Stephen Markley wrote a book called The Deluge, and it is a very well-written and entertaining book, heart-breaking at times, always interesting to read, with a gripping plot and well-defined interesting characters.

So, why am I not quoting favourite bits, singing the praises of this monument of writing, and chastizing all who haven't read it? First of all, that's not how I roll, thank you very much. Also, it's because I'm not that crazy about it. And I think it boils down to a few specific issues.

It's an ideological book, and it is very much based on the idea that the environmental crisis we are facing has very clearly defined ways of exiting it. Follow the science. Literally it has all been written down by this one man, and now all must give way to the majesty of his computer modelling. We also all know it, and choose to deviate from his dictats only as an act of folly. No space or need for any other input. I don't agree, nor do I have much time, for this general outlook.

It's very America-centric, which would be okay if it weren't for how global in scope it wants to be. The rest of the world gets a passing reference here and there, and the implication is that this is the amount of importance it deserves. Indeed, once fundamental events, involving intersecting miriad American characters, gets over a certain tipping point, the rest of the world is dismissed in a single line. Something like "America will use its power to force every country to follow suit." So much for the agency of everyone else.

It's the future as imagined in the conscience of a liberal american. All of the Silicon Valley hypes come true, including the ones that just plain didn't before everyone moved on (remember when all the taxi drivers were going to be put out of a job by self driving cars? Well, Markley seems to think it's still happening) and, of course, the new promises of the hype cycle: the "AIs", whatever that means (chatbots and correlations, it seems, but, like, even more), now at the plane of predictive patterns for government and advertisement (sure) and, of course, creatively writing things from the perspective of people, as if it's, like, inside their minds, dude (erm... sure...), because of course we are just the data we produce. It's the vision of humanity from the perspective of the advertisement machine. And, of course, the VRs as well. It's all coming, man!

There's good stuff in it. The workings of government, lobbying and PR, for one. It is also quite interesting in lots of its portrails, like the damage wrought by bullets in the human body. I don't know why, but I find myself judging it by its predictive capacity rather than just as a piece of fiction, as I normally would. Perhaps because its biblical title and pontificating outlook suggests it would like to be seen as an oracle.

But I do take issue. I take issue with the ingrained worldview. Because you may say it does take into account some alternatives. I say it makes a damn good job of portraying them as accurately as possible before their ultimate dismissal, to the great relief of the liberal classes, whose main driving ideology is that they are right about everything and everyone who disagrees is evil or stupid. Ultimately it delivers to the ideological clientelle what it craves: the recognition that, yes, one can explore other ways of seeing things and safely arrive at the conclusion that we are the ones who are right. Morally right, factually right.

It is not a book in the vein of other sprawling novels, like Illuminatus, that ever seriously considers the ways in which different people and perspectives might be necessary for completeness of perspective, or to approximate completeness. It is a narrow-minded book, like most books that deal with a single main character, which is focused on his (it's normally a he) inner life and how it intersects with questions of our time. This narrowness is not a problem, it is often a great pleasure to read in detail about something the writer feels passionate about: even if that something is himself or a proxy for himself. But in the Deluge, I see an addressing of this narrowness so as to allow himself (and the reader to allow in him) the all-judging narrow eye of the great male writer. This is what I mean: the book features the textbook different perspectives: race, sexuality, neurological profile, religion and gender. By featuring I mean that they make an appearance, and no one can claim they weren't there. But they appear always, it seems, in service of the preconceptions brought in with us. In its most revealing parts it becomes an ode to enlightened, dictatorial power. There's just no need for other any other minds, any consensus. And this last part is, I would argue, not a hidden unconscious impulse, but the basic thrust of the novel, as embodied by its two main characters, the old crank and the young heroine leader, both leaders with little interest in what other people think, except inasmuch as it helps their goals. They have very little time or disposition for changes of ideas, and, indeed, I can't remember them changing their minds about anything throughout the 800 pages of the novel.

There's a self-reflective nod to just the critique I put above, in the figure of the young white writer. But it reminds me of Ricky Gervais doing a Verizon ad, in which he spends the time taking the mickey out of the fact that he was paid a fortune to do what he is doing now. As if that would defuse the blow to artistic integrity that shilling for a large corporation deals. Yes, Ricky, we are aware they paid you to do it, but YOU ARE STILL DOING IT! And if Stephen Markley knows all about patriarcal oppression of women, and how the great white narrative intersects with it and supports it, it doesn't exonerate him from the fact that he's still doing it. In fact, it at times reads like a roadmap for how to keep doing that great white writer thing, tell the whole world how it is, make a definitive mark on the culture, etc.: preempt all the critiques of it by laying them out, and then do it anyway. I guess he's saying he's doing it on purpose...

I'm being too harsh. It's just something I do when I feel that there's talent that is indulgent, below its obligations. If it were average, I wouldn't bother writing this, in the same way I wouldn't be feeling these strong emotions about it now or while reading it. I don't write a review of everything I read, and sometimes I do read things which have shortcomings and I choose to see and enjoy only its good parts, and gloss over the rest, like when you see a deeply flawed cult film which has an interesting scene or concept. I feel very warm feelings towards art which is trying its best, where the shortcomings are readily apparent. I feel like genuine attempts deserve to be seen as charitably as possible. With The Deluge, I feel there's genuine talent which indulges the ideological outlook of its target consumers, and perhaps the writer, propping up its self-flattering pre-conceptions. This book ranks very highly in the quality of its prose, and is definitely up there in one of the best three books I've read in the last 12 months. That's precisely the problem. I feel like a scolding teacher, undergrading his best student. But that's just it: he can do better. And, at the end of the day, it's what was missed that I take with me more strongly, above all of its qualities. And think that maybe Stephen Markley can deliver something that will satisfy even when one is predisposed to be uncharitable, something utterly demolishing, like the Crying of Lot 49, or Infinite Jest. A great white masterpiece. I feel he is capable of it. But he needs to dare speak truth, the kind of truth we his audience do not want to hear and then to make us hear it, weave it in such a way that we can't help but hear. Then he would qualify as a prophet. We'd also very likely stone him for it. That's why it's so hard, and so appreciated, and so rare, and so worthy of note and praise. The Deluge tries at it, but it ain't it.

In reading my review I feel how little comes through of the joy that is reading this novel, of how the events grip you, how you are hanging on every word at times, in nail biting suspense, wondering what will happen next. Also how the themes and the characters of the novel bleed over into your life, how you find yourself feeling deeply for the different characters, how they inspire you in your life. That must be noted, as it is no small feat. The actual raw rivetingness of it, how it moves you at times. How it enhances your life with its energy. It isn't that I hate it, it's that I feel it should be much more and, what is unforgivable, it thinks it is so much more.