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Submergence
In a room with no windows on the coast of Africa, an Englishman, James More, is held captive by jihadist fighters. Posing as a water expert to report on al-Qaeda activity in the area, he now faces extreme privation, mock executions, and forced marches through the arid badlands of Somalia. Thousands of miles away on the Greenland Sea, Danielle Flinders, a biomathematician, half-French, half-Australian, prepares to dive in a submersible to the ocean floor. She is obsessed with the life that multiplies in the darkness of the lowest strata of water.
Both are drawn back to the previous Christmas, and to a French hotel on the Atlantic coast, where a chance encounter on the beach led to an intense and enduring romance. For James, his mind escapes to utopias both imagined and remembered. Danny is drawn back to beginnings: to mythical and scientific origins, and to her own. It is to each other and to the ocean that they most frequently return: magnetic and otherworldly, a comfort and a threat.
Both are drawn back to the previous Christmas, and to a French hotel on the Atlantic coast, where a chance encounter on the beach led to an intense and enduring romance. For James, his mind escapes to utopias both imagined and remembered. Danny is drawn back to beginnings: to mythical and scientific origins, and to her own. It is to each other and to the ocean that they most frequently return: magnetic and otherworldly, a comfort and a threat.
209 pages, Paperback
First published July 21, 2011
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January 29, 2019
Reflexões sobre Vida e Morte
Senti este livro como um encontro entre a vida e a morte, explorado sob duas vertentes:
Uma metafórica, através dum amor fortuito entre um espião inglês em cativeiro, aprisionado por um grupo da al-Qaeda, (uma situação que estará em tudo, próxima do corredor da morte) e uma biomatemática que se dedica à exploração das profundezas dos oceanos (a água é por si só um símbolo de vida, já que consta que foi por lá que tudo começou)...
A outra perspectiva resulta duma combinação científico-filosófica, sendo particularmente notória na passagem seguinte, que transcrevo em inglês, no original:
"We cannot talk with definition about our souls, but it is certain that we will decompose. Some dust of our bodies may end up in a horse, wasp, cockerel, frog, flower, or leaf, but for every one of these sensational assemblies there are a quintillion microorganisms. It is far likelier that the greater part of us will become protists than a skyscraping dormouse. What is likely is that, sooner or later, carried in the wind and in rivers, or your graveyard engulfed in the sea, a portion of each of us will be given new life in the cracks, vents, or pools of molten sulphur on which the tonguefish skate. You will be in Hades, the staying place of the spirits of the dead. You will be drowned in oblivion, the River Lethe, swallowing water to erase all memory. It will not be the nourishing womb you began your life in. It will be a submergence. You will take your place in the boiling-hot fissures, among the teeming hordes of nameless microorganisms that mimic no forms, because they are the foundation of all forms. In your reanimation you will be aware only that you are a fragment of what once was, and are no longer dead"
A morte é aqui encarada como uma decomposição, onde submergimos para de novo emergir -- ressurgimos numa flor, num caule, numa folha, etc, etc,...
A Vida gerada na Morte dá continuidade ao Fim...
A Morte é encarada como um Recomeço -- um Regresso à Fonte!
Somos parte integrante dum todo continuadamente reciclável, onde a morte não tem lugar -- há apenas um processo contínuo onde novas formas surgem, em substituição doutras que se degradam!...
"Submersos" é um livro estranho, filosófico, introspectivo...
Parece chato, mas não é!...
Se fosse chato, eu não lhe pegava! ;)
Senti este livro como um encontro entre a vida e a morte, explorado sob duas vertentes:
Uma metafórica, através dum amor fortuito entre um espião inglês em cativeiro, aprisionado por um grupo da al-Qaeda, (uma situação que estará em tudo, próxima do corredor da morte) e uma biomatemática que se dedica à exploração das profundezas dos oceanos (a água é por si só um símbolo de vida, já que consta que foi por lá que tudo começou)...
A outra perspectiva resulta duma combinação científico-filosófica, sendo particularmente notória na passagem seguinte, que transcrevo em inglês, no original:
"We cannot talk with definition about our souls, but it is certain that we will decompose. Some dust of our bodies may end up in a horse, wasp, cockerel, frog, flower, or leaf, but for every one of these sensational assemblies there are a quintillion microorganisms. It is far likelier that the greater part of us will become protists than a skyscraping dormouse. What is likely is that, sooner or later, carried in the wind and in rivers, or your graveyard engulfed in the sea, a portion of each of us will be given new life in the cracks, vents, or pools of molten sulphur on which the tonguefish skate. You will be in Hades, the staying place of the spirits of the dead. You will be drowned in oblivion, the River Lethe, swallowing water to erase all memory. It will not be the nourishing womb you began your life in. It will be a submergence. You will take your place in the boiling-hot fissures, among the teeming hordes of nameless microorganisms that mimic no forms, because they are the foundation of all forms. In your reanimation you will be aware only that you are a fragment of what once was, and are no longer dead"
A morte é aqui encarada como uma decomposição, onde submergimos para de novo emergir -- ressurgimos numa flor, num caule, numa folha, etc, etc,...
A Vida gerada na Morte dá continuidade ao Fim...
A Morte é encarada como um Recomeço -- um Regresso à Fonte!
Somos parte integrante dum todo continuadamente reciclável, onde a morte não tem lugar -- há apenas um processo contínuo onde novas formas surgem, em substituição doutras que se degradam!...
"Submersos" é um livro estranho, filosófico, introspectivo...
Parece chato, mas não é!...
Se fosse chato, eu não lhe pegava! ;)
July 29, 2014
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
A couple of months ago some dillweed wrote this article attempting to shame adults who read YA books. In said article, she name-dropped a bunch of authors who wrote well-known classics, as well as this selection. She said of Submergence:
"A few months ago I read the very literary novel Submergence, which ends with a death so shattering it’s been rattling around in my head ever since. (If it's actually a death! Adult novels often embrace ambiguity.) But it also offers so much more: Weird facts, astonishing sentences, deeply unfamiliar (to me) characters, and big ideas about time and space and science and love."
I figured if someone was going to be so ballsy as to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to the entire YA genre, completely setting aside the boundaries that have been broken, the millions of copies sold, the movie rights purchased, etc. in order to offer another book as a substitute, said book would be gooooooood. I can’t be the only person who read the article and bumped Submergence to the top of my to-read stack, right?
What I saw when I opened up Submergence:
"It was a bathroom in an UFINISHED house in Somalia . . ."
Very first sentence. That's not my typo, folks. I sure hope Ms. Graham is getting some serious residuals from J.M. Ledgard, because holy moses is she peddling a pile of turds with this recommendation. Easily the worst book I’ve read in 2014 (and that includes Four which has earned me the never ending wrath of dozens of Roth superfans). So pretentious, soooooo boring, Submergence doesn’t even rate high enough for me to write a real review. Instead, I shall leave you with only this:
A couple of months ago some dillweed wrote this article attempting to shame adults who read YA books. In said article, she name-dropped a bunch of authors who wrote well-known classics, as well as this selection. She said of Submergence:
"A few months ago I read the very literary novel Submergence, which ends with a death so shattering it’s been rattling around in my head ever since. (If it's actually a death! Adult novels often embrace ambiguity.) But it also offers so much more: Weird facts, astonishing sentences, deeply unfamiliar (to me) characters, and big ideas about time and space and science and love."
I figured if someone was going to be so ballsy as to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to the entire YA genre, completely setting aside the boundaries that have been broken, the millions of copies sold, the movie rights purchased, etc. in order to offer another book as a substitute, said book would be gooooooood. I can’t be the only person who read the article and bumped Submergence to the top of my to-read stack, right?
What I saw when I opened up Submergence:
"It was a bathroom in an UFINISHED house in Somalia . . ."
Very first sentence. That's not my typo, folks. I sure hope Ms. Graham is getting some serious residuals from J.M. Ledgard, because holy moses is she peddling a pile of turds with this recommendation. Easily the worst book I’ve read in 2014 (and that includes Four which has earned me the never ending wrath of dozens of Roth superfans). So pretentious, soooooo boring, Submergence doesn’t even rate high enough for me to write a real review. Instead, I shall leave you with only this:
January 21, 2014
In an interview, Ledgard called this book an attempt at "planetary writing." Well: the attempt succeeded, and the result is a novel simultaneously (a) perfectly of its time, and (b) dizzyingly beyond it. A stunning achievement and, bonus, a great read.
December 10, 2013
This is a perfectly told story detailing the experience of two protagonists plumbing the depths of humanity - both personal and corporate - in ways figurative and literal. There's a love story that is beautifully constructed, a rich (and obviously very well researched) narrative of jihadists in Somalia, told via wondrous sentences such as:
Heaven was like being tuned out. You entered in and were suffused in an equal light, without sun or storms, never atmospheric, and were met also by one equal sound.
Recommended by Proustitute, and I'm more than happy to pay it forward. Read this book.
Heaven was like being tuned out. You entered in and were suffused in an equal light, without sun or storms, never atmospheric, and were met also by one equal sound.
Recommended by Proustitute, and I'm more than happy to pay it forward. Read this book.
March 14, 2013
A couple weeks after reading it, I still don't know quite what to say about Submergence except that it's phenomenal, one of the best novels I've read in a very long time. It's philosophical, provoking questions about how best to respond to the world in its complexities, whether by focusing inward or outward. And Ledgard, perhaps through his experience as a journalist, manages the tricky feat of making the terrorists who kidnap the protagonist (that's no spoiler, it's the first page) into complex, almost empathizable beings without in any way simplifying or glorifying them. The interplay between the story of that kidnapping and a parallel story of deep ocean diving amidst microbial life is lyrical and brilliant, each thread giving the other new resonances like harp strings plucked in tandem, such as the way just when I'd come to focus ONLY on the kidnap victim I'd be reminded that the vaster part of life on earth isn't human, or even terrestrial, and that there are much longer timespans in play. Ledgard has said he wanted this book to be "planetary writing," and while I don't think I can explain what that means I'm pretty sure I felt what it means while reading. I can't recommend this novel highly enough.
