The Swimmers by Marian Womack
I would like to thank Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher - Titan
Published - 18/2
Price - £8.99 paperback £4.74 Kindle eBook
After the ravages of the Green Winter, Earth is a place of deep jungles and monstrous animals. The last of the human race is divided into surface dwellers and the people who live in the Upper Settlement, a ring perched at the edge of the Earth's atmosphere.
Bearing witness to this divided planet is Pearl, a young techie with a thread of shuvani blood, who lives in the isolated forests of Gobari, navigating her mad mother and the strange blue light in the sky. But Pearl's stepfather promises her to a starborn called Arlo, and the world Pearl thought she knew will never be the same again.
Set in the luscious landscape of Andalusia, this claustrophobic, dystopian reimagining of Wide Sargasso Sea is a fever dream, a blazing vision of self-destruction and transformation.
The recent snowstorms in America remind us that climate change waits for no virus. We are still in a dangerous time and leadership on this is still weak. Exploring what this future means is where science fiction excels and Marian Womack in the entrancing The Swimmers creates a disturbing future that not only looks at environmental change but class, race and the use or abuse of knowledge.
We first meet Pearl who still lives on the Earth in a place named Gobari a settlement where she lives with her mother and family aides. It is a place where danger lurks in the forests; the Ocean is held back by a barrier and there is an ongoing threat that the forests may suddenly move and wipe the area away. Pearl is haunted by memories of her father and a scandal she can never quite remember. Pearl has connections to the shuvani people – one of the three groups left on Earth. Her mother eventually meets a wealthy merchant from the Ring a mysterious area in space home to the starborn he wants to settle but aids Pearl in her efforts to become a storyteller/archivist. Eventually though he proposes an arranged marriage with another man Arlo himself from the Ring that hangs in space. We know the story starts with Pearl pregnant and alone up in space and now we unpick how this tale came to be and where this world is finally going.
The word I will think of when describing the atmosphere of The Swimmers is imbalance. It is an absolutely fascinating novel where the entire world and not just characters is out of joint. Most of the world covered by an ocean of brown gunk, giant leviathans in the sea that can leap and soar into space; huge hares that can attack and eat people and that’s all before we get to the characters themselves. Pearl who we meet first telling us her life story is we first see someone trapped on the Ring and expecting to be dead once her child is born. We then skip back in time to meet her as a young woman trying to understand the world as she grows up. Womack makes the reader initially confused as terms and slang are thrown at us from the start. It’s a land that makes sense to Pearl even if she knows her knowledge is still incomplete – we as readers however need to work hard to understand it. I think this is very deliberate as this tale is about trying to make sense of the world. It requires attention as we move back and forth through Pearl’s younger life to explore folk stories, religion, social structures that make-up of this world but importantly by the time we start to get Arlo we really understand Pearl’s world and her worldview.
This makes Arlo’s reaction to Pearl and her world the more startling – he sees her world as backward and poor; this marriage is just initially an opportunity for him to do something with his life and we also see that on the Ring a greater truth is being withheld from those on Earth as to what is now going wrong. It is very noticeable that Arlo is described as having much paler skin to Pearl – his whole society is designed to enforce social superiority and seeing that we know Pearl’s Earth has just as much culture as above makes a sobering experience for the reader thinking about how the West colonised and abused other lands felt inferior.
We then trade points of view between the two and add in folk stories that now we know both side’s worldviews we can start to create the most likely truth. It is a very impressive piece of storytelling; not easy to digest but one I found well worth the concentration to piece the jigsaw of what has made this earth become the strange and dangerous place it is.
I was very impressed how much culture, science and religion Womack throws into the mix. A blending of old and new traditions that have evolved since the beginning of hat is known as the Green Winter that led to the Earth being changed so much. Self-sacrifice is a running theme. Pearl’s Father may have died protecting his daughter; we know those chosen to work on the Ring may never return and we also meet those who Jump and those who swim. The latter blasted into space for reasons unknown and those who decide to atone for the earth’s sins to plunge themselves into the ocean and swim for as long as their body can last. There is a terrible sense of life coming to an ill-defined end – be it by environmental collapse or a feeling that the Ring sees those on Earth only living to serve them. It’s intricate and complex and again needs the reader to work hard to piece the actual story of what is going on together. We tend to think of dystopia as authoritarian but here it feels more a world that has no focus; focused on tradition and the short-term without any real desire to break the slow death cycle we may be on. It is our own desire not to really make the required changes to save ourselves but here on steroids. There is a haunting scene where Pearl enters one of the last archives and it becomes apparent that as tradition has meant endless stuff is accumulated there is no actual order or even time to digest and make use of it for the future. A library that isn’t progressing human development may be one of the saddest things I’ve ever read and yet again shows a society that is stagnating before our eyes. All the credit though is to Womack’s amazing use of imagery – this a is a novel more of feelings and visuals or atmosphere rather than endless exposition explaining the science making this for me much more effective. You can feel the humidity, the heat and sense the sea and the forest reading this book which made for a powerful reading experience.
The development of Arlo’s relationship with Pearl is I think the one area I’d had liked a bit more time to explore. We focus on their early meeting and decision to part the ways, but the ultimate finale feels a little rushed. I though am very happy to see this is not yet another tale of a young woman sacrificed for dystopia and it actually feels right to end on a few notes of hope rather than hopelessness. The ending is ultimately earned for the surviving characters.
This is a wonderful read for the senses. I was very impressed by the approach taken and a book where the reader needs to immerse themselves into the world to understand it and then be able to look at those from above who clearly do not share that understanding gives us a brilliant about face. By the time we meet Arlo we are on Pearl’s side – we understand her world and how they have been betrayed and hence shocked at this capitalist, uber-rich society that sees Earth as a plaything. The message for today after that experience becomes rather clear. After the gothic fantasy of The Golden Key Womack has successfully moved into science fiction and I look forward to their next story with interest. Strongly recommended.
