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Hollow Earth
Fascinated by caves and digging holes since childhood, Manfred discovers a path through to another realm via a Neolithic copper mine at Mount Gabriel in Schull, Ireland. The world of Hollow Earth, while no Utopia, is a sophisticated civilisation. Its genderless inhabitants are respectful of their environment, religious and cultural differences are accommodated without engendering hate or suspicion, and grain, not missile silos are built. Yet Ari and Zest accompany Manfred back to the surface world. ‘Come with me and see my world.’
So begins an extraordinary adventure in which the three wander the Earth like Virgil’s Aeneas, Ari and Zest seeking re-entry to their own world. The Hollow Earthers are shocked at the cruelty and lies of the surface world, the dieback spreading through the forests. Yet they are seduced by the world’s temptations.
Kinsella’s parable draws on a rich tradition of Hollow Earth literature and science fiction including Bradshaw’s The Goddess of Atvabar (1892). With strange beauty, its alluring trajectory vividly captures our 21st-century world in crisis. Like Manfred, we are often blindly complicit in the earth’s downfall. ‘Happiness is under our feet.’ sings the narrator in this passionate, layered and compelling new novel.
So begins an extraordinary adventure in which the three wander the Earth like Virgil’s Aeneas, Ari and Zest seeking re-entry to their own world. The Hollow Earthers are shocked at the cruelty and lies of the surface world, the dieback spreading through the forests. Yet they are seduced by the world’s temptations.
Kinsella’s parable draws on a rich tradition of Hollow Earth literature and science fiction including Bradshaw’s The Goddess of Atvabar (1892). With strange beauty, its alluring trajectory vividly captures our 21st-century world in crisis. Like Manfred, we are often blindly complicit in the earth’s downfall. ‘Happiness is under our feet.’ sings the narrator in this passionate, layered and compelling new novel.
268 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2019
About the author
John Kinsella
171 books29 followersJohn Kinsella is the author of more than twenty collections of poetry. The recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award, he has taught at Cambridge University and Kenyon College. He lives in Western Australia.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 8, 2021
The book was a bit all over the place, but I still enjoyed it somewhat when I actually got a bit into it.
February 3, 2020
John Kinsella (b.1963) is a well-known Australian poet, essayist, critic and novelist, but Hollow Earth is his first venture into science fiction. This is the blurb:
So, in echoes of well-intentioned colonists of earlier eras who took the naïve by 'invitation' to see a different world, we see Manfred escorting Ari and Zest around the surface world. In short chapters of often only a paragraph or so, Kinsella depicts a different way of thinking about so much that is the norm for us:
Some chapters are devastatingly short, just a single line on an otherwise blank page:
While another amplifies this motif:
Kinsella doesn't go out of his way to depict an imagined world full of hi-tech gadgetry or a landscape of diaspora. Rather, he simply alludes, for example, to a future where there are different forms of communication now that the World Wide Web is obsolete, (though pleasingly, there is still a bookshop, at least in Cork). But in general there is nothing to laugh about on the surface, it is a world written with disturbance, and although below is no Utopia either, Ari and Zest are peeved about the way Manfred has misrepresented his world: they want to know why surface dwellers had starved each other to death...
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/02/03/h...
Fascinated by caves and digging holes since childhood, Manfred discovers a path through to another realm via a Neolithic copper mine at Mount Gabriel in Schull, Ireland. The world of Hollow Earth, while no Utopia, is a sophisticated civilisation. Its genderless inhabitants are respectful of their environment, religious and cultural differences are accommodated without engendering hate or suspicion, and grain, not missile silos are built. Yet Ari and Zest accompany Manfred back to the surface world. ‘Come with me and see my world.’
So begins an extraordinary adventure in which the three wander the Earth like Virgil’s Aeneas, Ari and Zest seeking re-entry to their own world. The Hollow Earthers are shocked at the cruelty and lies of the surface world, the dieback spreading through the forests. Yet they are seduced by the world’s temptations.
Kinsella’s parable draws on a rich tradition of Hollow Earth literature and science fiction including Bradshaw’s The Goddess of Atavatabar (1892). With strange beauty, its alluring trajectory vividly captures our 21st-century world in crisis. Like Manfred, we are often blindly complicit in the earth’s downfall. ‘Happiness is under our feet.’ sings the narrator in this passionate, layered and compelling new novel.
So, in echoes of well-intentioned colonists of earlier eras who took the naïve by 'invitation' to see a different world, we see Manfred escorting Ari and Zest around the surface world. In short chapters of often only a paragraph or so, Kinsella depicts a different way of thinking about so much that is the norm for us:
19.
Our bodies function the same way yours do. Skin colour — you object to our skin colour being the colour of leaves, of grass? Of soil? Of rock? Of water? What is it with you, that you are so out of tune with your surroundings that you differentiate between a person and the world they are part of? (p.41)
Some chapters are devastatingly short, just a single line on an otherwise blank page:
23.
Zest took a liking to codeine, Art to ephedrine. (p.47)
While another amplifies this motif:
33.
Alcohol, not manufactured but manifested through natural processes of fermentation, was not part of Hollow Earth's sensual register, for it had no effect beyond poisoning if taken in excess and was only used as a preservative. Manfred had warned them that consuming alcohol on the surface would affect them, and would have consequences. So when they found the minibar, the temptation proved too much and Ari and Zest swallowed three miniature bottles of scotch and vodka (he wasn't sure who ended up with which) in rapid succession, which set off a chain reaction that had far-reaching consequences for their sense of self-worth and their understanding of their own ontologies. They didn't act drunk, in a surface sense, but had deep crises of purpose, belonging, and identity. There was nothing uplifting and then depressing about it — it was all depressing and depression. (p.59)
Kinsella doesn't go out of his way to depict an imagined world full of hi-tech gadgetry or a landscape of diaspora. Rather, he simply alludes, for example, to a future where there are different forms of communication now that the World Wide Web is obsolete, (though pleasingly, there is still a bookshop, at least in Cork). But in general there is nothing to laugh about on the surface, it is a world written with disturbance, and although below is no Utopia either, Ari and Zest are peeved about the way Manfred has misrepresented his world: they want to know why surface dwellers had starved each other to death...
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/02/03/h...
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November 17, 2021This book wasn't for me. I thought that the synopsis sounded interesting, but I found it to be confusing and hard to know what was going on. The format was super choppy and didn't make a whole lot of sense.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews