Fiction Reviews
The Affirmation
(1981/2011) Christopher Priest, Gollancz, £12.99, pbk, viii +248pp, ISBN 978-1-575-09946-3
A strange one this, from the late great Christopher Priest. The Affirmation is a novel partially set in his fictional Dream Archipelago, a series of islands spread around the equator of an imaginary world with warring continents to north and south. Priest returned to the Archipelago many times in subsequent novels so this is a good place to start to get a good grounding in the concept.
The story is initially set in mid to late 20th Century England, and follows Peter Sinclair, a man who’s relationship is failing, who has lost his job, and who has retreated to an isolated cottage to write an account of his life, in order to ground himself. There’s a hint of madness, or at least obsession, about Peter’s approach and it soon becomes apparent he’s an unreliable narrator (in his mind he’s decorated the room he writes in, but his visiting sister starkly reveals otherwise, for instance). And instead of writing about himself he writes a supposed fantasy about the Dream Archipelago, where a fictional Peter Sinclair has won a lottery to receive treatment that will effectively make him immortal, and he sails through the string or islands in order to claim his prize, Along the way he starts a relationship with Seri, a fictional counterpart to his real girlfriend Gracia as he searches for what he expresses as the inner truth about himself expressed in fiction.
But what is real and what is fiction? Sinclair’s English world is very grounded and when Peter is dragged away from his reverie by his bluntly Northern sister Felicity you could be forgiven for thinking this was a kitchen sink drama. But for all its contrasting fantastical elements the Dream Archipelago is credible and attractive. Priest’s complex worldbuilding has created a place that seems increasingly real. And the Peter in this world is also writing an account of himself, fictionalised. But this time he’s writing about London…
I’m pleased we don’t resolve that question. I’m pleased, too, that this novel delivers a satisfying conclusion, even though it (deliberately) ends on an unfinished sentence. In many ways it’s an introspective book about Peter’s search for himself and coming to terms with the way his life and relationships are developing, but if that sounds boring, it isn’t. Part of me hopes that the reality is the Dream Archipelago and all this mundane day-to-dayness is fiction, though I’m not entirely sure how to get there. Maybe read more Christopher Priest novels?
The Affirmation was originally published in 1981 but has now been reissued in Gollancz's SF Masterworks series.
Mark Bilsborough
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