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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dystopian Noir with Humour, 14 Nov 2010
This review is from: The Miracle Inspector (Kindle Edition)
If Patricia Highsmith wrote dystopian fiction but had more of a sense of humor, it might be something like The Miracle Inspector. The book opens in an England of the near future that's been partitioned and in decay. London proper seems to have the worst of it, walled off and Taliban-like in its social clampdown. Women can't leave the home. The Arts are off-limits. Men work meaningless bureaucratic jobs that only serve the faceless authority that keeps them all locked in, both socially and interpersonally. The book focuses on one couple, Lucas and Angela, who think they once loved each other but are really just strangers passing each other constantly. An aging and legendary underground poet, Jesmond, fuels their secret needs to escape to that sought-after heaven, Cornwall. They're all not especially likable, but they're always a little more so than those around them, chipping away at them. It works. The saddest part might not be that they can't have what they want, but rather that they don't truly know what they'd want if they could have it. I mention Patricia Highsmith because Smith deftly works in the dark urges and fears of Lucas, Angela and others in a way that only psychological mystery and espionage writers like Highsmith and Graham Greene do well. The story manages to remind of 1984, Brazil, Children of Men, The Road and other noirish dystopian tales yet manages to be original, partially through the dark and often subtle humor. Yes, I'm mixing films with books here, because I think this would make a good film script. If I could give this 4.5 stars I would, but as we know we have to choose between 4s and 5s. I would have like to have had more setup and background about how England became this way, but that's also a product of me liking the story enough. I'll be reading more from this author.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Miracle Inspector, 15 Aug 2010
This review is from: The Miracle Inspector (Kindle Edition)
This is the third novel by Helen Smith. In The Miracle Inspector, the author's trademark humour leaks through the dialogue, in the wonderful verbal shorthand between the characters. Helen Smith's writing is confident and competent, always full of surprises. She has a real knack for using the unexpected to draw the reader into the story, creating tension, while maintaining a secretive intimacy. The story is set in a dictatorship which is what London has become in a not-so-difficult-to-imagine future. Corruption is rife amongst its cliquey government departments, incomprehensible hierarchies and arbitrarily distributed privileges. Lucas has all the skills to be Winston Smith, the man who rewrites the news in Orwell's 1984, but here he is an inspector of miracles, though he has little hope of ever finding one. A subtext of disturbing menace is gradually revealed beneath a thin layer of urban domesticity. Women are forbidden to work outside the house and are permitted only to visit female relatives. Paranoia and mistrust multiply amidst rumour and the certainty of `disappearances'. No-one, it seems, survives to die of old age. There is a constant tension between Lucas and his wife Angela - what he thinks she may be thinking is never what she is actually thinking. This causes the high-ranking official great unhappiness and he struggles with finding a solution. The humour serves to make the tragedy of miscommunication and misunderstanding all the more intense. This story illustrates, with a curious beauty, how bewildering fantasy and irrationality can become the everyday experience of a population trapped in such circumstances; how far the human mind may retreat into imagination to defy and escape from the horrors of interrogation. Subtly terrifying, this is the author's most important book to date. The novel is at least partially influenced by Helen Smith's work as a mentor to exiled writers at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. An antidote to complacency; if you feel at all contented with the world as it is, you must read this.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dark dystopia, 5 May 2011
This review is from: The Miracle Inspector (Kindle Edition)
Lucas and Angela live in a very different London, one that has been partitioned, where schools and theatres are shut, women are not allowed to work and may only visit family, going out veiled, and men are employed by an abundance of new government departments. Lucas is the miracle inspector, checking out many and varied reports of potential miracles. They are a young couple who believe they love each other but can't quite work out where their relationship is going wrong. They decide to try and escape London to get to Cornwall, envisaging a wonderful new life there, Angela it seems mostly looking for a more fulfilling life, Lucas to please Angela and get out before his connection to rebellious elderly poet Jesmond is discovered. In a place where most men die young, having joined the ranks of the Disappeared, he has reached a good age living underground and is a legendary figure. The worrying thing about this novel is that it isn't too hard to believe this dark and very miserable picture of the future, where women are imprisoned in their own homes and lives are governed by fear of paedophiles and rapists. Yet despite the gloomy setting there is humour to be found in the book, albeit mostly dark humour. I very much like Helen's style of writing, her satirical humour and wonderful descriptions. I have to admit I didn't particularly click with either of the main characters, although they do seem more hopeful and less downtrodden or cynical than the others we encounter. I think my favourite was Jesmond, and I would have liked to have found out more about him and his past. In fact generally I would have liked to have found out more about the intervening period and what had happened to get to the London featured in the book. Was it one major event or a series of rights being eroded and gradually accepted? This was definitely a book that got me thinking, was well formatted for the kindle, and left me wondering whether ultimately Lucas had found his own miracle.
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