# The Gone-Away World is a ridiculously good novel **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 22, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473 "2009-01-22T16:20:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/1 "2009-01-22T16:20:02Z")
This weekend I finished [The Gone-Away World](http://www.amazon.com/Gone-Away-World-Nick-Harkaway/dp/0307268861/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232630372&sr=1-1), the first novel by British author Nick Harkaway (who happens to be John Le Carré’s son), and I could not recommend it more highly. In tone, style, and theme, the book is basically a near-future sci-fi analogue to _Catch-22_, as written by P.G. Wodehouse and Douglas Adams with an occasional polish by a wittier version of Neal Stephenson. With maybe a dash of Kazuo Ishiguro on acid. It is digressive and sprawling in a way that (rarely, in today’s literature, and even more rarely in novels of considerable length) rewards close reading: it’s pretty clear that Harkaway constructs each sentence with care and joy,\* stringing words together in ways that make them pop and hum, and the novel’s many tangents are uniformly entertaining as hell. More than that, though, and unlike Adams and (arguably) Stephenson, the book has a tightness to the core narrative that unfolds in a really satisfying way. The narration of the lead character is terrific, surprising, organic, and internally consistent; the world-building is (with a few broad exceptions) well thought-out and creative; the underlying premise is simple, novel, and honestly presented;\*\* the plot unfolds naturally, with appropriately escalating stakes; and the backstory is both self-contained and important to the progression of the story. For all of its 500+ pages and many random digressions, it’s an economically-told tale, with few wasted narrative threads. And it’s so much fun to read! Anyway, has anyone else read this book? If not, and it sounds remotely appealing, you should do so immediately. 🙂 \*There are few things I enjoy more than writing that has been crafted not only with regard to general flow and paragraph structure, but with an eye to individual word choice and an ear to the cadence of each clause in each sentence. You lose a lot when you just skim that kind of writing. Which gives me an opportunity, which I’ll gladly take, to plug Fafblog and its [glorious](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/friday-pie-blogging-second-coming-of.html), [glorious](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-sarah-palin-sarah-palin.html) [prose](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/moral-of-story.html). ([More](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/following-things-are-fired.html) [choice](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/fafblog-interviews-hillary-clinton.html) [Fafblog](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/in-case-of-emergency.html) [links](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/were-we-wrong.html).) \*\*With the exception of the bit about how FOX is made, which was glossed over in a handwave-y fashion that made me suspect that it was a hastily thrown together resolution for that particular plot strand. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/2 "2009-01-22T16:38:34Z")
As luck would have it, I have a few extra bucks right now and was on my way to Amazon. I read the first couple of pages and love the description of a woman’s butt as “a cross section of a cooking apple.” The man has seen big butts and he’s seen an apple sliced in half. So I’m getting it. Looks really good.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/3 "2009-01-22T16:41:13Z")
**AuntiePam:** Based on your posts in various TV and movie threads, I think you and I have extremely similar tastes when it comes to this sort of thing. Pretty sure you’re going to like it a lot. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![yanceylebeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yanceylebeef/32/12290_2.png) [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/4 "2009-01-22T17:31:54Z")
I finished this about a month ago and immediatly set to reading it again. The only other book I have done that with is Good Omens when it was first published. This is an amazing book! there are a few nitpicks, but overall, I think it is up there with Cloud Atlas as one of the best books of the last decade. I’ve been pimping it to my friends for a while now, and the cult of The Gone Away World is strong in Denver! ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/5 "2009-01-22T18:35:36Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > **AuntiePam:** Based on your posts in various TV and movie threads, I think you and I have extremely similar tastes when it comes to this sort of thing. Pretty sure you’re going to like it a lot. 🙂 I’m psyched. Just those first couple of pages at Amazon were like nothing I’ve read for a long time. **yanceylebeef** , if I wasn’t already convinced, the comparison to _Cloud Atlas_ would have sealed it. I assume you’ve both read _English Passengers_? ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/6 "2009-01-22T18:56:00Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > This weekend I finished [The Gone-Away World](http://www.amazon.com/Gone-Away-World-Nick-Harkaway/dp/0307268861/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232630372&sr=1-1), the first novel by British author Nick Harkaway (who happens to be John Le Carré’s son), and I could not recommend it more highly. > > In tone, style, and theme, the book is basically a near-future sci-fi analogue to _Catch-22_, as written by P.G. Wodehouse and Douglas Adams with an occasional polish by a wittier version of Neal Stephenson. With maybe a dash of Kazuo Ishiguro on acid. It is digressive and sprawling in a way that (rarely, in today’s literature, and even more rarely in novels of considerable length) rewards close reading: it’s pretty clear that Harkaway constructs each sentence with care and joy,\* stringing words together in ways that make them pop and hum, and the novel’s many tangents are uniformly entertaining as hell. > > More than that, though, and unlike Adams and (arguably) Stephenson, the book has a tightness to the core narrative that unfolds in a really satisfying way. The narration of the lead character is terrific, surprising, organic, and internally consistent; the world-building is (with a few broad exceptions) well thought-out and creative; the underlying premise is simple, novel, and honestly presented;\*\* the plot unfolds naturally, with appropriately escalating stakes; and the backstory is both self-contained and important to the progression of the story. For all of its 500+ pages and many random digressions, it’s an economically-told tale, with few wasted narrative threads. > > And it’s so much fun to read! > > Anyway, has anyone else read this book? If not, and it sounds remotely appealing, you should do so immediately. 🙂 > \*There are few things I enjoy more than writing that has been crafted not only with regard to general flow and paragraph structure, but with an eye to individual word choice and an ear to the cadence of each clause in each sentence. You lose a lot when you just skim that kind of writing. Which gives me an opportunity, which I’ll gladly take, to plug Fafblog and its [glorious](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/friday-pie-blogging-second-coming-of.html), [glorious](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-sarah-palin-sarah-palin.html) [prose](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/moral-of-story.html). ([More](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/following-things-are-fired.html) [choice](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/fafblog-interviews-hillary-clinton.html) [Fafblog](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/in-case-of-emergency.html) [links](http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/were-we-wrong.html).) > > \*\*With the exception of the bit about how FOX is made, which was glossed over in a handwave-y fashion that made me suspect that it was a hastily thrown together resolution for that particular plot strand. Upon reading that review I inmediately lost any interest in that book, I read books for their plots and characters not for “stringing words together in ways that make them pop and hum”, Am I the only one?. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/7 "2009-01-22T18:59:13Z")
