This 2002 novel probably doesn’t belong on the science fiction shelf, where I found it in the MV Public Library, but fortunately for me it was. Barely falling within the alternate history/multiverse genres, The Separation by Christopher Priest is really more of a (successful) literary experiment set in England before and during World War II. The Daily Telegraph agreed in its review, writing: “It becomes clear that Priest is attempting something far more intellectually ambitious than a mere alternative history. In a story entitled The Garden of Forking Paths, Borges imagined a book encompassing all possible outcomes, an image of a universe that is a “growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times.” The Separation very nearly is that book.”
The story is simple enough, concerning idential twin brothers who make the British team for the 1936 Olymics in Berlin and win the bronze in coxless pairs. There was no residential village in those years and the boys stayed at the apartment of the family who were close friend’s with their parents; their mother is German and has been close friends since childhood with the wife. The twins each fall in love with the 17 year old daughter, silently, neither willing to speak of it.
The family, though, is Jewish and realize they must get out of Germany and the boys become involved with the plan. Also while in Berlin, one of the twins–who both have the initials JL, one called JL and the other Joe–meets Nazi leader Rudolph Hess at a post-race British Embassy reception.
On their return home JL resumes undergrad life at Oxford, learning to fly planes in the university’s air club, while Joe drops out to work. When the war breaks out JL becomes an office in the RAF but Joe registers as a consciencious objector and drives a Red Cross ambulence helping survivors of the nightly German bombing runs.
These factors form the basis for Priest’s experimentation. His work is subtle, fracturing and reversing the sense of time, leaving outcomes unresolved and even confusing his own characters’ sens of reality. The Separation is sophisticated and imaginative and I enjoyed it so much that I spent all day last Thursday and half of Friday reading it.
recommended
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