Michelle Herbert reviews Gnomon by Nick Harkaway…
Gnomon is a multi-layered story about the nature of truth in a society that is constantly monitored and watched via the System and policed by the Witness. There is a lot to digest in this book from how much privacy are you willing to give up for security, to whether you can trust the information that the System gives you. Welcome to a future Britain where nothing is as good as it seems.
The story starts with Inspector Neith, who works for Witness being given a new case entitled Gnomon, the case involves the death of an individual in a routine (non-lethal) interrogation by the System. The System hacks into your mind to see if you are hiding a crime or information about something you are planning on doing. The System then has access to all of your thoughts and memories. Death is a rarity in these investigations, so the death of Diana Hunter is seen as suspicious and has to be investigated.
The System has allowed the citizens of Britain to reach a true democracy. Everyone gets to vote on everything and is expected to help adjudicate in state matters. This doesn’t mean that everyone accepts the System and it seems that Diana Hunter has disconnected herself as much as she can, which is quite difficult in itself. Once Neith begins the hunt for the truth, things become very interesting as she meets people who may or may not be involved in the case, but also starts reliving Diana’s memories of the interrogation, including the way she blocked the System from reaching her secrets.
Inspector Neith is confronted by a number of narrative blockades that seem both unrelated and yet are also tied together. In these narrative blockades Neith is given clues to help uncover the truth about Diana’s death, but also to find out what Diana was really hiding from the System. The narrative blockades consist of two stories that feel more contemporary to the world we live in. The first story is that of Constantine Kyriakos a banker, who has always been able to make a lot of money, but after encountering a shark, he begins to see patterns in the market that he shouldn’t be able to. Constantine collects art and one of those pieces is called Gnomon. The other contemporary narrative is based on the life of Bekele, the artist who created Gnomon. These two threads have a lot of similarities in their narrative structure and like the third narrative which takes us back to Ancient Rome are rich in detail. We find out more about these three characters and their lives than we do of Inspector Neith and Diana Hunter who for all intents and purposes are our protagonists.
We are not told how long Britain has been governed by the System or how long it has been in place or who created it, but it does seem to be something that is not in place in the rest of the world. The System does not control the populaces thoughts, so people are still able to be idiotic in their decision making. The System is supposed to be impartial, as well as infallible, but what happens if this isn’t actually true. Gnomon is very prescient with real-world events.
Gnomon is a gripping book, with stories within stories that all intersect with each other. This can leave you feeling, if not overwhelmed, driven to know what happens next to these characters and how they are all connected. I really enjoyed the crossing over between dreams and Neith’s reality. The book also had echoes of the Matrix and Inception when it lets us ask the question of what is the nature of reality? I liked that this is not only a book about Neith’s journey but also a masterful jigsaw puzzle where all of the pieces are there, but not always in plain view. There is no loss of enjoyment, whether you see the twists coming before Neith does. Throughout the book there is a lot of discussion of who is the hunter and when do they become the hunted, as we go through the different narratives, this can lead to a lot of misdirection, although this never feels heavy-handed. I really enjoyed Harkaway’s way of telling a story and the questions it poses about the way we live today.
Michelle Herbert
Originally published May 8, 2018. Updated May 7, 2018.