June 6, 2022
Zebaldovski, špijunski, lirski, ljubavni, geopoetički i geopolitički roman o terorizmu u Somaliji i okeanu, o biomatematici i krhkim nuklearnim podmornicama, potlačenosti, prirodi, životu kao čudu. Ledžerdov jezik svetluca, ali ne iz opsene, već zbog dozivanja raskoši misli na površinu. Zbog toga postoje makar dve brzine u čitanju romana: prva bi bila užurbana, linearna i u njoj bi se jurilo uz okretnu fabulu; druga bi bila sporija, meditativnija, meandrirajuća i iznad svega atmosferična. Držao sam se druge brzine, pokatkad dozvolivši pristup prvoj. To je, molim lepo, veština! Bez obzira na to da li je nekome priča o džihadistima bliža od refleksija o mikroorganizmima, naći će svoju meru i tok. Kao i uvek, posebno me raduje spominjanje Islanda, ali i, ovaj put, spominjanje susreta u Njujorku sa jednim srpskim pesnikom. Intertekstualne veze sa Miltonom, Tomasom Morom, Bejkonom, Strindbergom, Kropotkinom su odlične! Bez takstativnog mlataranja u vidu pukog serviranja ideja, Ledžer piše kako o Novoj Atlantidi i ostalim utopijama, odnosno, ne-mestima, tako i o anarhizmu i religijskom fundamentalizmu. Posebno treba obratiti na platno Huga Simberga 'Ranjeni anđeo', koje predstavlja zaobilazna vrata za srž dela. Nije čudo što je Venders imao njuh i sluh za knjigu, ali još nisam gledao ekranizaciju. Lako može da se dogodi da je loš prevod upropasti i nadam se da bi posla mogli da se poduhvate Uroš Tomić, Vuk Šećerović, ili, naravno, Zoran Paunović.
Glavna je odlika dubina da, koliko god u njih dopirali, toliko one, obuhvatanjem, dopiru do nas. Pišući, trudimo se da breme preplavljenosti ublažimo. Uspeh nije zagarantovan, ali ono što jeste je da je Ledžer retko lepo književno iznenađenje.
Glavna je odlika dubina da, koliko god u njih dopirali, toliko one, obuhvatanjem, dopiru do nas. Pišući, trudimo se da breme preplavljenosti ublažimo. Uspeh nije zagarantovan, ali ono što jeste je da je Ledžer retko lepo književno iznenađenje.
December 27, 2013
Read 12/24/13 - 12/27/13
3 Stars - Recommended to those who are already fans of hostage-slash-love-slash-deep-thoughts-about oceanic-life-and-god-and-angels-and-hell-and-death novels told through the past and present experiences of both main characters
Pgs: 212
Publisher: Coffee House Press
I haven't written an actual, real length review since September, so go figure that I find myself itching to write one on a book that everyone else raves about but that has left me feeling incredibly underwhelmed.
Submergence, to be fair, isn't the type of book I would normally be drawn to on my own. The jacket copy alone was enough to keep it sitting in my unsolicited arc pile for countless months: James, an Englishman, is held hostage by a bunch of jihad fighters in Africa; a thousand miles away Danielle, a French bio-mathematician, prepares to dive down into the great oceanic depths in a submersible; the two recall their chance encounter and short lived fling as they prepare for what's to come.
This week, I found myself with some free reading time - two months ahead in my CCLaP reading, three months ahead in the upcoming TNBBC author/reader line-up - so I threw my goodreads To-Read shelf out into the ether and asked Twitter to hand pick my next read. Submergence won by a landslide.
It sucked me in quickly enough. The first 40 pages or so passed by pretty smoothly. The next 40, the same. Around the 100 page mark, though, I began to realize that I hadn't yet felt any sort of connection to the main characters or their current ordeals, which had a numbing effect on the constant recollection of their short romance together the year prior. Halfway into the book, and I'm feeling emotionally removed, even cold, towards our protagonists? This does not bode well, right?...
Sprinkled pretty generously throughout the novel, perhaps to break up the monotony of James' suffering at the hands of the jihads in Africa, and Danny's preparations for her upcoming deep sea journey, JM Ledgard allows them time to discuss some pretty heavy topics. They toy with how exploring the vast, deep, darkness of the ocean floor is comparable - and even more complicated - than exploring the wide openness of outer space; whether or not they believe in God and whether God had the foresight to create enough angels to look over us all; how if falling down into the ocean is like falling down into hell then climbing up out of the depths is like climbing up towards the heavens; how the smallest, slightest microbes in the darkest corners of the ocean are capable of out-surviving humanity so long as we just leave them alone; how evolution is a friend and an enemy to most species, including our own...
While these ideas, in and of themselves, are quite intriguing, I felt that James and Danny didn't take them as far as they could have. Their conversations left me sloshing about in half-formed concepts and aching for more "meat and muscle". This speaks to how I feel Ledgard handled his character development overall. I can't help but imagine James and Danny as half-formed, too. They're all shell and skin with very little heart. Like cardboard cut-outs. Only.. fleshier? I know how awful that must sound. It could just be Ledgard's writing style; it reminded me very much of JM Cotzee and JG Ballard (oh my, could it have something to do with first name initials?!) They all take this very clinical, very dry, outside-observationist approach to story telling. As if watching events unfold behind a glass window. As if everything had the emotion purposely blown out of it, leaving it all.. hollow.
In the end, though it was a fairly quick read, Submergence left me floating along, anticipating a great big crushing wave that just never came.
3 Stars - Recommended to those who are already fans of hostage-slash-love-slash-deep-thoughts-about oceanic-life-and-god-and-angels-and-hell-and-death novels told through the past and present experiences of both main characters
Pgs: 212
Publisher: Coffee House Press
I haven't written an actual, real length review since September, so go figure that I find myself itching to write one on a book that everyone else raves about but that has left me feeling incredibly underwhelmed.
Submergence, to be fair, isn't the type of book I would normally be drawn to on my own. The jacket copy alone was enough to keep it sitting in my unsolicited arc pile for countless months: James, an Englishman, is held hostage by a bunch of jihad fighters in Africa; a thousand miles away Danielle, a French bio-mathematician, prepares to dive down into the great oceanic depths in a submersible; the two recall their chance encounter and short lived fling as they prepare for what's to come.
This week, I found myself with some free reading time - two months ahead in my CCLaP reading, three months ahead in the upcoming TNBBC author/reader line-up - so I threw my goodreads To-Read shelf out into the ether and asked Twitter to hand pick my next read. Submergence won by a landslide.
It sucked me in quickly enough. The first 40 pages or so passed by pretty smoothly. The next 40, the same. Around the 100 page mark, though, I began to realize that I hadn't yet felt any sort of connection to the main characters or their current ordeals, which had a numbing effect on the constant recollection of their short romance together the year prior. Halfway into the book, and I'm feeling emotionally removed, even cold, towards our protagonists? This does not bode well, right?...
Sprinkled pretty generously throughout the novel, perhaps to break up the monotony of James' suffering at the hands of the jihads in Africa, and Danny's preparations for her upcoming deep sea journey, JM Ledgard allows them time to discuss some pretty heavy topics. They toy with how exploring the vast, deep, darkness of the ocean floor is comparable - and even more complicated - than exploring the wide openness of outer space; whether or not they believe in God and whether God had the foresight to create enough angels to look over us all; how if falling down into the ocean is like falling down into hell then climbing up out of the depths is like climbing up towards the heavens; how the smallest, slightest microbes in the darkest corners of the ocean are capable of out-surviving humanity so long as we just leave them alone; how evolution is a friend and an enemy to most species, including our own...
While these ideas, in and of themselves, are quite intriguing, I felt that James and Danny didn't take them as far as they could have. Their conversations left me sloshing about in half-formed concepts and aching for more "meat and muscle". This speaks to how I feel Ledgard handled his character development overall. I can't help but imagine James and Danny as half-formed, too. They're all shell and skin with very little heart. Like cardboard cut-outs. Only.. fleshier? I know how awful that must sound. It could just be Ledgard's writing style; it reminded me very much of JM Cotzee and JG Ballard (oh my, could it have something to do with first name initials?!) They all take this very clinical, very dry, outside-observationist approach to story telling. As if watching events unfold behind a glass window. As if everything had the emotion purposely blown out of it, leaving it all.. hollow.
In the end, though it was a fairly quick read, Submergence left me floating along, anticipating a great big crushing wave that just never came.
November 13, 2018
Çok satar öğeler ile beslediğim okur algımı nasıl cezbetti bu kitap, anlamadım.
Ana roman kişileri: Afrika'da işkence gören bir gizli ajan ve okyanus bilimci bir matematikçi.
İkisi bir otelde tanışıyorlar ve birbirlerine karşı farklı bir şey hissediyorlar. Sonra yolları ayrılıyor. Biri derin sulara diğeri acı dolu bir coğrafyaya gidiyor.
İkisinin birlikteykenki hikayesini ve ayrı ayrı hikayelerini okuyoruz. Tüm bunların aralarına bilim, din, tarih ve mitolojiye dair metinler serpiştirilmiş. Bu metinler gayet kişisel olan bu hikayeyi daha evrensel algılamamızı sağlıyor.
Bir yandan ana hikayedeki merak unsurları (James kurtulabilecek mi? Danielle derin sularda ne bulacak?) sizi bağlarken diğer yandan durup düşünmenizi sağlayan bilgiler, meseller, meselelerle karşılaşıyorsunuz.
Aslında böyle bir toplamdan sıkılmam gerekirdi. Çünkü ne El Kaide kısmı bir casusluk romanı gibi işliyor ne de suların dibi bir macera gibi. İkisi de durağan akıyor ama yine de ben hevesle, merakla okudum. Kitaba fazla anlam yüklemek istemiyorum ama farklı bir metin okumak istiyorsanız tavsiye ederim.
