But Ness’s exploration of big questions-specifically Seth’s yearning to find out if life will ever offer more than the rotten hand he’s been dealt-will provide solace for the right readers. He's currently working on a new adaptation of 'Lord of the Files,' the literary classic that has seen a number of film and TV versions since the book was published in 1954. Patrick Ness, an award-winning novelist, has written for England’s Radio 4 and Sunday Telegraph and is a literary critic for The Guardian. The Matrix-like science fiction elements of the story are somewhat fuzzy, and even the characters continually question the logic of the circumstances they are stuck in. When even that romance ended in sorrow, Seth grasped for a reason to live. Is this hell? A tortured dream? Seth’s search for understanding requires Ness to move between the unsettling present and Seth’s past, slowly revealing his sad childhood, his awful mother, and the bright spot in his young life-his relationship with schoolmate Gudmund. The old neighborhood is now a dust-covered ruin there is no noise, no electricity, and, at first, not another soul around. After drowning, Seth awakens in the suburban London neighborhood where he lived before his family relocated to the Pacific Northwest. Seth Wearing, age 16, dies in the opening pages of this complex, ambitious novel from Ness (A Monster Calls) and, arguably, that isn’t the worst thing that happens to him.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |