Bloody Books Review - The Book Of Elsewhere
I have had to really think about The Book Of Elsewhere. It's a difficult experience and it feels purposefully so. A staccato opening chapter is repellent, ugly phrases that push the reader away until it settles into a second chapter that draws you in. The collaboration of Keanu Reeves and China Miéville is both more and less than the sum of it's parts, a tale that is both enjoyable but aggressive to the reader as well and plodding yet energetic. It goes for a walk into genres and topics ranging from modern warfare to ancient civilisations all through the eyes of an immortal Berserker and the lives he has touched upon in the eighty thousand years of his life. It is a very weird book that has visceral violence and Marx.
The premise is simple enough. Unute (a word meaning "tool" or "weapon") is a warrior who cannot die. In the modern age (a not too distant future), he is named simply "B" he is offered the chance to be rid of his immortality but in exchange must carry out Black Ops missions and be submitted to regular testing to discover what he truly is. Of course, he knows this is a façade in order to make a form of Super Solder, but he plays along to see what happens next. What happens next is a fellow mortal soldier is killed, and returns to life, giving Unute pause to consider he may not be alone.
The Book of Elsewhere is tied deeply to Reeve's BRZRKR comic series, but expands the premise in a multitude of ways, including a wonderfully Miéville moment involving a an immortal pig that exists only to hunt and hurt Unute throughout history. But's not all one persons viewpoint and Reeves is all over the book. It becomes something of an immersive trip as Miéville's signature style and esoteric prose slams though the experience lapping against the defences of Reeve's premise, sometimes to the detriment of both. There are moments where things feel either overwritten or at times more akin to a film script, but these add to the sheer strangeness of the tale.
At it's core, it's a tale of nihilistic take on existentialism, told in a none linear manner with acres of world building. Unute is complex and simple, neither hero or villain but someone who is desperate to connect with someone, anyone at all as subplots and subtext germinate and blossom throughout the journey. It demands your full attention but also does not fully reward you for it, letting you make your own decisions on the morality and endings of such an experience as Unute has lived. The shifts from first to third person viewpoints add to the dizzyingly unknowable mystery that is Unute's life.
The flashbacks are the strongest element of the book, interludes that focus more on Unute's character and the people he has effected throughout his centuries of life. Considering the hazy style of the modern era tale, these are the points that fill in Unute, making him empathetic and utterly riveting. With hat being said, this is not a book for everyone. It is weird. Even by the standards of weird fiction, it's a strange book that even now, at the end of this review, I'm unsure how to recommend to anyone. Immortals spawning from eggs and a very angry immortal pig hellbent on revenge are the tips of a otherworldly book that could easily alienate people with it's extremely unconventional style of storytelling.
It is however a bold book. It dares to be something very different and whilst it may not fully succeed, and would not show up on many top 5 Miéville books, even a weak Miéville is heads and tails above the majority of other authors of any genre. Worth reading for a depth of creativity not seen in many years and some philosophical undertones that stay with you long after the final page.