The Second Sleep

In 1468, a young priest is sent to bury his predecessor in a remote village. In arriving he sees that the man was distinctly odd, with a number of coins, bone fragments and bits of glass from the ancient world in his collection. Did his seeming obsession with the ancient world lead to his death? What does he know of the lost world of the ancients?

For you see, this is not our 1468.

In his new novel, Robert Harris delivers another exciting tale of alternate history. The world is only just rising from peril, and it is enduring a time of The Second Sleep. Some spoilers follow.

I've reviewed Harris's work before, Fatherland being a staple of the alternate history genre, but he delivers exciting reads in straight historical fiction and thrillers as well. This new work of his is merely another excellent exploration on these themes with a twist. Considering it came out in 2019, just before our own cozy catastrophe took place, it seems fitting to review it after the fact.

Young priest Christopher Fairfax sets out from Exeter to a small village called Addicott St. George, where he is tasked to perform a funeral and at least perform mass for the people until a replacement can be sent. There he discovers that all is not as it seems in this little village. The people are dour, rural, and insular, which bothers Fairfax as he goes about his duties and tries to flee as quickly as he can. Unfortunately, bad weather traps him in the little valley, and he thus must work to do his duties. 

He does though, come upon a mystery. The old priest had a collection of items from before the apocalypse, coins, plastic, dolls and a complete Apple iPhone on display. Alongside them, a series of heretical books that seem to challenge the teachings of the Church where the world was destroyed by the Beast. At the funeral he meets local notables John Hancock and Sarah Durston, who verify the priest had strange doings. A minor tension mounts between Hancock and Fairfax as they both seem to vie for the affections of Lady Durston. The mystery deepens as they learn that there is supposedly a treasure hidden near where the old priest died. They set out to discover more about his yearnings for the past.

In turns out that the story has picked up up roughly eight centuries after an unspecified calamity which has been identified as the Apocalypse of John from the Book of Revelation by the people at the time. It is an interesting response as, in a similar story to A Canticle for Leibowitz, the people living through this calamity have knowingly thrown off the technological society of their forebears and then wrapped the fall of the old world in religious significance, which has been spun into official history by the power of the Church in order to keep England (mentioned as now unified under Church and Crown) in order unlike the calamity of the bad old days.

With this forceful renunciation of technological society, old superstitions come back hard. Ghosts, demons, evil spirits, and other ideas are rife in rural areas, and even some cities. The Church does little to dissuade these ideas, and even frowns on many innovations. Wind, water and muscle power are the primary movers of society, and though they have not lost access to gunpowder, the weapons of the day are crude in comparison to those that came before the Apocalypse. Harris also paints a haunting picture of a world where the old has washed away, the glories of the 21st Century looked on at like ancient Roman ruins, and barely a trace of the ancient world still stands. It's emblematic in how many of the (now ancient) manor houses of England are either in ruins or barely kept afloat by proud aristocratic families.

That this old history is presented as a minor mystery is a bit odd. Everyone knows the world collapsed, and it seems that the Church also helped tie society together again, which meant that at some point in the past the collective trauma of the Apocalypse pushed people to adopt this story that the world did indeed end - in a way. After eight hundred years much of that would be forgotten, and Church teaching would have calcified into a more mystical version and other histories might indeed be suppressed. But with everyone knowing technological society collapsed, one of the main mysteries (especially the how and why) never quite gets addressed satisfactorily. Indeed, for what one of the major revelations turns out to be in the end it is barely hinted at, at all and could have provided a much more compelling drama!

That being said, the obfuscation of the calamity, the Church efforts to cover up the past, and the way society has regressed, does create an interesting crusade to find out about the old world. The mystery and interplay between characters is fun as it shows a healthy skepticism amongst many which runs up against rigid attempts at imposing order on society in the after a calamity long ago.

While perhaps not the great mystery it was meant to be, it certainly paints a vivid picture of a world which has moved on from its former glory. Humanity has survived, but has it thrived? The characters present interesting contrasts and make for some amusing drama, while showing us just how people live in this world. It also reminds us that no society is immune from decline or collapse, and raises disturbing questions about just how secure our own world is. Fascinating reading.