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De nabije toekomst?
The description of Paul Auster of a post-apocalyptic world in this novel seems for me the most plausible I have ever encountered in a dystopian novel.
Young Anne Blume arrives in a devastated city on an aid ship from somewhere obviously much safer and enters an imploded city. She arrives in this desastrous world to look for her brother whom she did not hear from for a year. The name of the city is nowhere mentioned nor in what country it is situated, but it must be New York. It is soon clear that life is in such a chaos that she will have to gather all her strength to stay alive and she must also realize the fact that she will only by sheer luck find out what happened to her brother, as all official means of communications are extinct. She will have to adapt to join the crowd of hungry scavengers, avoid being robbed of the tiniest possession, eat any little morsel of food she can find and take care to find a safe sleeping place at night. People’s most precious possession is a shopping cart which you have to chain to your waist against thiefs. There is no electricity, buildings collapse overnight, dead bodies line the streets. The dead are naked, their clothes are robbed within five minutes. Life for Anne, and the few companions she meets, consists of learning how to be the smartest, never lose attention and to be invisible if needed. Showing or receiving compassion is very rare, but proved to be life saving for Anne in a few instances.
This book made a big impact on me. I think it was really too close for comfort. If things would spin out of control, it could be only a few steps further into the future that we could be roaming the streets like the slowly dying people in this novel. Such a terrifying thought. From now on, this dystopian novel of Paul Auster will stay with me as the most realistic one I have ever read.
Young Anne Blume arrives in a devastated city on an aid ship from somewhere obviously much safer and enters an imploded city. She arrives in this desastrous world to look for her brother whom she did not hear from for a year. The name of the city is nowhere mentioned nor in what country it is situated, but it must be New York. It is soon clear that life is in such a chaos that she will have to gather all her strength to stay alive and she must also realize the fact that she will only by sheer luck find out what happened to her brother, as all official means of communications are extinct. She will have to adapt to join the crowd of hungry scavengers, avoid being robbed of the tiniest possession, eat any little morsel of food she can find and take care to find a safe sleeping place at night. People’s most precious possession is a shopping cart which you have to chain to your waist against thiefs. There is no electricity, buildings collapse overnight, dead bodies line the streets. The dead are naked, their clothes are robbed within five minutes. Life for Anne, and the few companions she meets, consists of learning how to be the smartest, never lose attention and to be invisible if needed. Showing or receiving compassion is very rare, but proved to be life saving for Anne in a few instances.
This book made a big impact on me. I think it was really too close for comfort. If things would spin out of control, it could be only a few steps further into the future that we could be roaming the streets like the slowly dying people in this novel. Such a terrifying thought. From now on, this dystopian novel of Paul Auster will stay with me as the most realistic one I have ever read.
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