Collection
Publication
Vintage (2018), Edition: Reprint, 688 pages
Description
"From the widely acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World and Tigerman, a virtuosic new novel and his most ambitious book yet--equal parts dark comedy, gripping detective story, and mind-bending philosophical puzzle--set in a not-too-distant-future, high-tech surveillance state. In the world of Gnomon, citizens are ceaselessly observed and democracy has reached a pinnacle of "transparency." When suspected dissident Diana Hunter dies in government custody during a routine interrogation, Mielikki Neith, a trusted state inspector, is assigned to the case. Immersing herself in neural recordings of the interrogation, she finds a panorama of characters and events that Hunter gave life to in order to forestall the investigation: a lovelorn financier in Athens who has a mystical experience with a shark; a brilliant alchemist in ancient Carthage confronting the unexpected outcome of her invention; an expat Ethiopian painter in London designing a controversial new video game. In the static between these mysterious visions, Neith begins to catch glimpses of the real Diana Hunter--and, alarmingly, of herself, the staggering consequences of which will reverberate throughout the world. Gnomon is a dazzling, panoramic achievement from one of the most original voices in contemporary fiction"--… (more)
ISBN
0525432930 / 9780525432937
Physical description
8 inches
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2017-11-02
Awards
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books (Fiction — 2018)
NPR: Books We Love (2018)
User reviews
LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
Nick Harkaway's Gnomon is a 666-page magical operation thinly disguised as a science-fiction police procedural. Its settings range from late antiquity to the far transhuman future, with a cluster in London, Greece, and Ethiopia in the 20th and 21st centuries. I found it compulsive reading, and
The peak of textual recursion in Gnomon is perhaps Inspector Neith's interview with Chase Pakhet, an interdisciplinary scholar who discusses the Frankfurt School and French postmodern theory after confessing a love of pulp fiction "for its cheap trashiness, its wicked women and its unrepentantly vivid sex ... the violence, the moral turpitude, and the absoluteness of right and wrong in a universe that pretends to be shaded with grey" (286). But fractal self-similarity is a key ingredient throughout this book that exhibits the fabric of all being woven on Its invisible design.
Full-on metaphysics and plot spoiler:The book uses the elegant seventeenth-century Janson typeface at the initial level of narrative, but interrupts it throughout with a different sans serif font, which is implicitly given to indicate a relatively virtual set of circumstances, vicariously experienced through recordings of the subjective awareness of an interrogation subject. At various points in the novel, clues gave me to wonder whether perhaps the actuality of the primary typeface story might be a misdirection, and that Janson-type protagonist Neith was "really" an avatar in the computer game Witness mentioned within what seemed to be feigned personal histories. The ending vindicated both my suspicions and the framing that I thought they contradicted.
As I read this book, I was reminded of many other works I have enjoyed, including Philip Dick's Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, Doris Lessing's Briefing for a Descent into Hell, China Mieville's The City & the City, Ian McDonald's The Dervish House, Grant Morrison's The Filth, and the Wachowskis' Sens8. None of these comparisons should be taken to impugn the originality or independence of Harkaway's work here.
"I raised the sleeper, and sealed the sleeper in luminous water with five seals, that death might not prevail from that moment on." (Apocryphon of John, logion 16)
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worked through the whole thing in about four days. This was the first Harkaway title I've read, initially sighted in a public library display and long considered as something worth my attention. In an appended author's note, the book is characterized as containing "layers of puzzles and references the author has largely forgotten as he moves on to the next and the next," but the web of the story is so tight that it's easy to imagine it being written in any direction: trajectories of plot and character intersect and reinforce each other everywhere, especially since "nothing means just one thing." The peak of textual recursion in Gnomon is perhaps Inspector Neith's interview with Chase Pakhet, an interdisciplinary scholar who discusses the Frankfurt School and French postmodern theory after confessing a love of pulp fiction "for its cheap trashiness, its wicked women and its unrepentantly vivid sex ... the violence, the moral turpitude, and the absoluteness of right and wrong in a universe that pretends to be shaded with grey" (286). But fractal self-similarity is a key ingredient throughout this book that exhibits the fabric of all being woven on Its invisible design.
