JOURNEY INTO SPACE BY TOBY LITT, REVIEW
By Lorna Bradbury
Daily Telegraph
3:34PM GMT 19 Mar 2009
UK
Lorna Bradbury finds Toby Litt’s science fiction novel, ‘Journey into
Space’, slick and absorbing
There is a long and distinguished tradition of literary novelists
venturing into science fiction. Think of Doris Lessing’s Canopus
in Argos: Archives series or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale,
which won the first Arthur C Clarke award, despite Atwood’s discomfort
with her novels being classified as science fiction. (She has said she
prefers the term "speculative fiction".) Then there are the writers
who dabble in the genre, such as Michel Faber in Under the Skin,
or David Mitchell in Cloud Atlas, or Kazuo Ishiguro in Never Let Me Go.
But it remains for the most part a business of them and us, with
the science fiction community complaining that mainstream novelists
don’t take the science behind their fictional worlds seriously enough,
and the literary novelists keen to set their work apart from much of
the genre dross.
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part 2 Christmas books: Letters and essaysToby Litt is a bit of a
literary trickster, and likes to experiment with different genres
in his20 fiction. He has done the crime thriller (Corpsing), lad lit
(Exhibitionism), chick lit (Finding Myself) – and this, his 10th, is a
piece of full-on science fiction. It will no doubt have the purists up
in arms with its cursory technological descriptions, inconsistencies
and jokes at its own expense, but to the non-aficionado it is a more
than satisfying diversion.
It is set on board the spaceship Armenia, which is travelling,
with its crew of 100 passengers, to a distant planet – an attempt to
escape the troubles of Earth and to create a new society, "one more
generous and harmonious than the old". This is a journey that will
take many generations to complete; these passengers are "inbetweeners",
"caretakers".
It is a joyless existence, with no possible escape from the deadened
life of the ship (except through suicide), constant surveillance from
the on-board computer, and sexual relationships banned in favour of
artificial insemination (to protect the gene pool). But, more than
that, the spaceship has been superseded by a faster transporter
that is due to arrive a full generation ahead of it, so the entire
enterprise has been rendered more or less pointless.
We are eased into life on board the spaceship through the story of
Celeste and August, two cousins who were born on the ship, and who
have become obsessed with finding out about Earth. They spend many=2
0hours carrying out research, and playing a game called "describe",
in which they try to convey to each other specific sensations: what
it is like to lie in Central Park on a summer’s day; the weather
systems of the Lake District. Though their language sometimes misses
the mark, they frequently move each other to tears. Litt’s writing,
notwithstanding the scene in which the lovers try to recreate the
feeling of rain in the shower – surely a strong contender for this
year’s Bad Sex prize – is consistently inventive.
An extended description of a violent earthquake that tears the planet
apart, which we understand later to be an allegory for the sexual
union of Celeste and August and the birth of their deformed child,
Orphan, moves the novel into a new phase. Though his parents are
ostracised from life on the ship, a punishment for the sexual liaison
during which he was conceived, Orphan comes to be revered. He is
installed as captain, and oversees a period of intense rule-breaking
and hedonism. Orphan’s motto, "Have fun", comes to define several
decades of orgiastic excess, a trend increased by the news from Earth
that a holocaust has wiped out all but a handful of survivors.
Perhaps the least satisfying part of this novel is the last third,
in which Orphan gradually falls from favour, replaced by a reverence
which takes on religious overtones for=2 0his cold, detached daughter
Three. Her attempts to make paper and ink so she can send a letter
to Earth come to dominate her life, as she tends the oak trees and
galls from which she will fashion her writing materials. The novel
becomes too cursory at this point with Litt galloping through vast
swathes of time, and numerous paragraphs stating that "20 years had
passed" or "nothing happened – for years". He is forced to tell his
story in broad strokes: the deaths of passengers, the changes in
allegiances, the celibacy of these later years – and the ultimate
decision to destroy humanity (which, without giving too much away,
doesn’t entirely succeed).
Despite these frustrations, Journey into Space is an absorbing read,
occasionally elevated into something more substantial by moments of
inspired writing. If it is true that many of Toby Litt’s fictional
creations remain shadowy, his novels occupied more with surface than
depth, it should also be said that he is a great entertainer, a slick
showman and, line by line, perhaps one of our most interesting writers.