Not The End Of The World

When I was in London last month, my friend's husband lent me a book called One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by a Scottish writer named Christopher Brookmyre. He warned me the Scottish slang was a bit thick - it is, a bit, but I didn't have much trouble figuring out what it meant and where I did miss a line, well, it didn't hamper the story - and that it was a bit bloody. It is that, but it was funny. It was also full of brilliantly realized characters and a tense situation that kept building like a very cliched train out of control. I loved it. read it on the train up to Cambridge and back, and the next day I borrowed another - you know, in case it was a case of 'loved that one book'. This one was Quite Ugly One Morning: not quite so funny, somewhat bloodier, interesting characters and situation... I ordered his other three* as soon as I got home.

And I just this afternoon finished reading Not the End of the World.

It is brilliant. In one way, it's not my favorite book (it's not as funny as One Fine Day...) but it's a hell of a read. It is funny, not as violent (though I should mention there are murders and bombings), but the subject matter is more, if I may use the word about a "rollicking thrill ride", important.

Fundamentalists.

No, it's not about them. Exactly. What it's about is the people who are in their way. You know: the sinners in that old chestnut "hate the sin, love the sinner" (which, as the book points out, is so hard it always turns into just plain hate). An LA cop (mentioned in Quite Ugly...), a Scottish photographer, an oceanographer, and a porn star - well, an ex-porn-third lead. They're the heroes, and they're in that large group of people the bad guys - led by a charismatic fundamentalist preacher who once ran for president - decide can be sacrificed to save the world. Because

What they needed was an act of God.

He knew that it was not for God to prove Himself to man; it was for man to have faith in God. God would not act, would not perform before man in order to get his attention. But that was why He was calling upon Luther, his servant.

God did not need to act. Man only needed to believe that He had.

An act of God, and not some kind of wondrous work, either, but a long provoked act of rage: punishment for the guilty and a warning to those who were spared.

And the innocents who are not spared? Well... Are there innocents?

There were people who called themselves atheists, but Luther knew there was no one who really - deep down - didn't believe, didn't know the truth.

And if there were, then ... omelets and broken eggs, guys. Or, as Luther puts it:

"The loss of a few more lives to save millions of souls."

Yes, this book is about the lengths of murdering terror to which ostensibly God-loving people will go to bring the fear of God to those who don't have enough of it, the justifications they feed themselves when they recognize the conflict, and the huge number of them who don't.

There are a lot of insightful moments, and oh, yeah lines. Like this one:

Cumulatively, the world's religions could provide a God-given justification to hate anything about anybody. Steff had decided some years ago to hate them all back.

And

Trouble is, there's a fine line between imagining someone's eternal soul is condemned and thinking their earthly life is worthless.

This isn't a mystery - you can guess what's going on before the good guys do, mostly because you have much more information than they do. It's a thriller - the question isn't 'What is Luther St John planning?' but 'Can he be stopped?' And it's a thrill ride - lots of action, likeable characters, bombs, swearing, sex ... and an examination of intolerance and media feeding frenzies and the relativity of morality - when the bomber demands one porn star commit suicide to save the 88 people on the boat with a bomb (hey, it's a sub-plot), the media dialog isn't about this demented Christian terrorist's murdering, it's about who deserves to die least: Maddy or the godless film-makers on the boat? There's also the various roads the various characters have taken to get to their religious positions - atheist or True Believer™ because there aren't many in the middle in this book (some, a few, not many) - and what they think about where they are. The difference being, of course, that the fundamentalists are obsessed with what the others are doing, while the atheists only get bothered when they, well, get bothered.

It's excellent on both levels - the philosophical and the thriller. I can't recommend it highly enough.

I'll leave you with this thought:

When Larry found himself helpless, impotent and alone, the option of begging divine intercession seemed no option at all because, quite simply, he realized he had no faith. When it was playing-for-keeps time, when life was drawing a line in the sand, he suddenly knew which side he stood. It was cold, dark and scary that side of the line, and there was nobody there to help you, but once you're there you can't return. Once you've seen behind the backdrop, you can't walk out front again and believe that what's painted on it is real.

The world this side of the line is indeed a more foreboding place, but even though you have to tread with more caution, you walk with more dignity.

Indeed.

* err, that's his other three available in the States - I've ordered five more from amazon.co.uk...