I very nearly didn't read The Second Sleep by Robert Harris at all. Once I started, I nearly gave up at the 100-page mark, but decided to continue for just a bit longer. And it's a good thing I did, because it's thereabouts this book turns into a really good read with the Harris trademarks of gripping writing and colourful side characters (the hero is seldom the main attraction in Harris books).
Seeing as I've mostly had good experiences with Harris's novels, with the odd exception - I hugely enjoyed the Cicero trilogy Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator, was gripped by An Officer and a Spy and had a good time with The Ghost, Conclave and Archangel, though the latter was pretty silly - one could wonder why I was so reluctant to try The Second Sleep. The answer is mainly its genre, or sub-genre rather: the Post-Apocalyptic Tale. Novels (and films/TV series) of this type usually contain two of my least favourite things in fiction: extreme bleakness and moralising. Readable though Harris is, he hasn't been above lecturing in the past, so I had grave misgivings.
The Post-Apocalyptic Tale usually sets out to do two things: one, to show you how dark the future could be if we're unlucky, and two, to tell you in a cautionary-tale-way how the world could risk ending up in that state. There are PATs that are more interested in how human beings act in times of extreme crisis and how far we are prepared to go for survival, but although that's better than pontificating about how The Evil Of Mankind will lead us to dire straits, it's still not really my kind of thing. As for causes for the catastrophe, it's usually greed, or hubris (i.e. scientists getting carried away), or a combination of both. Mad scientists come up with, say, grade A Artificial Intelligence, unscrupulous (of course) corporations find unethical ways to market it, and wham: it's the rise of the machines. Oh, and sometimes we get an anti-war message worked in somewhere.
The Second Sleep does put a somewhat different spin on the PAT from the start. The beginning of the novel reads as if it's set in the Middle Ages, with maybe a puzzling early-modern touch or two. Christopher Fairfax, the hero, is a cleric sent out to the middle of nowhere by his bishop in order to conduct the funeral service for a reclusive parish priest who has died in what appears to be a tragic accident. At the dead priest's house, Fairfax finds proof of the "heresy" of diving too deep into the past. Father Lacy turns out to have been an "antiquarian". Only, the artefacts he uncovered - including an iPhone - are clearly from our age.
Look, I'm sorry if this is a spoiler, but the revelation takes place on page 29, so it's not that much of a rug pull. Besides, you will probably already have heard (if not, you have now) that the novel isn't an ordinary Medieval Mystery. I didn't find the conceit that fascinating - why would the post-apocalyptic world take on a Medieval pattern when most of the knowledge of the "real" Middle Ages has been lost for centuries? - but it does enable Harris to write an almost-historical novel without having to bother about involuntary anachronisms. Still, the problem remained that I wasn't too fussed about finding out what had happened to our modern world. Props to Harris for not setting the book in a too-bleak future; after a long period of misery, things settled down, and people are poor but they get by. However, the mystery set up - how did we get from iPhones to this? - looked all too much like the excuse for a lecture on our modern ways.
The thing about Harris's novels, though, is that it's seldom the grand solution to a mystery that makes them enjoyable: the end revelations are often something of an anti-climax. It's the hero's journey towards finding answers that is thrilling, especially if he meets interesting characters along the way. In this instance, the Quest for the Truth proves to be a bigger MacGuffin than ever. What makes the plot pick up pace is instead Fairfax getting mixed up with the local gentry - well, sort of. While digging for clues about Father Lacy's death, he becomes friendly with the widowed and attractive Lady Durston who, while appearing very genteel, is actually a woman of modest background who has married into rank and (comparative, but diminishing) wealth. She is now reluctantly contemplating another marriage, to rough self-made man Captain Hancock who is a most insistent suitor. When Fairfax shows up as a third wheel, Hancock is none to pleased. Fairfax, on the other hand, though he's meant to be celibate (he's already had a hard time keeping his distance from the parsonage housekeeper's pretty niece), can't help thinking Hancock a very poor match for Lady Durston.
It's this love triangle that kept me interested, not the speculations about what happened to the "ancients" (us). What's more, when Lady Durston and Fairfax are obliged to confide in Hancock, he becomes a surprising ally, as he's all too eager to find out the secrets of the "ancients" and has zero problem with the "heresy" angle. From this moment on, the novel takes on the Captain's own energy and canters along at a cracking pace.
So though the beginning was slow and the novel felt like it fizzled out at the end, the middle was good enough to make it a pleasant read overall. Post-Apocalyptic Wisdom-wise, though... I don't know. Harris makes some neat points about how much of our modern-day stuff isn't built to last - one reason the Church got such an edge in his post-apocalyptic world was that the stone churches stood firm and became a refuge while modern office towers crumbled. The whole depiction of the Church, however, makes it hard to take Harris's vision of a possible future seriously. Why would it revert to its Medieval form with some early-modern add-ons? Why suddenly strive to be a power factor, and re-impose celibacy on its clergymen? It's not a very likely scenario. There are other movements in our modern-day society that I would have thought would be more obvious candidates to be depicted as enemies of progress and technology. I could easily imagine them being interested in keeping the kind of society Harris describes undeveloped for, as they believe, the greater good of mankind. But I guess wily bishops make more interesting villains.