Çeviri, edisyon ve kapak muazzam.
Gökhan Sarı muazzam bir çeviri yapmış. Eli, zihni dert bulmasın.
Editör: Ferhat Özkan
Kapak tasarımı: gray318
Not: Kitaptan uyarlanan filmi de izledim; kitabın parçalı anlatımını toparlayıcı, ruhunu çok iyi yansıtan bir film olmuş.
Ana roman kişileri: Afrika'da işkence gören bir gizli ajan ve okyanus bilimci bir matematikçi.
İkisi bir otelde tanışıyorlar ve birbirlerine karşı farklı bir şey hissediyorlar. Sonra yolları ayrılıyor. Biri derin sulara diğeri acı dolu bir coğrafyaya gidiyor.
İkisinin birlikteykenki hikayesini ve ayrı ayrı hikayelerini okuyoruz. Tüm bunların aralarına bilim, din, tarih ve mitolojiye dair metinler serpiştirilmiş. Bu metinler gayet kişisel olan bu hikayeyi daha evrensel algılamamızı sağlıyor.
Bir yandan ana hikayedeki merak unsurları (James kurtulabilecek mi? Danielle derin sularda ne bulacak?) sizi bağlarken diğer yandan durup düşünmenizi sağlayan bilgiler, meseller, meselelerle karşılaşıyorsunuz.
Aslında böyle bir toplamdan sıkılmam gerekirdi. Çünkü ne El Kaide kısmı bir casusluk romanı gibi işliyor ne de suların dibi bir macera gibi. İkisi de durağan akıyor ama yine de ben hevesle, merakla okudum. Kitaba fazla anlam yüklemek istemiyorum ama farklı bir metin okumak istiyorsanız tavsiye ederim.
Çeviri, edisyon ve kapak muazzam.
Gökhan Sarı muazzam bir çeviri yapmış. Eli, zihni dert bulmasın.
Editör: Ferhat Özkan
Kapak tasarımı: gray318
Not: Kitaptan uyarlanan filmi de izledim; kitabın parçalı anlatımını toparlayıcı, ruhunu çok iyi yansıtan bir film olmuş.
September 7, 2013
Very disappointed, given the reviews I've read of this book. Makes me question the reviewing industry, in general. The love story at the center was deflated and pretentious. Even with my understanding that James was undergoing trauma in captivity, his sections read like imperial, anthropological journal entries, which, unfortunately, don't read as authorial strategy or characterization. The role of women (other than Danny) is exploitive and prop-like, and Danny herself feels incredibly undeveloped, although the best parts of the book (meaning, one or two) emanate from her worldview. (Update: After a good conversation with another reader, I should clarify that Danny, although drawn out more in the book, is definitely characterized problematically, perhaps most importantly in her hypersexualization.) The rest of the book felt like research (sometime creepy), dressed up as fiction. Didn't have the grip and magic of good storytelling.
June 8, 2017
Oldukça karışık,kopuklukları olan bir anlatım, sadece konu güncel ve cazip, okunması zor.
April 23, 2018
A Fractal Mystery
I felt this story as a life and death sort of meeting, developed in two senses : metaphorically and philosophically.
Metaphorically through the flash love affair that happens between James and Danielle:
James was held in captivity by some al-Qaeda guys (the way I figure it out, the difference between such a situation and the death corridor doesn't seem quite substantial), while Danielle was a scientist (a sea explorer in contact with a myriad of living organisms) in a place pulsing with life...
Philosophically, in a sense that after death we all decompose and submerge to immerge again -- in a flower, a leaf, a tree branch, whatever...
Nothing really dies, it just turns into a new shape:
"We cannot talk with definition about our souls, but it is certain that we will decompose. Some dust of our bodies may end up in a horse, wasp, cockerel, frog, flower, or leaf, but for every one of these sensational assemblies there are a quintillion microorganisms. It is far likelier that the greater part of us will become protists than a skyscraping dormouse. What is likely is that, sooner or later, carried in the wind and in rivers, or your graveyard engulfed in the sea, a portion of each of us will be given new life in the cracks, vents, or pools of molten sulphur on which the tonguefish skate. You will be in Hades, the staying place of the spirits of the dead. You will be drowned in oblivion, the River Lethe, swallowing water to erase all memory. It will not be the nourishing womb you began your life in. It will be a submergence. You will take your place in the boiling-hot fissures, among the teeming hordes of nameless microorganisms that mimic no forms, because they are the foundation of all forms. In your reanimation you will be aware only that you are a fragment of what once was, and are no longer dead"
We are all part of an inscrutable whole in a continuous recycling process, where each of us is a tiny cell, in the same sense our cells are our micro components.
It's a fractal mysterious kind of universe, the one we live in!
I felt this story as a life and death sort of meeting, developed in two senses : metaphorically and philosophically.
Metaphorically through the flash love affair that happens between James and Danielle:
James was held in captivity by some al-Qaeda guys (the way I figure it out, the difference between such a situation and the death corridor doesn't seem quite substantial), while Danielle was a scientist (a sea explorer in contact with a myriad of living organisms) in a place pulsing with life...
Philosophically, in a sense that after death we all decompose and submerge to immerge again -- in a flower, a leaf, a tree branch, whatever...
Nothing really dies, it just turns into a new shape:
"We cannot talk with definition about our souls, but it is certain that we will decompose. Some dust of our bodies may end up in a horse, wasp, cockerel, frog, flower, or leaf, but for every one of these sensational assemblies there are a quintillion microorganisms. It is far likelier that the greater part of us will become protists than a skyscraping dormouse. What is likely is that, sooner or later, carried in the wind and in rivers, or your graveyard engulfed in the sea, a portion of each of us will be given new life in the cracks, vents, or pools of molten sulphur on which the tonguefish skate. You will be in Hades, the staying place of the spirits of the dead. You will be drowned in oblivion, the River Lethe, swallowing water to erase all memory. It will not be the nourishing womb you began your life in. It will be a submergence. You will take your place in the boiling-hot fissures, among the teeming hordes of nameless microorganisms that mimic no forms, because they are the foundation of all forms. In your reanimation you will be aware only that you are a fragment of what once was, and are no longer dead"
We are all part of an inscrutable whole in a continuous recycling process, where each of us is a tiny cell, in the same sense our cells are our micro components.
It's a fractal mysterious kind of universe, the one we live in!
January 3, 2015
The more I read modern “high brow” literature the more convinced I am that nobody has actually read any classics. People talk about Moby Dick being one of the greatest novels in the English language (Ledgard himself praises Moby Dick in Submergence during one of many unnecessary deviations from the story) but peoples’ idea of what the book is differs greatly from the reality. Nobody ever mentions that Herman Melville wrote a funny scene where one sailor forces another to apologize to a couple sharks. Or even that, at its heart, Moby Dick is an adventure story about a whaling voyage and an obsessed man’s quest for vengeance. The Moby Dick that people imagine—the inaccessible, elitist masterwork that has important thoughts on everything—doesn’t actually exist. Similarly, Shakespeare may have written a famous soliloquy about committing suicide but he also inserted so many lewd jokes into his plays that they were the Elizabethan era equivalent of South Park. His plays are hard to read only because the English language has changed since his time, and even that can be remedied somewhat if you accept that you don’t have to understand every last sentence. And, yes, there are bad classics. Here’s Mark Twain tearing James Fenimore Cooper (author of The Last of the Mohicans) to shreds.
When people write humorless books with dull, underdeveloped characters then cram into them insights and allusions to the detriment of pacing and flow I always assume they’re drawing on what they erroneously believe is the classic literary tradition, which might be why they never succeed. Case in point: J.M. Ledgard’s Submergence, a ridiculous novel that, unfortunately, I bought my dad for Christmas.
Submergence is the story of James More, (descendant of Thomas More, the man who wrote Utopia) a British spy in Somalia who has been captured by Jihadists, and Dannielle “Danny” Flinders, a sexy black biomathematician who wants to study life in the Hadal Deep. The two are connected by a romantic stay at a hotel where they instantly fall in love because…hell if I know. I’d say Ledgard wanted to move the plot along but there’s very little plot to speak of and the author is unconcerned with moving forward, backward, or any way besides down, further and further into the abyssal depth of the Marina Trench until the pressure is so great that even the reader’s patience is crushed into oblivion, never mind their neural system.
The events of the story are out of chronological order, though the sequence in which they occur is obvious so if you’re hoping for a puzzle of sorts you’ll be disappointed. The narrative jumps between the past and the present with contempt for tension or emotional investment, which might not be so insufferable if Ledgard would just stick to the story. Instead, he feels the need to insert paragraphs describing real landmarks, cultures, and paintings in between sections of the fictitious story. These bits are interesting at first but soon it becomes clear that many of these paragraphs neither contribute to the plot nor help develop the characters, after which they only become increasingly annoying. Sometimes they carry interesting observations, such as when Ledgard points out that “there will never be a Neil Armstrong moment for the ocean’s depths”, (paraphrased) but the story is not needed to make that conclusion and that insight is not necessary for the story, so why is it even here? My mom—who had the misfortune of reading the book with me—pointed out that the aforementioned observation wasn’t one of the characters’ opinions; it was just the author’s. Thus it cannot even be taken as an attempt to develop the characters. It’s just there to look nice and distract you from the emptiness.
