Book Review | The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter’s teachings—his Bible is their “book of strange new things.” But Peter is rattled when Bea’s letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea’s faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter. 

Suddenly, a separation measured by an otherworldly distance, and defined both by one newly discovered world and another in a state of collapse, is threatened by an ever-widening gulf that is much less quantifiable. While Peter is reconciling the needs of his congregation with the desires of his strange employer, Bea is struggling for survival. Their trials lay bare a profound meditation on faith, love tested beyond endurance, and our responsibility to those closest to us.

***

Michel Faber's first novel since The Fire Gospel—a sterling send-up of The Da Vinci Code and its ilk—is a characteristically compelling exploration of faith which takes place "in a foreign solar system, trillions of miles from home," (p.47) on a wasteland planet populated by hooded beings with foetuses for faces.

So far, so science fiction. Factor in first contact, a spot of space travel, and an awful lot of apocalypse, and The Book of Strange New Things seems damn near destined to be speculative. Unfortunately for fans of the form, as the author warns early on, "there was nothing here to do justice to [that] fact." (p.47) Or, if not nothing, then very little aside the superficial.

Even in addition to the aforementioned trappings, honeydewed drinking water and a dizzying day/night cycle do not add up to much more than an unlikely lens through which to look at love: in the first between mere mortals, but above and beyond that, the love—and the love lost—between man and maker.

The Book of Strange New Things is beautiful, albeit brutal. Despairing to a degree, but also bullish about the future. Hope, however, is a fragile thing, as Faber's protagonist preaches at a point:

As fragile as a flower. Its fragility makes it easy to sneer at, by people who see life as a dark and difficult ordeal, people who get angry when something they can't believe in themselves gives comfort to others. They prefer to crush the flower underfoot, as if to say: See how weak this thing is, see how easily it can be destroyed. But, in truth, hope is one of the strongest things in the universe. Empires fall, civilisations vanish into dust, but hope always comes back, pushing up through the ashes, growing from seeds that are invisible and invincible. (p.315)

Indeed, Peter Leigh means to be one of these seeds; to share his hope—the faith that saved him from a life of drug abuse and destitution—with the natives of Oasis. He still struggles to believe the Powers That Be at USIC picked him of all people—him but not his wonderful wife Bea, who did deliver Peter from his dark past—to be an apostle upon another planet; to spread the Good News about God to the "indigenous inhabitants" (p.71) of this unknowable new world.

Under the Skinny Skin Skin

You've got to be shitting me.

"Scarlett Johansson To Play A Slutty Alien."

So goes the headline on Dark Horizons.

I'll be honest, I did an actual double-take when I came across this news. Not because I was terribly surprised to hear Scarlett Johannson would be playing a slutty alien, I should add. I mean, maybe once - perhaps right between Lost In Translation and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie - I thought she was the sort of actress with standards, that perhaps she'd be one of those actors you can mostly count on to be in good movies. If there was any doubt as regards that left in my mind, her role in this year's Iron Man 2 has thoroughly divorced me of it.

Anyway. No, it's not Scarlett Johannson playing a slutty alien that knocked me for six, it's that she's playing a slutty alien in the just-announced adaptation of Under the Skin. You might remember I reviewed Under the Skin earlier in the year? (Handy links abound. [link]) Well, one way or the other, Michel Faber's novel is decidedly not the kind of book you imagine is apt to be translated into the next Species. But that's how they're selling it, folks. Would you bloody well believe it, that's how those in the know are selling it...

From the Dark Horizons article:

"Johansson plays an alien disguised as an aesthetically perfect woman who scours remote highways using her voracious sexuality to snare human prey. She soon begins to develop feelings of humanity which soon puts her in the firing line with her own people. Think Species meets My Stepmother is an Alien."

No.

Really, no. Don't think that - don't think that at all. Both comparisons rather beggar belief, as a matter of fact. If you must think in terms of a handy hybrid of two familiar things, think... Veniss Underground meets The Hitcher, why don't you? Under the Skin is an indescribably haunting novel: of otherness, certainly - but not necessarily alienness; of sexuality, sure, but not, assuredly, a slutty blonde seductress.

