The Olive Readers

It’s Christine Aziz’s first novel, and, it turns out, it was written in a short period of time for a reality show. I feel that it could have been a pretty good book had it been stringently edited. Because it’s pretty, pretty like a jigsaw puzzle spilt on the floor. It has all the elements – interesting ideas and quite nicely put together descriptive passages (the dialogue’s not so good) – but the structure and plot development is appalling. Which is a pity.

It’s set in the future, where all the major resources (water, energy etc) are under control of different companies who are at war and keep their citizens tightly leashed. There’s an underground of Readers who have saved books from burning and therefore have the knowledge to undermine the various companies. Jephzat – the story is told from her perspective – learns about these Readers from her lover (who appears briefly, gives her a good time, then dies). She dilly-dallies about joining them, but then it turns out she’s actually the daughter of the hero of the revolution, Castro – oops, I mean Maya – and so she’s in. Then, can you believe, it turns out her sister is the big baddie behind it all, and so she has to get in with her, and save the world (which happens ridiculously quickly) and then deal mercifully with her, before ending up the new hero of the revolution.

See, there’s some not too bad ideas stuck in there with some of the sillier ones, but none of them are dealt with fully. And the writer hasn’t really explored or perhaps even considered the darker side of this particular revolution. Most of all, she hasn’t learned how to build up to a scene, how to present it to the reader, how to use light and shade and timing. Instead she’s just shoved all these things in together. Oh well. When you read a book like this, it just makes you appreciate Dr Zhivago even more.