Even the fictitious parts of the book deal in pointlessness. A paragraph early in the book is dedicated to describing one of Danny’s colleagues, including within it information such as “he was the kind of guy who carried Dungeons and Dragons dice around in his pocket”. (paraphrased) None of the information is ever useful because the guy hardly ever appears and never displays the traits we’re told he has. Characters are given detailed backstories that never manifest. We’re told Danny had a drug problem in the past, but this never affects her relationships with other characters and isn’t pertinent to what she is doing in the story, so it might as well not exist. At one point a Jihadist doctor is given a backstory and then, two Kindle pages later, he is given more backstory because Ledgard would really, really like us to know about this character. A little while later he disappears from the narrative having accomplished little, if anything. James and Danny are ostensibly characterized—they have paragraphs describing their traits—but they almost never display those characteristics in any meaningful way, so they end up flat and dull. It is the most abysmal case of “tell don’t show” that I’ve ever seen.
Then there’s the issue of how the author tries to characterize Danny, which I guess is meant to be empowering but just comes off as fetishistic. She’s described as having used and then abandoned many sexual partners in her time but, as other reviewers have pointed out, not once is any thought put into how this makes her partners feel. (James is special. Though why this is so I couldn’t say) Then there’s the matter of a beach scene where Danny bathes in cold water and we’re treated to a reasonably detailed description of her naked body. The scene doesn’t seem to develop James’ and Danny’s relationship to any significant extent so it feels like the author wrote in something to entertain himself. But I have my own fetishes; I don’t need his, especially not in my deep (haha) postmodern work.
Submergence gained some fame from being mentioned in a notorious slate.com article so it’s not surprising that the Goodreads review page of this book is useless, with both fans and detractors publishing confrontational, abrupt, dismissive, and generally unhelpful reviews. There was exactly one good review on the page-a Goodreads review contained a link to it-and unfortunately I didn’t see it until after I’d bought the book. The only consensus amongst the critics seems to be that the Jihadists were the most interesting characters and, with some reservations, I agree. They’re the only ones who actually take time to display their personalities, though they’re still not compelling. Maybe if any of them had character arcs it would be worth the slog, but as it stands the Jihadists are unable to carry the book.
If you’re hoping for a satisfying ending then you might want to go elsewhere, because Submergence is about life, which doesn’t offer satisfying endings. If, on the other hand, you’re expecting a good ending then you might want to go elsewhere because Submergence is badly written. The best way to describe it is that the book ends, yes, but it never reaches any climax or conclusion as a consequence of never having started any character arcs. James and Danny come from nothing and thus return to nothing. There are no epiphanies, no accomplishments, and all arcs remain unresolved. As one last bit of pretension it is left ambiguous whether or not James died, as if that is somehow important to the character or the story’s themes. I know some people praised the ending for not resolving anything because that’s how life works, but books aren’t transcriptions of reality. You can’t just write down everything as you see it and call it “art” because that story would end up badly structured and go nowhere, thus ensuring that there is no reason someone should read it. You can have a conclusion without wrapping everything up neatly. Moby Dick’s ending concluded Captain Ahab’s character arc by having the white whale tow him, the rope of a harpoon wrapped around his neck. The Pequod is destroyed and there are no easy answers to be found, but what the story has been talking about is over and the point has been made. Calvin and Hobbes ends with the two friends riding their sled into the wilderness, the joy of exploration the strip has always advocated still strong. Again, not a neat ending, but a culmination of themes. In comparison to either of these stories, the ending of Submergence just confirmed that the plot was unnecessary for Ledgard’s philosophical point.
Okay, what, then was Ledgard’s point?
Well, it tried to change my perspective on life by pointing out that evolution didn’t work in years or decades, but rather millennia. It also proclaimed that, in the future, Jihadists would be laughed at, there would be illegal organizations (and cults) based around artificial organs, and religion would be reduced to only its “most practical points”. (no mention of what exactly those points are, mind you) You know, revolutionary stuff. Things I am now a better person for knowing. There was an interesting bit about the “genetic distinctiveness of mankind” breaking down, but it was never explained in detail, probably because we had to learn about Che Guevara’s love for Rugby.
By the end I honestly didn’t know which half of the book was the more pointless.
The language itself isn’t what I would call consistently terrible, but it is extremely cluttered, obsessed with famous names and endless allusions. (a mountain that is different on one side is described as “Janus-faced”. Danny is described as “standing on the shoulders of giants”) Naturally these cute little references add nothing to the story. If you like great prose there’s not much to be found here, unless you like motifs, which the book has exactly one of. It’s ham-fisted and crowbarred in at every possible opportunity to the point where I had trouble understanding what it actually meant, but it’s there.
Submergence is a pointless, pretentious book that ultimately drowns (Am I a great writer yet?) in its own self-importance and your time would be better spent reading Moby Dick. Or anything by William Shakespeare. Or even George R.R. Martin. Hell, why bother restricting yourself to books? Go watch Death Note or read Junji Ito’s Uzumaki. Familiarize yourself with Billy Wilder’s filmography. Pull out Super Smash Bros Melee and learn how to wavedash. Gather a few friends together and play a game of touch football. Go do something you enjoy.
You’ll benefit from that more than you would from this book.
“A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are -- oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language. Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.” -Mark Twain
When people write humorless books with dull, underdeveloped characters then cram into them insights and allusions to the detriment of pacing and flow I always assume they’re drawing on what they erroneously believe is the classic literary tradition, which might be why they never succeed. Case in point: J.M. Ledgard’s Submergence, a ridiculous novel that, unfortunately, I bought my dad for Christmas.
Submergence is the story of James More, (descendant of Thomas More, the man who wrote Utopia) a British spy in Somalia who has been captured by Jihadists, and Dannielle “Danny” Flinders, a sexy black biomathematician who wants to study life in the Hadal Deep. The two are connected by a romantic stay at a hotel where they instantly fall in love because…hell if I know. I’d say Ledgard wanted to move the plot along but there’s very little plot to speak of and the author is unconcerned with moving forward, backward, or any way besides down, further and further into the abyssal depth of the Marina Trench until the pressure is so great that even the reader’s patience is crushed into oblivion, never mind their neural system.
The events of the story are out of chronological order, though the sequence in which they occur is obvious so if you’re hoping for a puzzle of sorts you’ll be disappointed. The narrative jumps between the past and the present with contempt for tension or emotional investment, which might not be so insufferable if Ledgard would just stick to the story. Instead, he feels the need to insert paragraphs describing real landmarks, cultures, and paintings in between sections of the fictitious story. These bits are interesting at first but soon it becomes clear that many of these paragraphs neither contribute to the plot nor help develop the characters, after which they only become increasingly annoying. Sometimes they carry interesting observations, such as when Ledgard points out that “there will never be a Neil Armstrong moment for the ocean’s depths”, (paraphrased) but the story is not needed to make that conclusion and that insight is not necessary for the story, so why is it even here? My mom—who had the misfortune of reading the book with me—pointed out that the aforementioned observation wasn’t one of the characters’ opinions; it was just the author’s. Thus it cannot even be taken as an attempt to develop the characters. It’s just there to look nice and distract you from the emptiness.
Even the fictitious parts of the book deal in pointlessness. A paragraph early in the book is dedicated to describing one of Danny’s colleagues, including within it information such as “he was the kind of guy who carried Dungeons and Dragons dice around in his pocket”. (paraphrased) None of the information is ever useful because the guy hardly ever appears and never displays the traits we’re told he has. Characters are given detailed backstories that never manifest. We’re told Danny had a drug problem in the past, but this never affects her relationships with other characters and isn’t pertinent to what she is doing in the story, so it might as well not exist. At one point a Jihadist doctor is given a backstory and then, two Kindle pages later, he is given more backstory because Ledgard would really, really like us to know about this character. A little while later he disappears from the narrative having accomplished little, if anything. James and Danny are ostensibly characterized—they have paragraphs describing their traits—but they almost never display those characteristics in any meaningful way, so they end up flat and dull. It is the most abysmal case of “tell don’t show” that I’ve ever seen.
Then there’s the issue of how the author tries to characterize Danny, which I guess is meant to be empowering but just comes off as fetishistic. She’s described as having used and then abandoned many sexual partners in her time but, as other reviewers have pointed out, not once is any thought put into how this makes her partners feel. (James is special. Though why this is so I couldn’t say) Then there’s the matter of a beach scene where Danny bathes in cold water and we’re treated to a reasonably detailed description of her naked body. The scene doesn’t seem to develop James’ and Danny’s relationship to any significant extent so it feels like the author wrote in something to entertain himself. But I have my own fetishes; I don’t need his, especially not in my deep (haha) postmodern work.
Submergence gained some fame from being mentioned in a notorious slate.com article so it’s not surprising that the Goodreads review page of this book is useless, with both fans and detractors publishing confrontational, abrupt, dismissive, and generally unhelpful reviews. There was exactly one good review on the page-a Goodreads review contained a link to it-and unfortunately I didn’t see it until after I’d bought the book. The only consensus amongst the critics seems to be that the Jihadists were the most interesting characters and, with some reservations, I agree. They’re the only ones who actually take time to display their personalities, though they’re still not compelling. Maybe if any of them had character arcs it would be worth the slog, but as it stands the Jihadists are unable to carry the book.
If you’re hoping for a satisfying ending then you might want to go elsewhere, because Submergence is about life, which doesn’t offer satisfying endings. If, on the other hand, you’re expecting a good ending then you might want to go elsewhere because Submergence is badly written. The best way to describe it is that the book ends, yes, but it never reaches any climax or conclusion as a consequence of never having started any character arcs. James and Danny come from nothing and thus return to nothing. There are no epiphanies, no accomplishments, and all arcs remain unresolved. As one last bit of pretension it is left ambiguous whether or not James died, as if that is somehow important to the character or the story’s themes. I know some people praised the ending for not resolving anything because that’s how life works, but books aren’t transcriptions of reality. You can’t just write down everything as you see it and call it “art” because that story would end up badly structured and go nowhere, thus ensuring that there is no reason someone should read it. You can have a conclusion without wrapping everything up neatly. Moby Dick’s ending concluded Captain Ahab’s character arc by having the white whale tow him, the rope of a harpoon wrapped around his neck. The Pequod is destroyed and there are no easy answers to be found, but what the story has been talking about is over and the point has been made. Calvin and Hobbes ends with the two friends riding their sled into the wilderness, the joy of exploration the strip has always advocated still strong. Again, not a neat ending, but a culmination of themes. In comparison to either of these stories, the ending of Submergence just confirmed that the plot was unnecessary for Ledgard’s philosophical point.