Full-on metaphysics and plot spoiler:
As I read this book, I was reminded of many other works I have enjoyed, including Philip Dick's Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, Doris Lessing's Briefing for a Descent into Hell, China Mieville's The City & the City, Ian McDonald's The Dervish House, Grant Morrison's The Filth, and the Wachowskis' Sens8. None of these comparisons should be taken to impugn the originality or independence of Harkaway's work here.
"I raised the sleeper, and sealed the sleeper in luminous water with five seals, that death might not prevail from that moment on." (Apocryphon of John, logion 16)
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LibraryThing member jsburbidge
Harkaway just may be the true heir of Wallace, Pynchon and Stephenson: not that the latter two are dead yet, but their recent work moves in different domains from their defining works:Gnomon picks up the custodianship of the Fryeian Menippean satire, in which digression is a structural element. By the end of the book, it is unclear how much of the main narrative has been real, and exactly who is alive, dead, or imaginary; there is one level of reading in which reality itself is overwritten, and not just the System which records it. Like the Canon per tonos of the Musikalisches Opfer, which is referenced specifically about halfway through, it ends having swapped out the conditions for resolution in a feat of sleight-of hand. Nor can I see how (with its chiastic internal structure and the pace of the integration of its narratives) it could have been much shorter and still be the same book. This a remarkable tour-de-force.
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This book is at once a critique of the modern surveillance state (with occasional reminiscences of Airstrip One in the descriptions of the London of the main thread); a set of intertwined narratives refracting each other (indeed, the book can be taken in part as a meditation on narrative forms reflecting mythic / quasi-Campbellian substructure); a detective story; and a game played with what we think of as reality. (By the end, it is unclear as to where and how the boundaries of "reality", fiction, and dream are set.) Inside it are books, written by one of the principal characters, which seem both to exist and not-exist, which one can see as standing in for the final state of the narrative itself. Show Less
LibraryThing member mongoosenamedt
Gnomon is an epic of a book. 700+ pages with 5-6 diverse layers set on top, within, and underneath each other. Harkaway uses a lot, I mean, a lot of occult elements, Greek mythology, symbols, and his own world in a world here and it's all dense and long and takes a long time to feel truly
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interconnected but somehow it worked and I finished not knowing really what happened (I didn't grasp it all, I think) but regretting nothing. Show Less
LibraryThing member arosoff
In Britain in the unspecified future, there is a state of constant government surveillance, all computerized and accessible--and perceived to be of benefit by its citizens. The death in custody of a suspected dissident, Diana Hunter, sends an inspector down a rabbit hole.
Gnomon has a rather
While I enjoyed Harkaway's debut, The Gone Away World, I found the style to be distracting. Here he's gone for a much less rambling, not trying-too-hard style--the main narrative is much closer to a typical techno-thriller, though he's not sworn off random information dumps. Don't be sloppy, though: there's a LOT of information here. Much like the System provides its user-citizens with an onslaught of data that is analyzed and searched, Harkaway includes a lot of detail to keep track of, and at 671 pages (in fairly small print) that adds up. Small details wind up being consequential, and this rewards close reading. At first, I found the separate narratives somewhat jarring as they took away from the central plot, but gradually, they knit together and it becomes clear why it's structured the way it is.
I've always been a fan of dystopian literature, and Harkaway gives it a twist here by not making the dystopic nature apparent to all the characters within it. The System works, from their point of view--though to the reader, constant surveillance and the possibility of a brain probe don't seem so benign.
I almost want to take a star off because of the ending: it makes sense in context, but at the same time was a cheap shot to pull off. I enjoyed the ride there enough to forgive it, though. Recommended, though not for those who like their SF zippy.
