As I stated in my earlier review of part 1 of 6, From the New World is presented to us as a memoir, a cautionary tale from the 'new world' to an even newer world and an investigation of a past now lost — all at the same time. Now I would also describe it as a rich metaphorical painting of society, but this author's world is filtered through Saki, a more conservative narrator, so the metaphors don't feel as forced as they would be fed to us directly. The unsettling atmosphere that ties this world and Saki's worldview as she becomes forced to challenge it is this novel's best asset. It's the main reason I wasn't able to put the book down for long.
However, I do not mean to say that the plot itself isn't full of suspense and intrigue. The plot goes back and forth between mystery and action, and unlike many stories today, very many people die. There are no guarantees. The only ones you can be sure live to see the end are the narrator, and people the narrator references in the present tense when she pulls out of her recollection of events to comment.
The biggest slowdown for readers (unless you're a entomologist) is probably the need to have a Wikipedia window open at all times to look up all of the flora and fauna used to describe the creatures in the book. For those who like to read aloud, in their head or otherwise, it would be a good idea to catalog species and tribes when they first come up — or at least bookmark those pages to reference later.
As I mentioned in the earlier review, the plot is broken down into six parts, and without giving too much away, here are their summaries:
若葉の季節 "Season of Young Leaves" This part first introduces the narrator and then drops us in the initial world setting where humans with telekinetic powers live in villages. The narrator begins her story as a young child, approaching the age when her powers are to develop — but there are ominous signs. Children are disappearing, and no one seems to remember them or care. As this part nears its end, Saki and her friends leave the village on their own as part of a school trip, but accidentally stumble upon historical records they are not meant to know.
夏闇 "Summer Darkness" The second part begins with the children being caught out in the wild and disciplined — their powers are removed — but things don't go as planned. Powerless, they the children find themselves caught up in a war between tribes of rat-beings outside the village. They must conceal their lack of powers or risk being killed by the rat-beings, and escape back to the village — but will they be safe even then?
深秋 "Deep Autumn" The children, back at the village, are weighted down as they walk on thin ice. How much of what they learned was real? How much do the adults know? Even if on the surface everything should be fine, problems are lurking. As the children age and phase into new societal rules, some grow jealous and others distant, and in the end, one of them will have to be erased from the others' memories.
冬の遠雷 "Winter's Distant Thunder" Saki becomes more and more confident that parts of her memory are missing, that things just don't add up. To make things worse, one of the group flees the village, thinking they will be next. The others start a search, but convinced yet another decides to leave. The gang gets help from a familiar rat-being colony, but a lot has changed. A democratic revolution is spreading, but is this a good thing?
劫火 "World Ending Conflagration" Saki, now 26, finds herself mediating between two rat-being colonies as both accuse the other of war crimes. Without evidence, the matter is to be settled on the battlefield, but after a number of unexpected turns, war comes to the village, and at the same time an unstoppable force of death appears, allied with the other side.
闇に燃えし篝火は "What Became of The Light Burning in the Darkness" On a desperate search to find a weapon which can stop the fiend, Saki escapes with a small group to Tokyo, transformed into a dark and dangerous hell. But will the weapon be enough? Even if they succeed, will they be able to rebuild? How many more will have to die?
Even as complicated as the plot is, if there is any one core to this story, it is "empathy". Even people who are bound by their own laws, forced to die if they feel any murderous intent towards another human being — even those people can be wholly without empathy, and incredibly cruel. There's a phenomenon in the story where there is a need for their society to make an imaginary evil outside, while the real evil is within. They do this in part to prevent infighting, but the externally projected antagonism literally creates monsters that in the beginning were only originally imagined. Without empathy and under the weight of various anxieties, we find an "other" to demonize, dehumanize, and in the end this serves nothing other than to sow more seeds of conflict.
All in all this is a fantastic book. The kind I'd want on school reading lists, even if it would be inevitably banned in some places — if not for its liberal leaning jabs, then its depictions of homosexual relationships and underage sex. Even if those topics might make you uncomfortable, I would still challenge you to read this. One of the things I think the story handles particularly well is its natural combination of emotional and physical attraction between its characters under a different set of morals.
Saki doesn't have a lot of answers by the end of the book, she even regrettably admits that she may have to take some of the same measures she was so against as a child. Rather than giving answers, part of writing her memoir seems to encourage those a thousand years later to search for the answers in her story that she herself has trouble pinning down. However, as others point out to her, she has already taken many steps to open pathways for change, and even that may be enough.
Now I leave you with a quote the book leaves us with, at the very end.
"It is first and foremost our imaginations with which we change everything."
Wooooaaaaah!!! I really want to read these books now!
ReplyDeleteFrom what you've read so far, do you think all the questions this book has brought up will be answered by the end of the second one?
Most of the unanswered questions are broad and abstract, like: "How can we address anxiety and psychological trauma in society that might lead an individual to become dangerous?" Improving communication and empathy seem to be key, but the struggle is coming up with concrete steps to actually implement that change in society. Ironically, the closest thing to "teaching empathy" may be the storytelling in Saki's memoir, but she chooses to seal it away and guard it for 1000 years, not trusting humanity enough to believe they won't try to destroy it.
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