Okay, what, then was Ledgard’s point?
Well, it tried to change my perspective on life by pointing out that evolution didn’t work in years or decades, but rather millennia. It also proclaimed that, in the future, Jihadists would be laughed at, there would be illegal organizations (and cults) based around artificial organs, and religion would be reduced to only its “most practical points”. (no mention of what exactly those points are, mind you) You know, revolutionary stuff. Things I am now a better person for knowing. There was an interesting bit about the “genetic distinctiveness of mankind” breaking down, but it was never explained in detail, probably because we had to learn about Che Guevara’s love for Rugby.
By the end I honestly didn’t know which half of the book was the more pointless.
The language itself isn’t what I would call consistently terrible, but it is extremely cluttered, obsessed with famous names and endless allusions. (a mountain that is different on one side is described as “Janus-faced”. Danny is described as “standing on the shoulders of giants”) Naturally these cute little references add nothing to the story. If you like great prose there’s not much to be found here, unless you like motifs, which the book has exactly one of. It’s ham-fisted and crowbarred in at every possible opportunity to the point where I had trouble understanding what it actually meant, but it’s there.
Submergence is a pointless, pretentious book that ultimately drowns (Am I a great writer yet?) in its own self-importance and your time would be better spent reading Moby Dick. Or anything by William Shakespeare. Or even George R.R. Martin. Hell, why bother restricting yourself to books? Go watch Death Note or read Junji Ito’s Uzumaki. Familiarize yourself with Billy Wilder’s filmography. Pull out Super Smash Bros Melee and learn how to wavedash. Gather a few friends together and play a game of touch football. Go do something you enjoy.
You’ll benefit from that more than you would from this book.
“A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are -- oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language. Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.” -Mark Twain
February 7, 2021
Filme na HBO.
August 22, 2013
On a recent vacation, I finished J.M. Ledgard's Submergence and pressed it on my very well-read wife. Her first word after finishing it was "Wow!"
She asked if she could pass it on to her sister and my first word was "No!"
Not because I'm usually selfish with my books, but because I want this book close by — under my pillow should I despair about the world; on the shelf should I think there's no sense trying to write serious fiction in this age of micro-reading; on my desk to remind me that big old conundrums of existence still can be approached from fresh vantage points.
August is nearly finished and Submergence may be the best thing I will read this year.
The story is simple. A British spy is being held by Somalian jihadists who aren't quite sure what to do with him. As James More endures the insults and irrationality of his captivity (Brian Keenan's account of his ordeals in An Evil Cradling came to mind at times), he tries different strategies to hold himself together. His strength, his opportunities to escape and his will to survive are all dwindling, and it will be terribly inconvenient for the British Government to acknowledge him, let alone rescue him.
So he alternately engages with his captors as human beings, reflects on his lineage (he's a descendant of Thomas More and some other colorful characters), dredges what he can from a rather vague Anglican faith and mostly reaches back to a brief but intense interlude with Danielle — a Franco-Australian marine biologist who is preparing for a career-defining deep-sea dive to the farthest reaches of the ocean and perhaps to learn more about the origins of life on earth.
Both are immersed in their own situations and yet they find each other almost like two blind protozoans upon whose mingling everything else depends. James brings to their love affair man's coping strategies drawn from the past — of stories, culture, masculine lineage and God — while Danielle stands for how deep scientific understanding can also help us place ourselves in the cosmos.
His problems are very much bound up in questions of politics, tribal ignorance and the impracticality of those who insist upon simple ideological answers. Her portions of the book explore how chemical processes and the slow determinism of millennia can be the basis of a competing metaphysics at least as profound as the Godly versions so far invented.
I don't mean for this description to be too eggheady — it's a very readable 208 pages — but the novel will challenge your thinking, delight you with new perspectives and give you hope, despite suggesting that your individual life may also be insignificant.
Submergence is a remarkable book and I refuse to hand over my copy because Ledgard and Coffee House Press have earned your $15.95 and then some.
She asked if she could pass it on to her sister and my first word was "No!"
Not because I'm usually selfish with my books, but because I want this book close by — under my pillow should I despair about the world; on the shelf should I think there's no sense trying to write serious fiction in this age of micro-reading; on my desk to remind me that big old conundrums of existence still can be approached from fresh vantage points.
August is nearly finished and Submergence may be the best thing I will read this year.
The story is simple. A British spy is being held by Somalian jihadists who aren't quite sure what to do with him. As James More endures the insults and irrationality of his captivity (Brian Keenan's account of his ordeals in An Evil Cradling came to mind at times), he tries different strategies to hold himself together. His strength, his opportunities to escape and his will to survive are all dwindling, and it will be terribly inconvenient for the British Government to acknowledge him, let alone rescue him.
So he alternately engages with his captors as human beings, reflects on his lineage (he's a descendant of Thomas More and some other colorful characters), dredges what he can from a rather vague Anglican faith and mostly reaches back to a brief but intense interlude with Danielle — a Franco-Australian marine biologist who is preparing for a career-defining deep-sea dive to the farthest reaches of the ocean and perhaps to learn more about the origins of life on earth.
Both are immersed in their own situations and yet they find each other almost like two blind protozoans upon whose mingling everything else depends. James brings to their love affair man's coping strategies drawn from the past — of stories, culture, masculine lineage and God — while Danielle stands for how deep scientific understanding can also help us place ourselves in the cosmos.
His problems are very much bound up in questions of politics, tribal ignorance and the impracticality of those who insist upon simple ideological answers. Her portions of the book explore how chemical processes and the slow determinism of millennia can be the basis of a competing metaphysics at least as profound as the Godly versions so far invented.
I don't mean for this description to be too eggheady — it's a very readable 208 pages — but the novel will challenge your thinking, delight you with new perspectives and give you hope, despite suggesting that your individual life may also be insignificant.
Submergence is a remarkable book and I refuse to hand over my copy because Ledgard and Coffee House Press have earned your $15.95 and then some.
August 26, 2013
There simply wasn’t enough story or interaction between actual human beings in this novel for my taste. In a way it could have begun and ended anywhere, as it really did seem often to be a series of pieces - consisting of two deeply solitary narratives and a slew of scientific/historic observations of varied relevance - that were shuffled with occasional brilliance and sporadic logic.
That said, what Ledgard has done with dimension is wholly unique and deeply interesting. By exploring depth, starting with the ocean, he really does add a spatial element that I’ve never seen in fiction before. When Danny feels that she’s at the edge of a cliff when she stands by the ocean, it makes one feel that the characters are always on a precipice, and the emotional and metaphorical implications are all the more impactful because of the physical ones.
It’s very rare to see something truly new in fiction, so though I didn’t feel emotionally connected to this novel, I respect it immensely.
That said, what Ledgard has done with dimension is wholly unique and deeply interesting. By exploring depth, starting with the ocean, he really does add a spatial element that I’ve never seen in fiction before. When Danny feels that she’s at the edge of a cliff when she stands by the ocean, it makes one feel that the characters are always on a precipice, and the emotional and metaphorical implications are all the more impactful because of the physical ones.
It’s very rare to see something truly new in fiction, so though I didn’t feel emotionally connected to this novel, I respect it immensely.
April 2, 2013
Has a novel ever been more aptly titled than J. M. Ledgard's Submergence? From the opening pages, we're reminded relentlessly that "submergence," "submersion," "sinking," "diving," and "descent" are very much what this painstakingly crafted book is about. It's a thematic obsession that ties together philosophical synopses, historical anecdotes, essayistic meditations, two central characters, and three interwoven plots. Submergence is plainly a novel of grand ambitions—a brooding, atmospheric spy tale that wants to say something about science, religion, and destiny. Unfortunately, it too often confuses mantra with meaning. Repeating "the depths" over and over again can be mesmerizing, but it doesn't go very far toward illuminating them.
…read the rest on BookForum.
…read the rest on BookForum.
June 17, 2013
Stunningly orientalist. Simply amazed that not one of the reviews have even touched upon it. Ledgard seems like a very creepy old-school colonial guy - a slightly smarter Brit Tom Friedman-ish journalist at the neoliberal Economist - with a very dubious Islamophobic agenda. Will elaborate in a longer piece, but wow, what a knob.
July 23, 2018
ไม่อินเลย 555
ไม่รู้สึกถึงความเชื่อมโยงของ 2 คนนี้เลย โรแมนติกตรงไหน เหงาตรงไหน เส้นเรื่องของ 2 คนดูแยกกันชัดเจนมาก เหมือนคนเขียนไม่รู้จะผสานยังไง มันเลยกระท่อนกระแท่นแบบนี้อ่ะ
ไม่รู้สึกถึงความเชื่อมโยงของ 2 คนนี้เลย โรแมนติกตรงไหน เหงาตรงไหน เส้นเรื่องของ 2 คนดูแยกกันชัดเจนมาก เหมือนคนเขียนไม่รู้จะผสานยังไง มันเลยกระท่อนกระแท่นแบบนี้อ่ะ
June 8, 2018
Um livro que fala por um lado de amor e por outro de a vida de um cativeiro e todas as suas consequências. Este livro serve como reflexão sobre a vida e a morte.
July 28, 2013
My book of the year so far:
J.M . Ledgard's second novel is strange and disturbing It is also dark and, one might argue, deeply pessimistic in terms of the future it suggests for humankind.
SUBMERGENCE is an account of James, a kidnapped British spy, and the slow disintegration of his will and consciousness among his jihadist captors in Somalia, coupled with the descent into the depths of the oceans on the part of Danielle, a marine biomathematician.