For all that, the talent doesn't sound half bad. Writer/director Johnathan Glazer has given us a couple of fine films - Sexy Beast (not at all what it sounds like) and Birth, that one what had Nicole Kidman and her dead husband reincarnated in a creepy kid - and I like to think he'll do Faber's novel some justice. Perhaps all this is is a couple of people who haven't read the book selling the adaptation of the basis of some sordid, beside-the-point synopsis. Perhaps.

It is nice to dream, isn't it?

Do yourselves a favour: read Under the Skin. Read this book while you still can without thinking of this mess of a movie in the making.

Book Review: Under the Skin by Michel Faber

Buy this book from

Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com /

IndieBound / The Book Depository

"Isserley spends most of her time driving. But why is she so interested in picking up hitchikers? And why are they always male, well-built and alone?

"An utterly unpredicatable and macabre mystery, Michel Faber's debut novel is an outstanding piece of fiction that will stay with you long after you have turned the final page."

***

Michel Faber has long been a writer held in high regard, though his somewhat Scottish heritage has resulted in some unfortunate comparisons. Upon the initial publication of his first novel in 2000, Faber was likened to such authors as Alasdair Gray and Irvine Welsh; unfortunate comparisons not insofar as the aforementioned are in any way unworthy, but because the only real similarity between them and the author of Under the Skin is their shared nationality. Welsh, of Trainspotting fame, is notable largely for his vulgarity, and Gray for his authorial verbosity, whereas Faber's strengths lie in altogether different arenas than either of these: what distinguishes his work, and not only from the likes of Welsh and Gray, is his lyrical prose, and moreover, his down-to-earth approach to unspeakable subject matter.

Nowhere is that disarming frankness more in evidence than in Under the Skin. And nowhere in that novel will you feel the creeping unease that is Faber's stock-in-trade more acutely than when in the company of Isserley, from whose perspective the narrative unfolds. Isserley is "half Baywatch babe, half little old lady," with hands like "chicken feet" and a face "small and heart-shaped, like an elf in a kiddie's book." From the outset, her appearance feels... constructed somehow. And the more you read, the more keenly you feel the truth of that perplexing first impression. Somehow, Isserley is not right. She is other, in fact, similar but different - and not merely in her appearance.

When we join her, Isserley is cruising along the A9 in a "battered red Toyota Corolla," wearing flared green trousers and a low-cut top - the better to both draw attention to her ample bosoms and distract any interest in the rest of her. She's on the prowl for well-muscled men looking for lifts, and whenever a hitchhiker meets with her approval, she picks him up, gently interrogates him about whether any family or friends might be expecting him, and... well, to tell you what Isserley does with the host of men who are her habitual passengers would be to give the game away, and with a narrative as tense and suspenseful as that of Under the Skin, it simply wouldn't do to spoil the surprise; suffice it to say her intent is not at all what the narrative invites you to expect.

It's difficult, in fact, to talk specifics about Faber's incredible first novel without ruining one or another of its startling turns. And they are many: from the farmhouse Isserley returns to with her vodsel prize each day to the appearance of Amlis Vess; from the unpredictable characters she comes across while trawling the Scottish highlands to the shocking fact of her appearance; you don't realise quite how much Faber is holding back until he unhurriedly reveals the cards in his masterful hand. Under the Skin is a novel that rewards patience, written by an author whose tolerance for teasing is unparalleled.

When all the surprises have been outed, however, Under the Skin seems to lose its way for a while. Faber's allegorical narrative suddenly feels like no substitute for a plot, and though there are characters in abundance, wonderfully drawn and let loose in their element, their actions take on a sense of contrivance that before was nowhere to be found. Perhaps when we come to understand the particulars of the otherness that Under the Skin is suffused with, our attraction to it is diminished - in these moments, even Isserley loses some of her singular appeal. Thankfully, the action picks up in the last chapters: the sense of unease returns in force, and the narrative ends on an appropriately explosive note.

In the end, the allure of Under the Skin is only marred ever so slightly by this brief, hesitant interlude. Otherwise, Faber's first novel does exactly what it says on the tin. In its titular intent, Under the Skin penetrates deeply: this is far and away the most unsettling book I've read all year, and Isserley is among the most memorable protagonists of any novel published this millennium.

***

Under the Skin

by Michel Faber

April 2010, Canongate

Buy this book from
Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com /
IndieBound / The Book Depository

Recommended and Related Reading