Gnomon has a rather
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intricate structure, in which the narrative quickly switches from the central mystery to another set of stories. It transpires that these are actually stories within the mind of Diana Hunter, and the novel switches back and forth between them and the investigation into her death. While I enjoyed Harkaway's debut, The Gone Away World, I found the style to be distracting. Here he's gone for a much less rambling, not trying-too-hard style--the main narrative is much closer to a typical techno-thriller, though he's not sworn off random information dumps. Don't be sloppy, though: there's a LOT of information here. Much like the System provides its user-citizens with an onslaught of data that is analyzed and searched, Harkaway includes a lot of detail to keep track of, and at 671 pages (in fairly small print) that adds up. Small details wind up being consequential, and this rewards close reading. At first, I found the separate narratives somewhat jarring as they took away from the central plot, but gradually, they knit together and it becomes clear why it's structured the way it is.
I've always been a fan of dystopian literature, and Harkaway gives it a twist here by not making the dystopic nature apparent to all the characters within it. The System works, from their point of view--though to the reader, constant surveillance and the possibility of a brain probe don't seem so benign.
I almost want to take a star off because of the ending: it makes sense in context, but at the same time was a cheap shot to pull off. I enjoyed the ride there enough to forgive it, though. Recommended, though not for those who like their SF zippy.
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LibraryThing member hblanchard
At first, I was so excited and delighted with this book, that I nominated it for an award. But something happened as I read, it began to feel like wading through mud, and I abandoned it halfway. But, me being me (and don't lecture me booktubers, I am what I am) I picked it up again, albeit years
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later, in my primal drive to finish every book. This is not so much a long book (although it is that, in excess of 600 pages) as it is dense with compacted ideas. It doesn't help that Harkaway doesn't feel any obligation at times to make it clear which character is doing what or who they are, and, sometimes, he doesn't feel an obligation for pronouns to have antecedents. The prose is like poetry at times, and chock full of allusions and references, from abstruse details of Greek mythology to Yogi Bear cartoons from my childhood. The font alternation is annoying and unnecessary (although it is a clue in lieu of others, as to what's going on). But that's all stuff that could either be overlooked or appreciated for something or other - the most difficult thing here is that it's impossible to care about any of the characters, or to be even interested in what's happening to them. It's a wild crazy trip, but, alas, a trip where you say to yourself, are we there yet, Nick? Briefly, in a near-ish future London, a women turns herself in to the offices of a surveillance state run by the usual all-knowing computer AI. The Inspector, who passes for our main character, uses the cutting edge technology which merges her mind with that of the women suspect, now dead, mysteriously, at the hands of previous inspectors. Therein, we get a view not of that woman's memories but of a wild ride through numerous different stories in the distant past and remotely far future where godlike hive minds joust with each other. The fun in this book is the Martian Chronicles-like series of independent stories, connected with symbolism and coincidences which gets the Sherlock Holmes in you going. But somewhere along the way, to me it seems, Harkaway lost interest in the connections. I did finish the book, but at times I felt like I was dragging my eyes from word to word. I don't know what to say: I should have loved this book, and sort of do some aspects of it, but I'm left with a throughly ambiguous feeling (which will seem appropriate, if you read this book yourself). Perhaps I should re-read it, but I don't have it in me. The best character by far was the shark. Despite Kyriakos's last words that he didn't miss the shark, I did, I sure did miss the shark. Show Less
LibraryThing member SChant
A tour-de-force, dense and demanding. It’s a long and slow-paced story set in a near-future Britain which interrogates the ideas of ubiquitous surveillance agreed to by the populace in return for security, participatory democracy by ongoing plebiscite as a social obligation, and much more. In
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some ways it’s a difficult book, interweaving multiple voices and timeframes, with occasional discursions into linguistics, mythology, and the art of hiding information, but I found it gripping and very rewarding. Show Less
LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
I so wanted to like this book - apart from anything else, it just looks so appealing, with its striking orange and black cover, and its orange-edged pages - but I can't help feeling that it simply tried too hard to be very clever, without quite pulling it off. Indeed, it reminded me very strongly
Set in a near, yet unspecified, future, it opens with an investigation into the death under custodial interview of Diana Hunter, once a celebrated novelist and latterly a recluse who had withdrawn from the technological overloaded norms of life. Her interview had been conducted through mental probes, administered under the direction of Mielikki Nieth, and Inspector of The Witness, the investigative body that supports The System, the faceless administration that currently governs Britain.