Somewhere in there, in flashbacks, like particles in a chaotic system, this pair randomly bounced into one another in a French hotel on a raging Atlantic, made love on a bathroom sink, and decided, despite it being it an apparent mathematical impossible, that they had fallen in love. It was fleeting, as all things are. SUBMERGENCE scrapes topics that are difficult to write about without seeming precious, including djinns, Africa, and, without quite saying so, a sense of a dormant superconsciousness that lies below, precedes and outlasts all human activity and ritual - not to mention a civilization, one gets the sense, that the author sees as increasingly tenuous.
J.M . Ledgard's second novel is strange and disturbing It is also dark and, one might argue, deeply pessimistic in terms of the future it suggests for humankind.
SUBMERGENCE is an account of James, a kidnapped British spy, and the slow disintegration of his will and consciousness among his jihadist captors in Somalia, coupled with the descent into the depths of the oceans on the part of Danielle, a marine biomathematician.
Somewhere in there, in flashbacks, like particles in a chaotic system, this pair randomly bounced into one another in a French hotel on a raging Atlantic, made love on a bathroom sink, and decided, despite it being it an apparent mathematical impossible, that they had fallen in love. It was fleeting, as all things are. SUBMERGENCE scrapes topics that are difficult to write about without seeming precious, including djinns, Africa, and, without quite saying so, a sense of a dormant superconsciousness that lies below, precedes and outlasts all human activity and ritual - not to mention a civilization, one gets the sense, that the author sees as increasingly tenuous.
Want to read
March 7, 2016Isn't particularly interested but hey, James McAvoy is being cast as the main character so, *sigh*
March 24, 2013
"They arrived at a place no satellite image can do justice to," as we arrive in the barren world of Ledgard's Submergence, a book that feels so intensely of the global transnational geopolitical now. Like Delillo but without the paranoia, or with the paranoia replaced by both desperate hope and resignation, Ledgard's world is one of deception and fanaticism, of drones and terrorism, of collapsing nation-states and war lords, but also one of crystalline observations of the natural world -- a world that we, and our human machinations, are in, but increasingly not of. To do this, Ledgard positions the story of James More (a British agent posing as a water expert and a descendant of the writer of Utopia, who is captured by jihadist fighters) next to the story of his former lover Danielle Flinders, a bio-mathematician who studies the deepest realms in our biosphere. As he struggles in captivity, she, without knowledge of his position in the British Secret Service or his capture, prepares to plunge to the depths of the Greenland Sea to study the myriad undiscovered life forms that will, in her opinion, likely outlast the human species, the Earth's "experiment in self-awareness" gone awry, and its hubristic struggles. As each character submerges themselves in memory, they plumb the depths of the recent and ancient past to find a way out of the collapsing present and into a future where the survival of the human race is a tenable possibility. While the elliptical nature of the narrative vignettes at times engenders writing that could be less ambiguous and tighter, the compelling nature of the overall story and thematic impact makes a reader forgive any stray sentences that might not have swum through the jaws of a more shark-toothed editor.
March 11, 2014
Pretentious, ill-conceived, misogynistic, boring, flat, and insufferable. The author is a journalist who fancies himself a novelist but here's hoping for the salvation of any dignity the human race still has left that he really, really, REALLY doesn't quit his day job. I would not wish this paean to white male privilege on my worst enemy.
Please, I implore you, store this book in your bathroom cabinet as emergency backup when the TP runs out, and instead go pick up "A Day and A Night and a Day by Glen Duncan. THAT'S the actual exquisite novel of humanity, global terror, love, and survival that you should be reading -- not this book which is more a steaming smear of wet diarrhea caked on to the ass hairs of a dik-dik starving in the Somali desert.
Please, I implore you, store this book in your bathroom cabinet as emergency backup when the TP runs out, and instead go pick up "A Day and A Night and a Day by Glen Duncan. THAT'S the actual exquisite novel of humanity, global terror, love, and survival that you should be reading -- not this book which is more a steaming smear of wet diarrhea caked on to the ass hairs of a dik-dik starving in the Somali desert.
February 16, 2024
Kademe kademe ağırlaşan ve anlamını yakalamakta zorlandığımı bir okuma gibi düşünürken kitabın sonu gelmiş oldu. Kesinlikle kolay bir okuma değil ama çok doyurucu bir kitap.
Atlantic’te yolları keşisen iki kişinin odağında ilerliyoruz. Afrika’da görevde olan İngiliz casusu James ve su altı uzmanı matematikçi Danielle arasında gelişen ilişki temelinde döneceği gibi bir algıda başlayıp farklı farklı konulara gömülüyoruz.
Ne olacaksa olsun ile ne olacak acaba arasında savruldum durdum.
Üç farklı zaman arasında örülen olay örgüsünde felsefe, politika, mitoloji, din, bilim, kabile, türler derken geçişler hem çok hem çok şeffaf.
“Dünya dönmeye, sular bir yere ayrılmadığı sürece, jeolojik zamanın sonuna dek derinler hep var olacaktı. Bir dakika hazır, bir dakika bitiş. İnsanoğlunun orantısal algısı olsaydı, utancından ölürdü. Selameti, inkâr içinde yaşamasına bağlıydı. Kendisini inkâra bırakmamıştı daha ama muallaktaydı. Homo sapiens ya çok uzun bir yolculuğun başındaydı ya da çok kısa bir yolculuğun sonuna gelmek üzereydi. Uzun ve meşakkatli bir yolculuk olacaksa, Sümerlerden beri yaşananlar göze paha biçilmez ve vahşice gelecekti. Eğer kısa bir girişimden ibaret kalacaksa, insanoğlunun nişanesi toprağa gömdüğü çöpler olacaktı.
‘Milyarlarcamız inekleri, elmaları, şunu bunu yiyerek hayatta kalıyor olsa bile, siz de biliyorsunuz ki, aşağıdaki hayatın yanında bizler bir hiçiz. O hayat yok edilemez, ölümle -ya da ölümden farksız şeylerle- besleniyor, uyum sağlıyor ve yoluna devam edip sıcak sulara katılıyor.’ “
Atlantic’te yolları keşisen iki kişinin odağında ilerliyoruz. Afrika’da görevde olan İngiliz casusu James ve su altı uzmanı matematikçi Danielle arasında gelişen ilişki temelinde döneceği gibi bir algıda başlayıp farklı farklı konulara gömülüyoruz.
Ne olacaksa olsun ile ne olacak acaba arasında savruldum durdum.
Üç farklı zaman arasında örülen olay örgüsünde felsefe, politika, mitoloji, din, bilim, kabile, türler derken geçişler hem çok hem çok şeffaf.
“Dünya dönmeye, sular bir yere ayrılmadığı sürece, jeolojik zamanın sonuna dek derinler hep var olacaktı. Bir dakika hazır, bir dakika bitiş. İnsanoğlunun orantısal algısı olsaydı, utancından ölürdü. Selameti, inkâr içinde yaşamasına bağlıydı. Kendisini inkâra bırakmamıştı daha ama muallaktaydı. Homo sapiens ya çok uzun bir yolculuğun başındaydı ya da çok kısa bir yolculuğun sonuna gelmek üzereydi. Uzun ve meşakkatli bir yolculuk olacaksa, Sümerlerden beri yaşananlar göze paha biçilmez ve vahşice gelecekti. Eğer kısa bir girişimden ibaret kalacaksa, insanoğlunun nişanesi toprağa gömdüğü çöpler olacaktı.
‘Milyarlarcamız inekleri, elmaları, şunu bunu yiyerek hayatta kalıyor olsa bile, siz de biliyorsunuz ki, aşağıdaki hayatın yanında bizler bir hiçiz. O hayat yok edilemez, ölümle -ya da ölümden farksız şeylerle- besleniyor, uyum sağlıyor ve yoluna devam edip sıcak sulara katılıyor.’ “
September 24, 2023
"..ağzından çıkan her sözü, birlikte yaşadıkları her şeyi kafasında tekrar canlandırmış; hepsini anlamlandırmaya çalışmıştı. Ah mutluluk, o mutluluk kafasından uydurduğu bir şey değildi."
June 22, 2014
Op de laatste pagina van Tot het laatste vuur de diepzee bereikt roept J.M. Ledgard op om Denis Allex, een in juli 2009 door Al Shabaab ontvoerde Franse veiligheidsadviseur, niet te vergeten. Net zomin als Asho Duhulow, een meisje dat op 13-jarige leeftijd in Kismayo schuldig werd bevonden aan ontrouw omdat ze verkracht was. Haar straf was dood door steniging. De kans dat je beiden vergeet, nadat je Tot het laatste vuur de diepzee bereikt hebt gelezen, is nihil.
James More, de mannelijke hoofdpersoon in het verhaal, wordt net als Allex ontvoerd door leden van Al Shabaab. Na hem eerst lange tijd te hebben opgesloten, nemen ze hem mee naar een trainingskamp voor Al Qaida martelaren. Onderweg naar het kamp brengen ze o.a. enige tijd door in Kismayo, waar James getuige is van de terechtstelling van een 13-jarig meisje. Hij houdt zich, ondanks dit soort gebeurtenissen, de mishandelingen en ontberingen, min of meer staande door in gedachten terug te keren naar zijn ontmoeting met Danielle Flinders.
Danielle is een biomathematicus, die zich bezighoudt met het onderzoeken van organismen die op grote diepte leven in de Atlantische oceaan. Zij brengt elk jaar de kerstdagen door aan de Franse kust, in een hotel met de toepasselijke naam, Atlantic. Het is daar dat Danielle en James elkaar ontmoeten. Het zijn maar drie dagen die ze met elkaar doorbrengen, maar de impact daarvan op elkaars leven is blijvend. Beiden keren naderhand keer op keer terug naar die ontmoeting en putten er kracht uit. Uit de uitgewisselde verhalen, uit hun samenzijn, uit hun liefde voor elkaar en voor het leven.
