Submergence has galvanised members which always makes life more interesting. One member said that she got through the first part then came to a grinding halt. She felt it was too long winded and could have been far shorter for the same story.
Another felt that the true fiction in it was beautifully written but a lot of it was research dressed up as fiction.
This is not surprising since the author, J.M. Ledgard, is the foreign correspondent for The Economist who has worked in East Africa, notably the blighted Somalia where part of the book is based. Born in Scotland on the Shetland Islands, ‘J.M.’ (I haven’t been able to find out his actual names anywhere) wrote his first book, Giraffe, in 2006, which is based on the true story of 49 giraffes massacred in Czechoslovakia in 1975. Submergence is his second.
His fiction has been described as “cosmic” and “planetary”, some people say “over ambitious”, in that he tells a story which is overlaid with meditations on the human species and the fate of our planet.
I tried to describe the plot to someone at a party the other night: A British spy, posing as a water engineer, is captured by jihadists in Somalia and spends time in a primitive gaol and in the desert with the jihadists, randomly abused and exposed to acts of violence, thinking about various (dull) philosophical treatises and his past brief romance with an Australian/ French oceanographer in a flash hotel, who travels to the depths of the ocean to study sea vents and the creatures in them.
The ending is left open: does he escape the bombing and the terrorists by swimming to Kenya? Does she make it safely back to the surface in her submersible?
The plot doesn’t do justice to the larger themes Ledgard deals with in the book which one member described as ‘powerful and thought provoking’. It counter plays the minuscule of individuals’ lives, the complexity of the history of the world, the indifferent universe and the microbes in the sea vents which basically brought about life on earth and will outlive us all!
One member said the characterisation of the two main characters was superficial. They do seem to be largely conduits for philosophical and scientific opinion. How the Jihadists operate is more interesting and clearly based on what Ledgard has learnt in Africa. The stoning of a young girl is shocking and based on a true incident which ‘J.M.’ acknowledges in the back of the book.
The crux of the book is basically that whatever we do with our lives, whatever we believe, whatever love we may find, whatever battles we undertake for our values, at the end we will die, our bodies will decompose and eventually we will find our way to the sea (submergence) where we will "take our place in the boiling-hot fissures, among the teeming hordes of nameless micro- organisms that … are the foundation of all forms.” Even less than fish food! Might as well live as fully and as well as we can, while we can!
More about the deep-diving Cuvier’s whale can be found here: acsonline.org/fact-sheets/cuviers-beaked-whale/
Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627) can be read on Gutenberg: www.gutenberg.org/files/2434/2434-h/2434-h.htm
Ten things you didn’t know about the Hadal Zone: www.ibtimes.co.uk › Science › Environment
Captain Nemo and 20 Thousand Leagues Under The Sea gets a pasting in this book. To find out more about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Thousand_Leagues_Under_the_Sea
The deepest ever solo sea dive (Mariana Trench): news.nationalgeographic.com/.../120325- james-cameron-mariana-trench-challenger-deep-sea-mariana
A history of Al-Shabaab jihadists in Somalia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al- Shabaab_(militant_group)
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