Nieth herself is not a faceless bureaucrat, and upset by the death of her interviewee and intrigued by some of the responses that she had detected immediately prior to Hunter's death, she undertakes her own investigation into Hunter's past. While conducting this review, she finds herself encountering (both physically and psychically) a number of strange characters, all of whom had been absorbed into Hunter's psyche.
The book is liberally strewn with references to Greek and Norse myths, and throughout there is the recurring sense of great catastrophes being set in motion through the tiniest mischances. I found all of this very diverting, and hugely enjoyable. Unfortunately, author Nick Harkaway seemed incapable of knowing where to stop, adding layer after layer of complexity. Rather than giving depth, however, these served simply to render the novel too incoherent to be truly entertaining.
So nearly very good, yet, sadly, in the end the book just sank under the weight of its own self-awareness and complacency.
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of David Mitchell's [The Bone Clocks], another book that I tried desperately to enjoy but whose self-conscious cleverness ultimately defeated me.Set in a near, yet unspecified, future, it opens with an investigation into the death under custodial interview of Diana Hunter, once a celebrated novelist and latterly a recluse who had withdrawn from the technological overloaded norms of life. Her interview had been conducted through mental probes, administered under the direction of Mielikki Nieth, and Inspector of The Witness, the investigative body that supports The System, the faceless administration that currently governs Britain.
Nieth herself is not a faceless bureaucrat, and upset by the death of her interviewee and intrigued by some of the responses that she had detected immediately prior to Hunter's death, she undertakes her own investigation into Hunter's past. While conducting this review, she finds herself encountering (both physically and psychically) a number of strange characters, all of whom had been absorbed into Hunter's psyche.
The book is liberally strewn with references to Greek and Norse myths, and throughout there is the recurring sense of great catastrophes being set in motion through the tiniest mischances. I found all of this very diverting, and hugely enjoyable. Unfortunately, author Nick Harkaway seemed incapable of knowing where to stop, adding layer after layer of complexity. Rather than giving depth, however, these served simply to render the novel too incoherent to be truly entertaining.
So nearly very good, yet, sadly, in the end the book just sank under the weight of its own self-awareness and complacency.
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LibraryThing member bibliovermis
What an ouroboros of a book
LibraryThing member gypsysmom
I'm not sure where to even start in reviewing this book. For one thing it's huge, over 650 pages, and for another it is densely constructed so the reader has to take her time with it. In consequence it took me two weeks to read this book. How do I, in a short review, even cover what this book is
In the near future England is a security state with cameras everywhere and all communications observed by a huge computer called The System. Crime is almost non-existent. Government is conducted by polls in which all citizens must vote. It is the ultimate representative government. One woman, Diana Hunter, has removed herself from observation by living in a shielded house and using no communication devices. She is called in for questioning by The System because she is suspected of subversive activity. Her memories are scanned by the machine but she has constructed three personas to shield her real thoughts and The Witness cannot get past those defences. After hours and hours of questioning Hunter dies. An Inspector, Mielikki Neith, is giving the responsibility of investigating her death; the investigation includes experiencing all of Hunter's revelations under questioning. As she uncovers more about Hunter and about the three persona Hunter constructed she begins to have doubts about The System. Neith understands there is also another entity, the Gnomon, that is attempting to destroy The System and she must try to stop it, or at least capture it to find out what it knows.