Zo samengevat wordt wellicht de indruk gewekt dat Ledgard een goedkope, op de emoties inspelende 'waargebeurdroman' heeft afgeleverd, maar niets is minder waar. Ledgards bijna feitelijke manier van vertellen en de wijze waarop het verhaal is vormgegeven voorkomen dat. Dat Ledgard verschillende vertelperspectieven hanteert waarin afwisselend James, onderweg naar het martelarenkamp, en Danielle, onderweg naar de diepzee, worden gevolgd is niet zo bijzonder. Ook het gebruik van flash backs is dat niet. Wel bijzonder zijn de korte hoofdstukken tussendoor met uitleg of overpeinzingen over allerlei onderwerpen. Onderwerpen zo divers als de gevolgen van extreme kou, de capaciteit van een petaflopcomputer of de dood. Zo'n opzet loopt het gevaar gekunsteld over te komen, maar dat heeft Ledgard knap weten te vermijden. Hij slaagt erin om een bijna prozaïsch verteld verhaal, aangevuld met schijnbaar willekeurige 'ditjes en datjes', te laten resulteren in een schitterende roman over leven en overleven. En over de verscheidenheid daarvan. Waar de ene levensvorm aan de oppervlakte overleeft door kracht te putten uit Ziggy Stardust, overleeft een andere door in de diepste diepten van de diepzee duizenden jaren te wachten op de juiste omstandigheden. Tot het laatste vuur de diepzee bereikt is daarmee ook een roman over hoop en over geloof. Hoop op overleven en geloof in het leven, waar dan ook, hoe dan ook:
"Gedichten spreken over de oceaan als een graftombe, terwijl de wetenschap hem als een baarmoeder beschouwt. Als je dan toch moet wegteren of een gewelddadige dood moet sterven in het ochtendlicht, dan zou een zeemansgraf die onverenigbare visies kunnen opheffen. Wikkel me in een hangmat en laat me afzinken naar de diepte ... Zou jij begraven willen worden, of word je liever in een vadem afgezonken, naar een rif waar je zacht deint tot je botten van koraal zijn en je de zee ziet veranderen in iets rijks en vreemds?"
Prima vertaald uit het Engels door Ine Willems.
James More, de mannelijke hoofdpersoon in het verhaal, wordt net als Allex ontvoerd door leden van Al Shabaab. Na hem eerst lange tijd te hebben opgesloten, nemen ze hem mee naar een trainingskamp voor Al Qaida martelaren. Onderweg naar het kamp brengen ze o.a. enige tijd door in Kismayo, waar James getuige is van de terechtstelling van een 13-jarig meisje. Hij houdt zich, ondanks dit soort gebeurtenissen, de mishandelingen en ontberingen, min of meer staande door in gedachten terug te keren naar zijn ontmoeting met Danielle Flinders.
Danielle is een biomathematicus, die zich bezighoudt met het onderzoeken van organismen die op grote diepte leven in de Atlantische oceaan. Zij brengt elk jaar de kerstdagen door aan de Franse kust, in een hotel met de toepasselijke naam, Atlantic. Het is daar dat Danielle en James elkaar ontmoeten. Het zijn maar drie dagen die ze met elkaar doorbrengen, maar de impact daarvan op elkaars leven is blijvend. Beiden keren naderhand keer op keer terug naar die ontmoeting en putten er kracht uit. Uit de uitgewisselde verhalen, uit hun samenzijn, uit hun liefde voor elkaar en voor het leven.
Zo samengevat wordt wellicht de indruk gewekt dat Ledgard een goedkope, op de emoties inspelende 'waargebeurdroman' heeft afgeleverd, maar niets is minder waar. Ledgards bijna feitelijke manier van vertellen en de wijze waarop het verhaal is vormgegeven voorkomen dat. Dat Ledgard verschillende vertelperspectieven hanteert waarin afwisselend James, onderweg naar het martelarenkamp, en Danielle, onderweg naar de diepzee, worden gevolgd is niet zo bijzonder. Ook het gebruik van flash backs is dat niet. Wel bijzonder zijn de korte hoofdstukken tussendoor met uitleg of overpeinzingen over allerlei onderwerpen. Onderwerpen zo divers als de gevolgen van extreme kou, de capaciteit van een petaflopcomputer of de dood. Zo'n opzet loopt het gevaar gekunsteld over te komen, maar dat heeft Ledgard knap weten te vermijden. Hij slaagt erin om een bijna prozaïsch verteld verhaal, aangevuld met schijnbaar willekeurige 'ditjes en datjes', te laten resulteren in een schitterende roman over leven en overleven. En over de verscheidenheid daarvan. Waar de ene levensvorm aan de oppervlakte overleeft door kracht te putten uit Ziggy Stardust, overleeft een andere door in de diepste diepten van de diepzee duizenden jaren te wachten op de juiste omstandigheden. Tot het laatste vuur de diepzee bereikt is daarmee ook een roman over hoop en over geloof. Hoop op overleven en geloof in het leven, waar dan ook, hoe dan ook:
"Gedichten spreken over de oceaan als een graftombe, terwijl de wetenschap hem als een baarmoeder beschouwt. Als je dan toch moet wegteren of een gewelddadige dood moet sterven in het ochtendlicht, dan zou een zeemansgraf die onverenigbare visies kunnen opheffen. Wikkel me in een hangmat en laat me afzinken naar de diepte ... Zou jij begraven willen worden, of word je liever in een vadem afgezonken, naar een rif waar je zacht deint tot je botten van koraal zijn en je de zee ziet veranderen in iets rijks en vreemds?"
Prima vertaald uit het Engels door Ine Willems.
June 17, 2014
Huh... First off, I was disappointed in light of the stellar reviews that I had read. It has two somewhat compelling characters who through a chance encounter, meet and fall in love at Christmas time while staying at a rural French hotel created by Cesar Ritz at the start of the 20th century. This cozy, romantic plotline is thrown in a blender with jarring accounts of jihadists taking a British spy captive and scientific digressions on how significant the undersea world is and how people refuse to acknowledge it, liberally sprinkled with brief accounts of various philosophers, religious men, and other writers throughout the ages. On paper (insert rim shot here!), I feel like I should have loved this. It has a postmodern feel, it's well-written throughout, and it has a compelling premise. Instead, it became what might be the "longest short novel that I've ever read". It clocks in at 201 pages, but there were points where I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to finish it. It's outlandishly pretentious, overall, in fact, don't even think about going near this thing without a dictionary at hand, and it's just not compelling. I hate to use such a simplistic word, but it really was just plain boring for most of the narrative.
August 7, 2020
I enjoyed this a lot and after finishing it I have no idea why it received so little fanfare or attention. I've read a ton of critically acclaimed books that were nowhere near as good as this. The story Ledgard presents, while centered around only two main characters, is very philosophical and epic in scope, and the execution is great. The ending fell flat for me, which was disappointing, but it's also possible that any other type of ending might not have worked for the story Ledgard provides.
July 7, 2014
Pretty good! People who talk about "long passages of technical detail" either read a different book, or have a morbid fear of the scientific argot without which it is simply impossible to tell a detailed story about engineers and researchers. a quote from the text is relevant:
"She had suffered from the divide in the English education system, which holds that scientists do not study Milton, and those who love Milton have no comprehension of Newton's gravity, which brought Lucifer tumbling down from the heavens."
which is a fantastic line both in its implicit comment on the creation of belief systems and mythos, and humanity's attitude towards that which is inward vs that which is outward (a theme developed richly by Danielle, a strong black female scientist lead character, and lord knows there's too few of those), and also in its summation of and reference to C. P. Snow's lecture The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution:
"A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?"
Submergence is not a Tom Clancy level of technical detail, nor a Michael Crichton level. It's not even an old-skool Thomas Pynchon level, certainly not in terms of esoterica. There's nothing here an educated person has any excuse for not knowing. Oceanic gyres and the global thermohaline cycle? If you don't know these terms, you really probably shouldn't be talking about climate change. Chemosynthesis, hydrothermal vents, and bioluminescience? If you don't know these concepts, please don't talk about evolution or biodiversity (that includes "saving the rainforest (*)"). Manganese nodules? Somebody's going to work out a system to mine deep-sea polymetallic nodules, and start printing money, and earnest kids will begin wandering 8th Avenue agitating to put an end to deep-sea mining of polymetallic nodules. Russian light metal concerns escorted by missile cruisers will enforce their own territorial claims, and you'd better believe the Chinese will be in on the party. Position on the International Seabed Authority will become a sudden major focus of foreign policy of hip, forward-looking, manganese-hungry nations. Failure to understand seabed hydroxide concentrations implies ignorance of a hotbed issue in maritime relations over the next two decades, and you will either crack open an introductory earth science textbook, or go around thinking five Jewish bankers control all the world's rustproof steel.
Similarly, accusations of a "Bond novel" are nonsense. Yes, the male protagonist is an intelligence agent. There's no use of this in the plot (there isn't really much plot); Submerged is anything but a "thriller". On first response, I'd classify it in the Imagist tradition, with strong elements of novel-of-ideas. At times, especially when a paragraph ends with a question posed directly to the reader, there's strong stylistic hints of (of all things) House of Leaves.
With that said, the author is a writer for the Economist, and the book does at times read like the Economist did Special Reports on the aphotic zone and East African jihad, and one writer did both Reports in their entirety, and that correspondent was drinking steadily and quoting the opening scene of Apocalypse Now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytOD9...
and a hard-pressed Economist editor was like, fuck it, throw it between the writeup of Honduran elections and our latest screed regarding ZANU-PF.
