Unravelling the fabric of life
I’m a giant nerd, and love books more than most people. In conjunction with my love of books is this singular pain in my neck: I read at the pace of a turtle. I don’t know why; maybe it’s a theatrical tendency which forces me to narrate every word in my head. Consequently, this means I only get through five or so books in a year, and because of this it’s been a long time since I hit on one of those unexpectedly amazing books that hold you tight. You become so gripped to each clause that you have to stay up into the wee small hours every night for a week running because it’s essential to know if she gets there or not. You may be wondering, if I find it so hard to come across really spectacularly written books, why don’t I just refer to the bestsellers’ list or take stock of what the critics and the statistics say? My answer: because I like to find the slightly more obscure novels that I can connect with, regardless of their popularity or literary value. I enjoy strolling the aisles of Waterstones, secretly avoiding other browsers until I find myself in a little known corner of the shop with the weird dystopian books about imaginary futures with impressive covers that make an Art student like me internally think ‘that’s what I’m going to do for a living!’. Then I like to pick up one of said books and read the first page as if the writer wants me, me specifically to take in the words. And then if I want to read more I take the book home and I introduce it to the rest of my volumes so it can snuggle next to them on the shelf and they can chit chat while I’m not in the house… what?
A year or so ago I executed this very routine and then the book stayed on the shelf for an additional year whilst I ploughed my way through some former commitments. One reason books are better than people in relationships: they don’t mind how long they have to wait for your attention. When I finally got round to reading this book, I had been so excited for so long that I had already unconsciously built the environment in my mind to house the characters I had not yet met. As I began to work my way into Wool by Hugh Howey, that pre-prepared environment was smashed. Obliterated, completely. Nothing about this place, this world, this future or this society was what I had pictured. Because it was unlike anything I had read or seen, even imagined, and this is coming from a person with a very overactive imagination. It’s an amazing book. The writing carried me with it so that my slow reading became less of a frustration, and disappeared in fact. The author’s writing was so skilful it allowed me to experience the pace of the story as I think he intended it. This was the first book I have ever read that kept on surprising me. I don’t like mysteries that much because I cannot help but predict every potential outcome, and so there is no surprise of fulfilment when I get to it. I don’t reread books, because my memory is very easily triggered to tell me ‘oh, the next page is the one with that thing Grace said that made you laugh’, and as you can imagine that takes the enjoyment right out of fiction. But the style of Howey’s words and structure, and the fabric of his characters is so rich I would go back to the beginning in a heartbeat, and would feel as if I was really living through it for the first time. At every turn the plot not only thickens but changes colour, throws you round a corner so violently you are dizzy, brings you on ups and downs that give you the bends. And I love his characters: the beautifully understated but symbolic link between the Miner and the Stargazer (you’ll have to read it to understand); a female lead character who is feminist without either acting like a man and denying her emotions, or overplaying her womanly aspects to an unnecessary degree and demanding that people pay attention to the fact that she’s a woman. She’s just kick-ass and is damn good at what she does. Plus she looks amazing in overalls and somehow that makes me bitterly jealous.
Who would I recommend it to? Anyone. Everyone. If you want a challenge especially, and if you have an interest in where humanity is heading; how society works and how it fails; what makes the so-magnificently ‘individual’ people so individual, and the changes they can make. As for an age-group, I refuse to say that only a certain age group are likely to be interested in a certain kind of literature. One of my favorite books of all time is First Light, set in the Second World War and written from the author, Geoffrey Wellum’s, own experiences. I read this when I was fourteen and me and my Granddad shared opinions on it. Moreover, a futuristic novel like Wool, typically published for the relatively young, which warns us about where we could be taking our societies and nations, should be read and discussed by middle-aged politicians, because they are the ones who could do something about it right now. And that’s the kind of book it is; one that not only opens your eyes to the things you know deep down should be different, but one that shows you that you have the power to change them.
Read Wool. It has so much value as a story and the potential to really impassion and inspire, as well as being a sterling example of how to construct and bring life to modern fiction that will completely capture an universal range of readers. It will stay with me for a long time.
Olivia Foskett, Year 13
A year or so ago I executed this very routine and then the book stayed on the shelf for an additional year whilst I ploughed my way through some former commitments. One reason books are better than people in relationships: they don’t mind how long they have to wait for your attention. When I finally got round to reading this book, I had been so excited for so long that I had already unconsciously built the environment in my mind to house the characters I had not yet met. As I began to work my way into Wool by Hugh Howey, that pre-prepared environment was smashed. Obliterated, completely. Nothing about this place, this world, this future or this society was what I had pictured. Because it was unlike anything I had read or seen, even imagined, and this is coming from a person with a very overactive imagination. It’s an amazing book. The writing carried me with it so that my slow reading became less of a frustration, and disappeared in fact. The author’s writing was so skilful it allowed me to experience the pace of the story as I think he intended it. This was the first book I have ever read that kept on surprising me. I don’t like mysteries that much because I cannot help but predict every potential outcome, and so there is no surprise of fulfilment when I get to it. I don’t reread books, because my memory is very easily triggered to tell me ‘oh, the next page is the one with that thing Grace said that made you laugh’, and as you can imagine that takes the enjoyment right out of fiction. But the style of Howey’s words and structure, and the fabric of his characters is so rich I would go back to the beginning in a heartbeat, and would feel as if I was really living through it for the first time. At every turn the plot not only thickens but changes colour, throws you round a corner so violently you are dizzy, brings you on ups and downs that give you the bends. And I love his characters: the beautifully understated but symbolic link between the Miner and the Stargazer (you’ll have to read it to understand); a female lead character who is feminist without either acting like a man and denying her emotions, or overplaying her womanly aspects to an unnecessary degree and demanding that people pay attention to the fact that she’s a woman. She’s just kick-ass and is damn good at what she does. Plus she looks amazing in overalls and somehow that makes me bitterly jealous.
Who would I recommend it to? Anyone. Everyone. If you want a challenge especially, and if you have an interest in where humanity is heading; how society works and how it fails; what makes the so-magnificently ‘individual’ people so individual, and the changes they can make. As for an age-group, I refuse to say that only a certain age group are likely to be interested in a certain kind of literature. One of my favorite books of all time is First Light, set in the Second World War and written from the author, Geoffrey Wellum’s, own experiences. I read this when I was fourteen and me and my Granddad shared opinions on it. Moreover, a futuristic novel like Wool, typically published for the relatively young, which warns us about where we could be taking our societies and nations, should be read and discussed by middle-aged politicians, because they are the ones who could do something about it right now. And that’s the kind of book it is; one that not only opens your eyes to the things you know deep down should be different, but one that shows you that you have the power to change them.
Read Wool. It has so much value as a story and the potential to really impassion and inspire, as well as being a sterling example of how to construct and bring life to modern fiction that will completely capture an universal range of readers. It will stay with me for a long time.
Olivia Foskett, Year 13