A shitty book can have plenty of plots and characters, if the writing is poor, the book is poor. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/8 "2009-01-22T19:02:44Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > A shitty book can have plenty of plots and characters, if the writing is poor, the book is poor. Yup, but, having plenty of plots and characters != having **good** plots and characters, having decent writing and excellent characters is IMHO way better than having excellent writing and boring characters and plot ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/9 "2009-01-22T19:05:58Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > Yup, but, having plenty of plots and characters != having **good** plots and characters, having decent writing and excellent characters is IMHO way better than having excellent writing and boring characters and plot If I’ve given you the impression that this book has boring characters and plot, I profusely apologize. It does not. The characters and plot are AWESOME. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/10 "2009-01-22T19:09:59Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > If I’ve given you the impression that this book has boring characters and plot, I profusely apologize. It does not. The characters and plot are AWESOME. But you didnt say much about them… Ok, i’ll give it a try then 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/11 "2009-01-22T19:17:02Z")
Sound good, I am making an amazon purchase right now also and might as well bundle another book in. Yay for super saver shipping! ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/12 "2009-01-22T19:18:18Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > Upon reading that review I inmediately lost any interest in that book, I read books for their plots and characters not for “stringing words together in ways that make them pop and hum”, Am I the only one?. Yet your username is Frodo. It’s a crazy world. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/13 "2009-01-22T19:53:39Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > Yup, but, having plenty of plots and characters != having **good** plots and characters, having decent writing and excellent characters is IMHO way better than having excellent writing and boring characters and plot I forgot where **Gadarene** said the book has boring characters and plot. It’s reader like this that consider _The Da Vinci Code_ a classic. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/14 "2009-01-22T19:54:17Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > But you didnt say much about them… > > Ok, i’ll give it a try then 🙂 Well, I did devote an entire paragraph of my my two-paragraph OP to strengths of the novel other than its writing. 🙂 But you’re right, I also intended to mention the large cast of colorful, interesting characters. Other than the narrator, many of the characters are drawn in rather broad fashion…but interestingly so, and effectively, with subtle touches of humanizing nuance amid the satire. Much in the manner of the various other officers that wander in and out of Yossarian’s story in _Catch-22_. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/15 "2009-01-22T19:58:27Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > I forgot where **Gadarene** said the book has boring characters and plot. > > It’s reader like this that consider _The Da Vinci Code_ a classic. Hey! /me Writes Sitnam in his enemy’s list. I was just pointing out that the review didnt make the book sound attractive, no need to call me a Da Vinci Code Lover :(. And id did not say the book had boring characters, just that the review talked mostly about convoluted “carefully chosen words” things, I could have been more diplomatic… Well, doesnt matter, now i’ll have to read the damn thing just so I can talk about it, I hope is as good as Gadarene says. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/16 "2009-01-22T20:02:06Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Yet your username is Frodo. It’s a crazy world. Umm You have a point there. Was LOTR so good because of the plot and characters and world, or because of Tolkien’s prose, or both?. I’ll go with both, but I’ll take plot, charactes and world over prose if I have to choose (assuming the prose is readable) ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/17 "2009-02-12T20:37:28Z")
Finished the book, loved it, and have a question about the twist. I’m not sure I’m interpreting it right. It doesn’t make any difference in my enjoyment of the book, but I feel like I missed something important. Questions boxed: Was the unnamed protagonist Gonzo’s alter ego? When he got covered with Stuff, is that what made him real to Gonzo? Was he not real to anyone before then? That’s what I thought happened, especially when no one seemed to know him. But then Elizabeth seemed to remember him. Did she, or did she just feel a connection that she couldn’t explain and didn’t want to question? Thanks for your help. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/18 "2009-02-12T21:10:37Z")
I got it based on **Gadarene** ’s recommendation, I’m 2/3 they way through and I really like it so far. I’ll say more when I’m done. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/19 "2009-02-12T21:28:09Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > In tone, style, and theme, the book is basically a near-future sci-fi analogue to _Catch-22_, as written by P.G. Wodehouse and Douglas Adams I’m a huge fan of Douglas Adams (he was my favorite author throughout my teens and early 20s) and _Catch-22_ is probably my favorite book of all time. Believe it or not, that’s 2 huge strikes against this book. For some reason, I’ve found that I usually hate things that are compared to other things I love. I have no idea why. _That being said_ . . . I’m suddenly interested in fiction again after reading non-fiction almost exclusively for well over a year, so I’ll give this a try and report back later. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473/20 "2009-02-12T21:48:17Z")
Missed this thread the first time around, but I just put a library hold on it – the **gadarene/AuntiePam** combo is very persuasive. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gone-away-world-is-a-ridiculously-good-novel/482473.md?page=2)