Laith
*This book has nothing to do with the Severance TV show on Apple TV. Everyone I mentioned this book to assumed it was the basis for the show, as did I when I originally added it to my list; it's not.
This Severance is about the apocalypse, and who doesn't love a good apocalypse book? I know I can always make time to contemplate the end of the species. Severance subscribes to the Last of Us hypothesis that it'll be a fungal pandemic that zombifies the planet. Where this differs from every other zombie apocalypse is that these zombies are horribly mundane-typified not by the rage filled rushes of 28 Days Later, but rather the mechanical repetitions of a saleswoman folding and unfolding the same tattered sweaters inside a crumbling Juicy Couture, of a housewife endlessly setting and clearing a rotted meal from the dinner table. There's a very odd blurring of the lines between the survivors and the fetid automatons that populate the deserted suburbia the survivors ritualistically and methodically lurk through.
Candace Chen, our protagonist and pre-Apocalypse worker bee, narrates her life and the collapse of civilization from the proverbial front row. So absorbed in the anesthesia of routine, Candice manages to work her pointless office job through a pandemic and the collapse of social order, commuting (and eventually blogging) her way through an ever bleaker and decaying New York City.
The narrative unfolds in jumps across time from the pre- to the post apocalyptic present, in which Candice and a small group of survivors work their way west to Chicago. All the while, Candice's narration manages to focus on the inane details of her job as a bible production assistant, her relationships, and her mother's insistence on proper skin care. Buried in these innocuous details lurk incredibly foreboding visuals and a bleak reflection on the horror of the mundane. I might not be selling it quite right, but all of these innocuous details and humdrum narration unsuspectingly build towards an absolute anxiety-attack-inducing climax. I won't say more, suffice to say I don't think this would have hit as hard having not lived through the COVID pandemic.
What really struck me was just how terribly mundane (there i've said it three times) this vision of the end of the world is; it's horribly depressing to think that about a ruined world that's a hollow and meaningless echo of our normal one. It really begs the question of whether or not we aren't living in our own small apocolypses as we work through the daily routine of our regular lives. The line that separates the zombies cylicng through in the worn in grooves of their former lives and our own life's routine and rituals is razor-thin. The dread existential. Thankfully, the novel manages to end on a somewhat hopeful note.
I thought this was brilliant; a complete sleeper in its construction and terrific in execution. That does mean that it puts you out a little far on the limb, there are necessarily some boring chapters to wade through (but who knows ymmv, it's all pretty relatable)
*This book has nothing to do with the Severance TV show on Apple TV. Everyone I mentioned this book to assumed it was the basis for the show, as did I when I originally added it to my list; it's not.
This Severance is about the apocalypse, and who doesn't love a good apocalypse book? I know I can always make time to contemplate the end of the species. Severance subscribes to the Last of Us hypothesis that it'll be a fungal pandemic that zombifies the planet. Where this differs from every other zombie apocalypse is that these zombies are horribly mundane-typified not by the rage filled rushes of 28 Days Later, but rather the mechanical repetitions of a saleswoman folding and unfolding the same tattered sweaters inside a crumbling Juicy Couture, of a housewife endlessly setting and clearing a rotted meal from the dinner table. There's a very odd blurring of the lines between the survivors and the fetid automatons that populate the deserted suburbia the survivors ritualistically and methodically lurk through.
Candace Chen, our protagonist and pre-Apocalypse worker bee, narrates her life and the collapse of civilization from the proverbial front row. So absorbed in the anesthesia of routine, Candice manages to work her pointless office job through a pandemic and the collapse of social order, commuting (and eventually blogging) her way through an ever bleaker and decaying New York City.
The narrative unfolds in jumps across time from the pre- to the post apocalyptic present, in which Candice and a small group of survivors work their way west to Chicago. All the while, Candice's narration manages to focus on the inane details of her job as a bible production assistant, her relationships, and her mother's insistence on proper skin care. Buried in these innocuous details lurk incredibly foreboding visuals and a bleak reflection on the horror of the mundane. I might not be selling it quite right, but all of these innocuous details and humdrum narration unsuspectingly build towards an absolute anxiety-attack-inducing climax. I won't say more, suffice to say I don't think this would have hit as hard having not lived through the COVID pandemic.
What really struck me was just how terribly mundane (there i've said it three times) this vision of the end of the world is; it's horribly depressing to think that about a ruined world that's a hollow and meaningless echo of our normal one. It really begs the question of whether or not we aren't living in our own small apocolypses as we work through the daily routine of our regular lives. The line that separates the zombies cylicng through in the worn in grooves of their former lives and our own life's routine and rituals is razor-thin. The dread existential. Thankfully, the novel manages to end on a somewhat hopeful note.
I thought this was brilliant; a complete sleeper in its construction and terrific in execution. That does mean that it puts you out a little far on the limb, there are necessarily some boring chapters to wade through (but who knows ymmv, it's all pretty relatable)