There is an underpinning of Greek myth to this story. Characters must go to the Underworld and return just as Hermes was sent to the Underworld to rescue Persephone. If you understand the story of Persephone you know that she can only emerge from there when the earth is blooming and must always return when winter comes. Harkaway has penned a cautionary tale that warns we can always be returned to the Underworld if we don't keep freedom and true choice blooming.
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about? Well, I will give it a try.In the near future England is a security state with cameras everywhere and all communications observed by a huge computer called The System. Crime is almost non-existent. Government is conducted by polls in which all citizens must vote. It is the ultimate representative government. One woman, Diana Hunter, has removed herself from observation by living in a shielded house and using no communication devices. She is called in for questioning by The System because she is suspected of subversive activity. Her memories are scanned by the machine but she has constructed three personas to shield her real thoughts and The Witness cannot get past those defences. After hours and hours of questioning Hunter dies. An Inspector, Mielikki Neith, is giving the responsibility of investigating her death; the investigation includes experiencing all of Hunter's revelations under questioning. As she uncovers more about Hunter and about the three persona Hunter constructed she begins to have doubts about The System. Neith understands there is also another entity, the Gnomon, that is attempting to destroy The System and she must try to stop it, or at least capture it to find out what it knows.
There is an underpinning of Greek myth to this story. Characters must go to the Underworld and return just as Hermes was sent to the Underworld to rescue Persephone. If you understand the story of Persephone you know that she can only emerge from there when the earth is blooming and must always return when winter comes. Harkaway has penned a cautionary tale that warns we can always be returned to the Underworld if we don't keep freedom and true choice blooming.
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LibraryThing member amsee
The System works. Through the System, the Witness watches and organizes the lives of its citizens, calling them to vote when necessary and recording their actions and thoughts.
The System is infalliable.
Mielikki Neith is an Inspector for the Witness; it is her job to investigate abnormalities within
Layers upon layers, lives upon lives. Neith wades through the memories, which come to her whether she seeks them or not, to discover that there may be a flaw in the System. Is it a flaw Hunter was trying to remedy? To exacerbate? Who or what is the Gnomon that appears in each memory? Dense in some parts, but always compelling, Gnomon is a speculative science fiction tome analyzing the surveillance state and how it can be manipulated.
The System is infalliable.
Mielikki Neith is an Inspector for the Witness; it is her job to investigate abnormalities within
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the System. When Diana Hunter dies while under interrogation--the first time this has ever happened--Neith is called to watch the recordings of Hunter's mind to determine the cause of her death. What Neith finds, instead of the normal disorganized layers of a normal interrogation, are three distinct narratives of other lives--of other people's memories.Layers upon layers, lives upon lives. Neith wades through the memories, which come to her whether she seeks them or not, to discover that there may be a flaw in the System. Is it a flaw Hunter was trying to remedy? To exacerbate? Who or what is the Gnomon that appears in each memory? Dense in some parts, but always compelling, Gnomon is a speculative science fiction tome analyzing the surveillance state and how it can be manipulated.
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LibraryThing member AHS-Wolfy
In a near-future Britain surveillance is not only tolerated but embraced and as part of the System is embedded into a democratic process where everyone has a say. Diana Hunter was a woman who wanted to live life on her own terms and turned her house into a shielded environment where the System
Nick Harkaway’s releases have been getting better with each subsequent release and this one continues on that trend. Considering I liked his first book quite a bit then that’s an impressive feat. It’s a look at how technology fits into a modern political future that at some times doesn’t seem that distant. Throw in steganography, some Greek mythology and a great big shark and you end up with a monster of a book weighing in at almost 700 glorious pages. Yes it does get a bit twisty and rambles at times but for me it was entirely worth every one of them. Best book I’ve read in the last couple of years.