You won't come out of this book liking Somalis, especially Somali jihadists, any more than you did going in. That said, Somali jihadists were already trading pretty low on my personal exchange. Other reviewers have called it "orientalist" and "imperialist", which I (as an unapologetic Western Traditionalist) am really not qualified to judge , but this is no Heart of Darkness. Also, the guy who called it "stunningly orientalist" is currently (as of 2014-07-06) reading something called The End Of Capitalism As We Knew It A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Assuming this isn't just a joke, we capitalists will be sure to address the contents during our next earnings call; either way, I'd take that rather hysterical criticism with a grain of salt.
some great quotes, too. worth reading.
(*) yes, the rainforest is also an important oxygen producer, but is not a meaningful long-term carbon sink in the absolute (though deforestation does account for a one-time release which makes up a significant portion of current greenhouse gas emissions). you can plant trees anywhere for oxygen value, and indeed one does (for carbon emission credits). the unique appeal of the rainforest is its tremendous biodiversity, though frankly most of that biodiversity is fucking terrifying. nuking the rainforest from orbit might really be our best bet.
---
Referenced in Slate's Adults Should be Embarrassed to Read YA Fiction article, something a number of you could take to heart.
"She had suffered from the divide in the English education system, which holds that scientists do not study Milton, and those who love Milton have no comprehension of Newton's gravity, which brought Lucifer tumbling down from the heavens."
which is a fantastic line both in its implicit comment on the creation of belief systems and mythos, and humanity's attitude towards that which is inward vs that which is outward (a theme developed richly by Danielle, a strong black female scientist lead character, and lord knows there's too few of those), and also in its summation of and reference to C. P. Snow's lecture The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution:
"A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?"
Submergence is not a Tom Clancy level of technical detail, nor a Michael Crichton level. It's not even an old-skool Thomas Pynchon level, certainly not in terms of esoterica. There's nothing here an educated person has any excuse for not knowing. Oceanic gyres and the global thermohaline cycle? If you don't know these terms, you really probably shouldn't be talking about climate change. Chemosynthesis, hydrothermal vents, and bioluminescience? If you don't know these concepts, please don't talk about evolution or biodiversity (that includes "saving the rainforest (*)"). Manganese nodules? Somebody's going to work out a system to mine deep-sea polymetallic nodules, and start printing money, and earnest kids will begin wandering 8th Avenue agitating to put an end to deep-sea mining of polymetallic nodules. Russian light metal concerns escorted by missile cruisers will enforce their own territorial claims, and you'd better believe the Chinese will be in on the party. Position on the International Seabed Authority will become a sudden major focus of foreign policy of hip, forward-looking, manganese-hungry nations. Failure to understand seabed hydroxide concentrations implies ignorance of a hotbed issue in maritime relations over the next two decades, and you will either crack open an introductory earth science textbook, or go around thinking five Jewish bankers control all the world's rustproof steel.
Similarly, accusations of a "Bond novel" are nonsense. Yes, the male protagonist is an intelligence agent. There's no use of this in the plot (there isn't really much plot); Submerged is anything but a "thriller". On first response, I'd classify it in the Imagist tradition, with strong elements of novel-of-ideas. At times, especially when a paragraph ends with a question posed directly to the reader, there's strong stylistic hints of (of all things) House of Leaves.
With that said, the author is a writer for the Economist, and the book does at times read like the Economist did Special Reports on the aphotic zone and East African jihad, and one writer did both Reports in their entirety, and that correspondent was drinking steadily and quoting the opening scene of Apocalypse Now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytOD9...
and a hard-pressed Economist editor was like, fuck it, throw it between the writeup of Honduran elections and our latest screed regarding ZANU-PF.
You won't come out of this book liking Somalis, especially Somali jihadists, any more than you did going in. That said, Somali jihadists were already trading pretty low on my personal exchange. Other reviewers have called it "orientalist" and "imperialist", which I (as an unapologetic Western Traditionalist) am really not qualified to judge , but this is no Heart of Darkness. Also, the guy who called it "stunningly orientalist" is currently (as of 2014-07-06) reading something called The End Of Capitalism As We Knew It A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Assuming this isn't just a joke, we capitalists will be sure to address the contents during our next earnings call; either way, I'd take that rather hysterical criticism with a grain of salt.
some great quotes, too. worth reading.
(*) yes, the rainforest is also an important oxygen producer, but is not a meaningful long-term carbon sink in the absolute (though deforestation does account for a one-time release which makes up a significant portion of current greenhouse gas emissions). you can plant trees anywhere for oxygen value, and indeed one does (for carbon emission credits). the unique appeal of the rainforest is its tremendous biodiversity, though frankly most of that biodiversity is fucking terrifying. nuking the rainforest from orbit might really be our best bet.
---
Referenced in Slate's Adults Should be Embarrassed to Read YA Fiction article, something a number of you could take to heart.
January 21, 2014
I came to this book with unfairly inflated expectations, having read enthusiastic endorsements from writers I respect: Teju Cole, Kathryn Schulz, Alexis Madrigal, and Robin Sloan.
Those unfair expectations were met throughout the first half of the book, but the second half was a slow let-down
The strength of the book's beginning lies in its juxtaposition between two scenes that unravel with cinematic allure. First we meet James More, a British spy posing as a water engineer who has been taken hostage by members of Al Qaeda in southern Somalia near the border with Kenya. Next we are introduced to Danielle (Danny) Flinders, a biomathematician searching for life where the ocean meets the magna core of Earth. The first half of the book alternates, page by page, between More's captivity in a dark shack just meters from the Somalian coast and his budding romance with Danny at Hotel Atlantic, a fictive manor resort on the French Atlantic coast with an attention to detail modeled on César Ritz's famous Parisian hotel. Both scenes are described with a kind of observation that would require most writers to use LSD. Ledgard's description of the Hotel Atlantic convinced me that it would be worth blowing two month's salary to experience its comforts for a week.
Beyond the beautiful descriptions of southern Somalia and France's Atlantic coast, this is a novel about time and exploration, two themes that have always been dear to my heart and identity.
Both James and Danny are explorers, but James measures his work in moments whereas Danny hopes that a lifetime of her work will contribute something to the last five centuries of science.
Submergence was published in the UK in 2011, but Ledgard wasn't able to find a US publisher until the indie Coffee House Press signed on last year. Since 1995, Ledgard has covered East Africa for The Economist. His journalistic curiosity for context and trivia shows throughout the novel. But so too does his own dual identity as journalist and novelist: the journalist rushing to make the weekly print deadline and the novelist taking his sweet time to make something lasting that stands on the shoulders of his literary influences.
The beauty and originality of the first half of the novel slowly gives way to repetition and lack of direction. By the time I had reached the last page, it felt like I was finishing a soured dessert after an exquisite dinner.
Also, I was left slightly unsettled by the portrayal of Somalia and the Somalians throughout the book. Teju Cole, one of the book's greatest promoters, once wrote the following in a completely different context:
There are passages from Submergence such as this one:
While I mostly agree with Schulz that Ledgard " neither dehumanizes nor excuses" his captors, I wonder what a Somali writer such as Nuruddin Farah thinks about Ledgard's portrayal of his country and countrymen.
Those unfair expectations were met throughout the first half of the book, but the second half was a slow let-down
The strength of the book's beginning lies in its juxtaposition between two scenes that unravel with cinematic allure. First we meet James More, a British spy posing as a water engineer who has been taken hostage by members of Al Qaeda in southern Somalia near the border with Kenya. Next we are introduced to Danielle (Danny) Flinders, a biomathematician searching for life where the ocean meets the magna core of Earth. The first half of the book alternates, page by page, between More's captivity in a dark shack just meters from the Somalian coast and his budding romance with Danny at Hotel Atlantic, a fictive manor resort on the French Atlantic coast with an attention to detail modeled on César Ritz's famous Parisian hotel. Both scenes are described with a kind of observation that would require most writers to use LSD. Ledgard's description of the Hotel Atlantic convinced me that it would be worth blowing two month's salary to experience its comforts for a week.
Beyond the beautiful descriptions of southern Somalia and France's Atlantic coast, this is a novel about time and exploration, two themes that have always been dear to my heart and identity.
They had different understandings of time and space. He worked on the surface, the outside of the world. For him, everything was in flux. He was tasking agents to infiltrate mosques in Somalia and along the Swahili coast. He was concerned with alleys, beliefs, incendiary devices; with months, weeks, days, with indelible hours. For her, an age was an instant. She was interested in the base of the corrosive saltwater column, delimiting through mathematics the other living world, which has existed in darkness and in continental dimensions for hundreds of millions of years.
Both James and Danny are explorers, but James measures his work in moments whereas Danny hopes that a lifetime of her work will contribute something to the last five centuries of science.
Submergence was published in the UK in 2011, but Ledgard wasn't able to find a US publisher until the indie Coffee House Press signed on last year. Since 1995, Ledgard has covered East Africa for The Economist. His journalistic curiosity for context and trivia shows throughout the novel. But so too does his own dual identity as journalist and novelist: the journalist rushing to make the weekly print deadline and the novelist taking his sweet time to make something lasting that stands on the shoulders of his literary influences.
The beauty and originality of the first half of the novel slowly gives way to repetition and lack of direction. By the time I had reached the last page, it felt like I was finishing a soured dessert after an exquisite dinner.
Also, I was left slightly unsettled by the portrayal of Somalia and the Somalians throughout the book. Teju Cole, one of the book's greatest promoters, once wrote the following in a completely different context:
One song we hear too often is the one in which Africa serves as a backdrop for white fantasies of conquest and heroism.
There are passages from Submergence such as this one:
That is why Somalia serves as a trapdoor for Saudi Arabia. Young Saudis are sent there to lay low and to learn how to fight. They are marginal characters— on the run from themselves as well as from the police— withdrawn, stammering, younger brothers, with unresolved inner conflicts, most of them sexual.
While I mostly agree with Schulz that Ledgard " neither dehumanizes nor excuses" his captors, I wonder what a Somali writer such as Nuruddin Farah thinks about Ledgard's portrayal of his country and countrymen.
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