Blind Faith [Paperback]

Purely by chance, I read this novel shortly after completing The Book Of Dave by Will Self. Both novels use an imagined dystopian future England, decimated after severe flooding covers half the country, for a satire about the state of the nation today. As both novels appeared around the same time, this is clearly a coincidence; both Self and Elton aim at many of the same targets, but while Self's satire is like the point of a dagger skilfully skewering his targets, Ben Elton prefers the repeated hammering over the head with a blunt instrument.

Not that there is anything wrong with this. Elton has addressed the vacuousness of modern life before, and he doesn't spare his anger here. Ben Elton, like Will Self, sets his aim squarely at religious dogmatism. He is clearly horrified by the rise in creationism in the USA, which is starting to make its presence felt in the UK, and takes this to its logical conclusion, where science and rationality are rejected in favour of the titular 'blind faith' and a 'me' culture.

The first thing you should know about this novel is that it isn't funny. At all. Anyone familiar with Ben Elton's work will know that he uses comic situations to address serious issues; there is precious little to laugh about in Blind Faith, just a growing horror as the fast-paced plot drags you in.

It is about 100 years in the future. After a flood, Britain has become a much smaller country. People not only live and work in extraordinary proximity to one another, but are ruled by a religious fanaticism where privacy is frowned upon and belief in evolution- in reason of any kind- is banned. Furthermore, every aspect of one's life is required to be posted online. But Trafford, our protagonist, has the makings of a dangerous subversive- he has a secret.

The plot similarity to 1984 is obvious, and Elton doesn't try to hide it, namechecking Orwell's work more than once. This is not a problem for me; the updating for a modern world is perfect, each target bringing a knowing nod from the reader. Ultimately, the despair in the story is equal to anything Orwell could think up; Elton does show us a chink of light at the close, but be warned it arrives at the end of a very long, dark tunnel.

As always with Elton, Blind Faith is a well-plotted easy read. However, for me the jaunty tone of the early chapters sits uneasily with the dark and cruel nature of the concluding section and as such I would not place it amongst his best work.

Many of the other reviewers have compared this book with Orwell's 1984 and without a doubt there are parallels. But what Elton also brings into play is an analysis of the current rise of religious fundamentalism and its rejection of science and logic. As well as being set in a post apocalypse police state this novel is also set in a world that has reverted to the dark ages where science is outlawed and faith is all that is to be believed.

A preview of a post global-warming world. The possible conclusion of today's FaceBook/You Tube and reality TV fixation. And a total denunciation of the mindlessness of reactionary religion. All in an easy to read and fast paced novel.

I do feel slightly guilty for disliking things Ben Elton writes. After all, he is one of the people behind Blackadder. Unfortunately, it turns out he's not exactly a great novelist.

Blind Faith is set in a future where climate change has flooded much of the Earth, overcrowding is everpresent, and people have turned their back on science and reason. Instead, society is a voyeuristic, exhibitionist, faith-based, reality-TV like mess. Everyone live streams almost every moment of their lives on the web; everyone has videos compiled of their most private memories (losing virginities, giving birth, etc.) and is sharing them with the entire world; and faith leaders control the society with an Inquisition and barbaric methods, while people are quick to form angry mobs that turn on individuals, screaming "pedo" and tearing them apart. Oh, and everyone is overweight, all the food is full of sugar, and people practice no self-restraint and celebrate themselves all the time.

In this mess lives Trafford, a man who rather likes privacy and has a sense of dignity / shame. He has a wife. They have a baby. And one day, someone suggests he might want to commit one of the vilest crimes of all, and vaccinate her (vaccines are heresy), in order to protect her from the many, many lethal plagues that decimate children (mumps, measles, etc.)

Trafford is one of those dystopian nobody-heroes that instantly remind the reader of 1984, Brave New World, Brazil, and other classics. A completely downtrodden little unimportant cog. Fine. Something sparks, and suddenly there are deadly secrets and subversion in his life. So far so good. Unfortunately, the book falls flat in almost every other regard.

Let's start with the little things: suspension of disbelief. It's impossible. Seriously, a world as overcrowded as this society could not sustain itself. Everyone eating all the time is a nice idea, but in a flooded world, where does the food grow? Talking of floods, sure, global warming will raise sea levels, but the effects in this book are Waterworldian - far beyond the credible. Even if we believe all that, how could this society of uneducated imbeciles (at one point, a book that isn't written for children is described as a challenge) ever function? People who make or repair plasma screens, fix internet connections, design buildings, etc. etc. etc. - they all need some measure of education.

Even if we assume suspension of disbelief (thanks to a generous portion of goodwill), the book disappoints. It isn't particularly funny, nor original, and all the points it makes are so unbelievably obvious, its satire is so ham-fisted, that it feels like a book written for ten year olds. Except for the sex in it, of course.

Ben Elton is the writer who is the quickest at noticing some cultural trend, and who pounces on it, writing and publishing a novel while even our short tabloid-fuelled attention span has not wandered away. He wrote Popcorn, about Natural Born Killers and Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino style movies. He wrote Past Mortem, while Friends Reunited had not yet been dethroned by MySpace and Facebook. He wrote House Arrest, while Big Brother was still new and fashionable. You get the drift. Whatever fad starts to get noticed by tabloids, Ben Elton sniffs it out and lambasts it in a novel. Here, he concentrates his fire on social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace (I think it's called Facespace in the book), the Jerry Springer generation / experience, and anti-science backlash.

It all feels horrendously frustrating. He creates a world so he can criticise it. He creates characters so we can resent them. Fine, I resent them, but I don't read books just so I can hate all the characters and their world. There needs to be something more - and in this novel, there isn't. The plot is never truely tense, it follows the dystopia template so closely that you sort of know how it's going to end before you've even met all the characters, and the lack of subtlety comes across as shallow and stupid. It's a bit as if someone had taken a Banksy graffiti and turned it into a novel. (Nothing against Banksy - some of his work is funny and satirical and enjoyable - but it's meant for one wall, not for 300 pages)