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wasn’t welcome. For this reason she was brought in for interrogation as a suspected subversive. She died while under interrogation so her neural recordings of memories and thoughts are fed to Inspector Mielikki Neith to find out who Diana Hunter was and if her death was an accident or something more malicious.Nick Harkaway’s releases have been getting better with each subsequent release and this one continues on that trend. Considering I liked his first book quite a bit then that’s an impressive feat. It’s a look at how technology fits into a modern political future that at some times doesn’t seem that distant. Throw in steganography, some Greek mythology and a great big shark and you end up with a monster of a book weighing in at almost 700 glorious pages. Yes it does get a bit twisty and rambles at times but for me it was entirely worth every one of them. Best book I’ve read in the last couple of years.
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LibraryThing member Ken-Me-Old-Mate
This is a massive piece of work and not to undertaken lightly. It has shades of so many other great books but I won't name them as I think that takes away from both them and this book.
It is kaleidoscopic in both its scope and telling. It is multi-levelled/multi-timed in a way that becomes familiar
I gave it 4 stars just because of the author's sheer audacity in pulling it off. Is it a good story? In bits and places yes it is, is it coherent, in bit and places, yes it is. Did I enjoy it? I'm not sure but I gave myself a gold star just for finishing it.
Would I recommend it? Dunno really
It is kaleidoscopic in both its scope and telling. It is multi-levelled/multi-timed in a way that becomes familiar
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more as the book progresses and less jarring. I could probably sum it up as 3 or 4 books all related and all running concurrently. That was how I came to understand it and to appreciate it.I gave it 4 stars just because of the author's sheer audacity in pulling it off. Is it a good story? In bits and places yes it is, is it coherent, in bit and places, yes it is. Did I enjoy it? I'm not sure but I gave myself a gold star just for finishing it.
Would I recommend it? Dunno really
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LibraryThing member ScoLgo
A rather great set of interwoven story-lines marred by being too long and digressive. The writing style is spectacular and Harkaway has a huge vocabulary, (that he gleefully and constantly shows off). But the seemingly endless cleverness conversely ended up working against my enjoyment. In
That's not to say that other readers won't find this book brilliant. In many ways it is absolutely staggeringly brilliant. I simply found the nearly 700-page length to be a bigger container than needed to tell the story.
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fairness, real life has been extremely busy lately and that impacted my ability to spend adequate time with this book, (it took me 15 days to read!). I may have rated this higher had I been better able to focus. Whatever the reason, as I reached the denouement I was feeling a bit exhausted and was thankful to finally finish.That's not to say that other readers won't find this book brilliant. In many ways it is absolutely staggeringly brilliant. I simply found the nearly 700-page length to be a bigger container than needed to tell the story.
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LibraryThing member Paul_S
Pretentious, written for critics, heavily influenced by fleeting politics of the moment. This has some great ideas and it's a shame it squanders it on predictable and trite social commentary.
LibraryThing member Gwendydd
This is a very weird and overly-complicated book that still manages to be quite compelling, despite it's length.
It is set in a near future dystopian UK, where a centralized government has been abolished in place of a decentralized surveillance state, where everyone is constantly being watched,
The book is very weird, pretty hard to describe, and at times difficult to follow. However, Harkaway is an engaging writer, and I found the book enjoyable.
It is set in a near future dystopian UK, where a centralized government has been abolished in place of a decentralized surveillance state, where everyone is constantly being watched,
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everyone plays a role in making laws and prosecuting criminals, and there is technology that can read and record people's memories. The book follows an Investigator who is looking into the death of a woman who died during interrogation: in this case, interrogation means that her memories were being accessed and recorded. The investigator immerses herself in the recordings of the dead woman's memories, and finds that there are several different lifetimes' worth of memories there, from several different people. The book is very weird, pretty hard to describe, and at times difficult to follow. However, Harkaway is an engaging writer, and I found the book enjoyable.
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LibraryThing member capewood
2023 book #39. 2017. When a suspected dissident dies while being questioned in a future 100% surveillance Britian, the woman investigating her death finds info that is a danger to the state. Long and boring in parts, the ending did not justify the 600+ page length.