Second time round

  by Ben Soton

 The Second Sleep by Robert Harris, Penguin Books (2019).

Hardback. Imprint: Hutchinson. 336pp, RRP £20. Audio download. Length: 566 mins RRP £13.
Kindle Edition 330pp, RRP £8.99, on sale for £3.99.

 Robert Harris is one of this country’s most successful fiction writers. His politics are very much that of the ‘extreme-centre’, a fusion of neo-liberalism with condescending political correctness; the result of which is an almost uncritical support for the status quo against any form of populism. 

Harris resigned from the Labour Party in opposition to the left-wing columnist Seamus Milne’s appointment as Jeremy Corbyn’s Director of Communications.  His politics are reflected in the Cicero trilogy (Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator), where Harris idolises the conservative Roman lawyer and politician who supported the assassination of Julius Caesar but was ultimately defeated by the Populists and executed on the orders of Mark Anthony.

{The Second Sleep} is set in a post-apocalyptic future many years after our civilisation’s collapse. Society has returned to a quasi-medieval state where religion holds sway over science, but within this dystopian world there are attempts to rediscover the lost technology of the past. This movement centres around banned antiquarian literature and artefacts.

In the novel, the search for enlightenment is carried out by a mill-owner, a gentlewoman, a priest and a travelling eccentric. The dynamics between these characters give the story extra excitement. The particular choice of characters may be a sign of Harris’ class perspective, one which views the gentry as enlightened and the masses as ignorant and superstitious.  Although there may be some truth in this, the main characters make little attempt to win ordinary folk to their cause.

Harris’ success lies in his ability to show how everyday modern objects such as smart phones would look to someone in the past, or in this case the future. We are initially told that the novel is set in 1468. This may be deliberate because this was roughly the start of the Renaissance; a period of culture when people started to take an interest in ideas from Classical Rome and Greece. As the novel progresses the reader starts to notice anachronisms; people are drinking tea, didn’t that come much later? Someone is playing a violin, were they around then?

This is another 1468. Civilisation came to an end in the early 21^st Century, after a period of anarchy order was restored – but at a price. Technological progress and the ended calendar re-started.

The Second Sleep is a warning of the fragility of our society with its dependence on web-based technology. We are told in the novel that “The Ancients” did not use coin but instead money would float around in the air in messages sent by small boxes. Have you ever become annoyed when you can’t get a WIFI signal?

It could also be seen as testament to the human spirit; namely that we will always strive for a better, more improved world. As in the case of earlier reformations however, this requires sacrifice and struggle against entrenched power.