The Second Sleep

​This was a random find from a local roadside book library. I was curious, having read several books by Robert Harris, but I hadn't heard of this one. The synopsis is deceiving; I thought it would be straight historical fiction. When I came across what I thought was a major boo-boo for Harris (mention of a parakeet in 15th Century England) and then a couple of other anachronisms, including the finding of an iPhone, I realised that these were deliberate and this novel is, in fact, dystopian science fiction, not a genre that ever appeals to me. Still, I was hooked to some extent and thought I'd persevere.

It may be 1468, but it's not 1468 as we think. This is around 800 years in the future, There was an Apocalypse in 2025 (unsettling, being the year as of reading this!) and the world as we know it was destroyed. Those few humans left started all over again, with the year 666, and having anything to do with science or the technological age is heresy. A harsh form of Christianity again holds sway. Any resemblance to the original medieval year of 1468 is superficial as people speak, behave and wear clothes more reminscent of the Victorian era or later. There are piles of plastic junk still hanging around, a lot of mysterious bits of glass, and human bones, but there's still the dirt, ignorance and poverty of the original 1400s.

Sent to officiate at the burial of a parish priest in a small hamlet in Devon, younger priest Christopher Fairfax discovers the old man owned heretical books and was very possibly murdered. In company with assorted other characters - incuding an antiquarian, a wealthy millowner and the local lady of the manor - who all have their own reasons to dig into the past, Fairfax is challenged to think for himself and defy the teachings of the church. 

This is certainly an uneasy novel. Published in 2019 on the verge of the Covid pandemic and the burgeoning alarming chaos worldwide with increasing hatred, unreliable and fascist styles of leadership, there is a certain prescience to the book that makes it more disturbing. I have to award it at least four stars for the ingenuity, but I'd recommend you only read it if you're not worried about being depressed.

amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

Dymocks Australia

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