Review of Saha by Cho Nam-Joo

Saha is a dystopian novel set on a fictious Korean island called Town. The island is completely corporatised. Everything is run by a company, from education to health to the government. To survive in Town you have to be a good corporate citizen. It is the sort of utopia someone like Elon Musk or Gina Rinehart would idolise.  

The story is set around what was an abandoned housing tower complex, Saha, which is now inhabited by dispossessed squatters. They have set up their own power source, have a well for water, and a vegetable garden. They are tolerated by the authorities as they can be used for menial labour. But they have no access to any services, like medical, social security or educational services. Charities don’t exist. The squatters are classified as non-citizens who are left to fend for themselves.

The novel tells the story, in an episodic fashion, of the inhabitants of Saha. It begins with Do-Kyung waking and vomiting, and then finding Su dead in a car. We are not told what has happened as he flees. But the novel is not a mystery. It is an examination of the lives of people who have been abandoned by a totally corporatised society. A society, from what I have read, that South Korea is not far from in reality.

Some of the characters have deformities, like the one-eyed Sara. Some of the characters are fleeing persecution. One of the characters is used for medical experimentation. Many of them have secrets. All of them hope for a better life. All of them hope to one day become citizens of Town.

Saha is a novel that questions how the less fortunate are treated in society and where neo-liberalism is taking us. This could be the western world of the near future. It is probably close to the China of the present. It is a brutal novel that could devastate a reader who is yet to realise how harmful and uncaring capitalism is.

I found the writing good, but a bit stilted to begin with. I think the style of writing emphasises the uncaring nature of the society and how the novel’s characters are not able to participate in it.

I really enjoyed the novel and will be looking up more of Cho Nam-Joo's writing. I really cared about the characters and what happened to them. I recommend this book to any readers who have a social conscience. 

[Spoiler alert] The ending is ambiguous. I took it to mean that the characters find no one to attack or blame for their plight, just a faceless corporation.

Review of HG Wells' War of the Worlds.

I read War of the Worlds after seeing it on a list of subversive novels. It is a novel that attempted to get its readers to question the British invasion of countries and the way it treated their indigenous populations. Wells wrote it in part as a response to how the British slaughtered Aborigines in Tasmania. The War of the Worlds is an allegory of the conquest of a primitive society by technologically sophisticated colonists with no respect for the indigenous culture.

The novel is narrated by a philosopher and amateur astronomer. He is one of the first to notice that something is happening on Mars, and then the first alien spacecraft lands not far from his house in an English common. He goes to investigate. At first the spacecraft, which just looks like a huge cylinder, gives nothing away of what it might contain or its purpose. People gather to gawk at it and contemplate what it might be. It then opens, and the war for humanity’s survival gradually begins. 

The novel contains a lot of extended war and action scenes, with small sections of contemplation of what the Martians are up to and why. Humanity attempts to fight back but, like the inhabitants of many countries the English invaded, are totally outgunned by the Martian technology. The narrator spends much of his time fighting despair as he sees human resistance to the Martians fail. He is on the run for much of the story.

The POV character changes for a few chapters to the narrator’s brother who is, along with thousands of Londoners, trying to find somewhere safe to flee. Only then do some slightly useful female characters appear. Their main role in the novel is basically to be placed somewhere safe and out of the way, or to scream. They are not deemed likely of doing anything productive to defeat the Martians. One memorable line, “He was as lacking in restraint as a silly woman”, emphasises the role Wells thinks women would play in such a war. His writing is a product on its time, 1895.

The novel also takes a swipe at religion, where people hopelessly pray to be saved, rather than try to do some productive to save themselves. The narrator gets trapped with a curate (a vicar or priest) for a few days. His religious rants do none of them any benefit.

The novel is written in the style of someone telling you what they experienced after the event. Wells curiously breaks the fourth wall every now and then by referring directly to the “reader”. If you were not aware of the outcome of the novel, this would tell you that the narrator survived.

Overall, with its anti-imperialism sentiment, the novel appears to be subversive for its time when Royal Britannia wanted to rule the world, no matter what the cost. I very much enjoyed reading the novel and it deserves to be the renowned classic of science fiction and literature it is. I will be reading more of Wells’ novels.