Gnomon is a book that kept me turning the pages breathlessly late at nights and early in the mornings, and it’s been a very long time since any book has given me such excitement. It’s literally a layered novel, and somehow each layer was both individually satisfying to read and fit the mystique surrounding the larger narrative.
The story is set in London in a somewhat near-future, and at its centre is an inspector who is tasked with the investigation of an unexpected and mysterious custodial death. The futuristic setting involves an omnipresent, omniscient ‘System’ which is in charge of all administration and law keeping, and which seems to be working very well.
Within this ‘main’ story, there are subsumed four ‘sub’ narratives - stories-within-the-story - involving a middle-aged woman in medieval Rome, a genius banker from the late 2000s, an ‘old geezer’ from a contemporaneous period, and a super-mind from the far future.
Each of these tracks reads like a novella that works well in isolation, but the magic of Gnomon lies in how all the threads have commonalities that emerge in unexpected ways, and how they all come together beautifully at the end.
The overarching theme of Gnomon is that systems running our lives is no utopia; in fact, is something we should exercise enormous caution with, for any system is only as safe as the integrity of the human beings controlling it, and systemic abuse is inevitable sooner or later. The point is made rather emphatically towards the end, and as I mention the end, I’m reminded of the one disappointment I had in this otherwise enjoyable read.
I mentioned that everything comes together beautifully at the end of the book, but for some reason, the ending did not give me the kind of payoff that I had expected. For all the complexity that the novel wore from the very beginning, the ending felt a tad too… simple, perhaps. And a little rushed too.
This is however, only a minor nitpick in a novel that is brimming with intrigue, interesting characters, and layers of mystery throughout its (large) span. The destination left me a little underwhelmed, but the journey was well worth my while.
It took me two attempts to get through Gnomon. I think the main theme is “privacy”: What is ultimate privacy? What is it’s ultimate lack? What might someone, or indeed a society, give it up for? Is that trade worth it? How does a person, who values it, live in society that doesn’t? How does that society see that person? Etc…
I think the much more interesting question gnomon asks is: What if multiple narrators/narratives wasn’t? In the same vein that Gone away world’s was: what if narrator wasn’t? -trying to be spoiler free.
With that said, I think the answers to those questions are disappointing in their respective books. In a rare display of focus for Harkaway, he ignores the fascinating can of worms he just opened in order to concentrate on the main theme.
[These questions are given weight because they are at the heart of the the twists. So interesting question, given narrative weight and subsequently ignored]
Harkaway is best when he is taking you down the garden path of batshit characters, doing batshit things, at batshit speeds.
I usually give out either Goneaway or Angelmaker (depending on how they like the idea of steampunk bees) with the instruction of “just go along for the ride” and they are so much fun like that.
Gnomon is harder to recommend because that ride is so disjointed and, on the surface, utterly irrelevant to other parts of itself that it’s no fun at all. Only towards the end do you learn it’s been the same ride all along, but by then it’s too late.