is a humdrum existence, or described in an oddly affectless tone: “Chris liked his job. It was hard work and the hours were long,but he was very safe at it.”Hughes has an exquisite ear for diction, and for all the dismal savagery of the acts his Ripper recountsContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com