Warlight could have been a great book, but ultimately it left me disappointed. It did not help that it was longlisted for the prestigious Booker PrizeWarlight could have been a great book, but ultimately it left me disappointed. It did not help that it was longlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize in the year of its publication, which made me think - is it enough to just write a novel which claims to "explore" a certain subject, without any actual exploration being done and then call it a day and wait for prizes to follow?
If so, it's very sad, because it's the premise that drew me to Warlight in the first place. The novel begins in London in 1945, just after the end of the war. The narrator, Nathaniel, lives there with his sister Rachel and their parents, who one day unexpectedly declare that they have to travel abroad and leave them under care of their lodger, a mysterious man whom the children nickname "The Moth". And so begins a completely new life for the children - one full of shadows and mystery that will follow them into adulthood and which they will try to understand years after the events.
The novel's biggest problems is that it never takes advantage of this fascinating premise - soon after the introduction of its characters and the establishment of what would form the grounds for an eventual plot, Warlight commits one of literature's most egregious sins: it becomes incredibly boring. its characters never expand on the promise they gave us - especially The Moth - and I remain unconvinced as to why any reader would actually care about any of them. I understand the author's general aim with employing non-linear structure in this novel as wanting it to serve as a reflection of memory itself - especially splintered, shattered memories, that are often so difficult to put together and make sense of years later. I just don't think that these memories aren't very insightful and enlightening, and to make it worse they're not particularly interesting. It reminded me a lot of Transcription, but without that book's lightheartedness and humor. After all, it's meant to be a "serious" work, exploring "serious" subjects - so why does it never truly explore them, and leaves us with snippets of insight that are so often mistaken for profundity?
There are shades of good in Warlight, mostly in its prose, but the book remains an example of how sometimes good writing cannot carry a novel on its own - however, I am not surprised to see it longlisted for the Booker. After all, All the Light We Cannot See won the Pulitzer...
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