Submergence
Published on 21. July 2011
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-0-224-09137-4 (ISBN)
Description
In a room with no windows on the eastern coast of Africa, an Englishman, James More, is held captive by jihadist fighters. Posing as a water engineer to spy on al-Qaeda activity in the area, he now faces extreme privation, mock executions and forced marches through arid Somali badlands. Thousands of miles away on the Greenland Sea, Danielle Flinders, a biomathematician, prepares for a dive to the ocean floor to determine the extent and forms of life in the deep.
Both are drawn back, in their thoughts, to the Christmas of the previous year, and to a French hotel on the Atlantic coast, where a chance encounter on the beach led to an intense and enduring romance, now stretching across continents. For James, a descendant of Thomas More, his mind escapes to utopias, and fragments of his life and learning before his incarceration, now haunting him. Danny is drawn back to mythical and scientific origins and to the ocean: immense and otherworldly, a comfort and a threat.
Submergence is a love story, a meditation on mortality, and a vivid portrayal of man's place on Earth. With it J. M. Ledgard proves himself a writer of large horizons and vast ambition.
Both are drawn back, in their thoughts, to the Christmas of the previous year, and to a French hotel on the Atlantic coast, where a chance encounter on the beach led to an intense and enduring romance, now stretching across continents. For James, a descendant of Thomas More, his mind escapes to utopias, and fragments of his life and learning before his incarceration, now haunting him. Danny is drawn back to mythical and scientific origins and to the ocean: immense and otherworldly, a comfort and a threat.
Submergence is a love story, a meditation on mortality, and a vivid portrayal of man's place on Earth. With it J. M. Ledgard proves himself a writer of large horizons and vast ambition.
Reviews / Votes
An ambitious narrative that is stark, serene and contemplative...There is no disputing that Ledgard is an elegant, determinedly intellectual and disciplined writer, yet there is also immense humanity in this novel, which deserves to be one of the strongest challengers for this years' Man Booker Prize. It is the kind of novel that wins awards, and if it does so it will be because it deserves it...Here is an artist's novel that achieves the ultimate goal of any writer: it makes us pause and think, and think again. * Irish Times * JM Ledgard's eclectic and philosophical novel ranges far wider than this latest manifestation of the `war on terror'... Ledgard creates a prose poem of ideas and images that hops and flits with inspiration. * Metro * Submergence succeeds, and is immensely pleasurable, because Ledgard's magnetic north - though incessantly insisted on - is such an uncanny, inhuman and deathly place. * New Statesman * Submergence is frequently beautifully written, and ensnares the reader in a forceful, hard-driving narrative...If there's any justice in the world this novel will at least be nominated for a major literary award. * The Scotsman * It's the only fiction I've read in the last few years that has left me open-mouthed. * Word Magazine *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
411 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-224-09137-4 (9780224091374)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
J. M. Ledgard was born in 1968. He is a foreign correspondent for The Economist
in Africa.
in Africa.