I’ve
written enough reviews that coming up with an introductory paragraph
has become the hardest part. Seemingly all the good ideas taken,
setting the stage in a new way is a difficult, sometimes desperate
affair. As such, I know how writers of dystopian fiction must feel
as of 2018. The lowest hanging as well as the highest hanging fruit
all picked, the tree of story premise is bare. Peering behind leaves
and feeling around branches for something others may have missed,
Claire North’s 84k (2018) takes a look at a near-future
England where crime is an economically punitive affair.
Theo
Miller works for the Criminal Audit Office. All crime assigned a
monetary value, it is his job to analyze and define the financial
indemnity the offender owes in compensation to the victim or their
family, no jail-time required. Can’t pay your debt, well, off to
exploitative community service for you—the patty lines.
Corporations valued above all else, white collar offences and
offences wherein corporations are victim hold the highest monetary
values, while incidents on the street among common folk wield
significantly less. Calloused by his work, crime comes to mean
little to Theo, that is, until a case appears on his desk involving a
former lover. The woman murdered, tallying up the value of her life
in numbers touches something inside Theo. When another person from
his past appears threatening to blackmail him, however, he has no
choice but to dig deeper into the details of the murder. What he
finds changes everything for himself, and Britain.
A
scattered, unfastened novel, 84k nevertheless has the best of
intentions. Perhaps most noticeable, North opts for non-standard
syntax. Sentences parsed for mood or emulation of thought rather
than subject-verb-object sequencing, the novel has a slack, floaty
feel as a result. Secondly, North opts to go with three timelines,
chopped up and relatively out of order, in telling the story of Theo
Miller’s life. (There is enough order to maintain some sense of
inter-linearity, however.) And thirdly, and most important regarding
the novel’s theme, 84k is angry. Angry at the power
corporations and the affluent wield in unjust fashion over the common
person (class, gender, etc.), there are numerous moments North’s
political views are on display in sharp, overt fashion. Given
conviction involves payment rather than incarceration in the story,
one can imagine the freedoms many of the rich enjoy knowing how
easily a serious offense can be put behind them merely by pulling out
a bank card.
But
there are major issues with all of this. Foremost, the plot of 84k
is very commercial, very neat-and-tidy, very happy ending-y. Good
guy gets screwed by the system, gets his redemption and revenge,
taking the system down with him. It’s so cheap in fact, that the
seriousness of the socio-political issues North is attempting to
address lose significant weight for it. The realism of the
atrocities never parallels the “realism” of the plot. On one
hand, immigrants are secretly being killed for the benefit of the
government, while on the other, the bad guys are spouting one-liners
straight from a Hollywood script. At one point Theo vows he’s
going to take the whole system down and make it drown in blood. One
can just as easily see Tom Cruise or Nicholas Cage screaming similar
lines on the big screen as they perform some heroic theatrics. With
characters and their actions larger than life, the realism of their
problems is offset, meaning the underlying message loses impact. So
mismatched are the message and delivery, in fact, that there were
times I asked myself: is this supposed to be satire? Would Winston
Smith have been as effective a main character if he tried Hollywood
stunts getting at Big Brother?
84k
just doesn’t take itself serious enough. In order for the true
power of this particular dystopian narrative to have full effect, the
author has a couple options. They could, as Orwell did, convey in as
direct, dramatically real a manner as possible the way in which civil
liberties are/could be being impinged upon, no frills or comic book
plotting, and leave the character hanging in the worst possible way.
Another viable option is, as hinted, raw satire. Terry Pratchett’s
Making Money, for example, bites stronger into the area of
21st century economics and politics than does 84k.
Pratchett’s angle is wholly unique, consistently cynical, and
doesn’t pull any punches despite being set in his fantastical
milieu of Discworld. With its occasional cheap one-liners, 2D
characters, silver screen plotting, and lack of consistent
seriousness, North pulls her punch.
North
is owed a huge nod of respect, however, for trying an atypical style.
With the glut of mediocre, same-y texts on the market, 84k at
least pokes its nose out of the crowd for being stylistically
different, not to mention it’s great seeing writers try new
approaches; every writer should mix things up now and then. And
North’s text is not a complete failure. The whole may not cohere,
but in certain places it works well. The loose, floaty feel
complements the quieter, somber moments. Am I really part of such
a society? Is this real? Surreal? Such are the questions the
characters seem to be asking without North putting the words directly
on the page. When the harsh, bloody realities intercede, however,
the style falls short. But for the interstices, it functions.
Speaking
of prose, I cannot write a review of 84k without mentioning
the cover copy. A Cory Doctorow quote, it reads: “An
extraordinary novel that stands with the best of dystopian fiction,
with dashes of The Handmaid’s Tale.” Shit, utter shit. I’ll
have the steak and fries, and could you put the ketchup on the side,
please? It’s like a quote from a chat at the pub, not the words of
a knowledgeable reviewer or writer who has taken the time to properly
form their words into a “profound” impression. 84k is not
the greatest novel ever written, but North deserved better than a
cheap, off-the-cuff Doctorow comment.
Overall,
the dapper take on 84k is that it is a unique dystopian
premise defending the have-nots against the power of the haves via a
thrilling plot, written in nicely experimental prose. The downbeat
view is that the novel is a desperate attempt at implementing one of
the last unused dystopian premises, hoping to embellish it with
enough anti-establishment cynicism to get like-minded people
similarly enraged. My personal feeling is that the novel falls
somewhere in the middle. North has good intentions, makes the
quality point we should care more about the widening gap between the
rich and the poor, and, if the intent at a strong political message
is ignored, delivers a reasonably good story with drama, redemption
and revenge. If the strong political message is taken into account,
however, then the elements do not stack up into a good, solid whole.
Tone does not fit the setting or premise, and the story and
characters do not complement the message. Writers like James Morrow
or Robert Sheckley would be able to deliver a more comprehensive,
impacting package based on North’s premise. The idea of crime
being punished monetarily is an idea dripping with potential for
snarky commentary, something the chassis of mainstream fiction North
opted for suits imminently less…
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