The 3 best books by the amazing John Lanchester

Anyone who passes through here from time to time may have realized that dystopias is something that has won me over for as long as I can remember. I was raised in the Mad Max or Blade Runner years and frequented the farm of Orwell or the ministries of Huxley, so anything talking about possible, strange and gray futures is a winning theme with me.

All this because John lanchester recently wrote one of those recent dystopias with its philosophical and even sociological point, fetén for these days ...

But beyond the dystopian, Lanchester has already spent its good three decades devoted to poso literature, to the plots that frequent common places in our world, only projected to another level, there where Lanchester makes his characters those puppets of his ambitions, frustrations and longings for destinations almost always as crude and distant as the same limitations conspired in throwing it all by land.

Although, deep down, the Lanchester characters are more of a strange tune, a melody that accompanies the lives of both, powerful or humble. Because the game board is the one for everything. And chance is a component that can magically be balanced in its exception towards the most unsuspected.

As if all this were not enough, Lanchester also writes his books on economics with an informative point balanced with his notions of criticism regarding the current situation of capitalism. But that is another story. Here we are going to stop at the fictional part that, although it tends to contextualize plots in the economic future, end up being transformed into the due intra-stories with chicha.

Top 3 Recommended Novels by John Lanchester

The wall

The announced dystopia that every author with flats should face once. Because daring to suppose, to propose the following scenario as we drift in this world summarizes imagination, critical spirit, social and political conscience and will to do philosophy and humanism. Almost nothing…

A fascinating and disturbing dystopia that works as a powerful allegory of the current world and the fears that grip the West. Kavanagh arrives at the Wall to join one of the Defender patrols that protect the various sections from the Others' invasion attempts. These foreigners try to climb it from the Sea and invade the island country, which must protect itself from the outside since the Change occurred, which, among other things, caused a rise in sea level.

Kavanagh is obligated to serve two years of service, and the only way to avoid it would be to become a Breed and have a child, an activity that generates reluctance and perplexity in the post-disaster world. The Defenders corps is mixed, and little by little Kavanagh will start a relationship with Hifa, one of the women. And meanwhile, patrolling the Wall awaiting a possible invasion, the days and nights pass, and diffuse fear and penetrating cold accumulate, in an endless wait that can recall that of the military of The desert of the tartars by Buzzati.

When the dreaded invasion finally occurs, perhaps nothing will be as expected, perhaps someone not who they seemed to be, perhaps the roles of defenders and invaders are redefined ... John Lanchester has written a disturbing dystopia that skillfully combines science fiction and science fiction. adventure narration to tackle very current issues with great ambition. His novel explores the fear of the different, the fear of the future and also the fear of oneself. The result is an enveloping and disturbing work, with airs of a modern fable and a surprising and shocking ending.

The wall

Capital

The economy marks the sign of the times. The very human construct of money and its markets ends up repeatedly being the monster capable of devouring its creatures with macabre relish. This is one of those novels that talk about the destinies of characters torpedoed by that macroeconomics that watches everything. A fearful, suspicious, false macroeconomy capable of anything to survive its own madness.

They all live or work on a London street; some know each other, others don't, but almost all of them will end up crossing paths. Roger Yount is a City banker who expects a sufficient annual premium to pay for his second home; He already has two cars and would also like to have two women. And that the second was less wayward than the official one, which doesn't hit.

Before achieving what he dreams of, he is left without a job, burdened with debt and in the care of his youngest son, because his still only wife leaves him temporarily. Ahmed is a Pakistani who owns a shop and two brothers, one lazy and fundamentalist, another worker and democrat.

When his mother comes from Pakistan, she is ready to criticize everything except the madly religious son… There is also Petunia, an old woman who does not know that half a million pounds are hidden in her house. And Zbigniew, the Polish bricklayer, and Smitty, a scandal artist whose real name no one knows, and whom we only know is Petunia's grandson ...

Meanwhile, the economic crisis looms, and each of the residents of the street receives a threatening and sinister postcard that says "We want what you have." Will it be your home, your hidden treasures, your desires, the confessed and the unspeakable? Capital combines a great novel of "crossed lives", like those of Joseph Roth, John Dos Passos or Stefan Zweig, with a great contemporary fresco.

Capital

The port of aromas

It is always interesting to discover the truths of the nouveau riche. Those who tell their particular legend of prosperity from the bottom up. Tom Stewart took his ship decisively, before World War II broke out, taking everything away. They were stormy and sinister days. But also dark days of opportunity ...

On the ship that took Tom Stewart to Hong Kong in 1935, Maria was also traveling, a young Chinese nun who brought him to his first words in Cantonese ... Many years later, in the nineties, Dawn Stone, a cynical journalist bored of her life in London, he will settle in Honk Kong, where his malicious chronicles about local millionaires will attract the attention of the owner of the magazine that publishes them, a potentate with a more than shady profile.

And he will also find a new life Matthew Ho, a refugee boy whose father was a victim of the cultural revolution in China, and is now a young businessman fighting for his company amidst the convulsions of the market economy and the pressures of the local mafias.

Around these three characters, the other protagonist of the novel bustles, the mythical Hong Kong, the exotic colony and now the modern city of expatriates and the frenzied laboratory of modern capitalism.

The port of aromas
4.9/5 - (12 votes)

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.