Stephen Hayes reviewed The facility by Simon Lelic
None
4 stars
"Kafka meets Orwell in contemporary England" says the blurb on the cover.
Well, not quite, but one can see how they arrive at the comparison. [a:Simon Lelic|3220121|Simon Lelic|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1335398039p2/3220121.jpg] simply extrapolates some trends in British society and politics into the near future, and the picture he gives is generally quite believable. All it needs is the detention-without-trial legislation that some British politicians desperately wanted, but didn't get.
[a:Franz Kafka|5223|Franz Kafka|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1287463493p2/5223.jpg] and [a:George Orwell|3706|George Orwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1175614486p2/3706.jpg] wrote about dystopian futures in which there are extreme changes in every aspect of society. [a:Simon Lelic|3220121|Simon Lelic|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1335398039p2/3220121.jpg] writes about a society that is deceptively normal.
In that respect this book more closely resembles [b:A Dry White Season|65249|A Dry White Season|André P. Brink|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170631767s/65249.jpg|63299] by [a:Andre Brink|6168903|Andre Philippus Brink|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]. For the first 50 pages of [b:The Facility|13542689|The Facility A Novel|Simon Lelic|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1340734084s/13542689.jpg|13924685] I thought it was about a Britain that resembled South Africa c1968, after the passing of the …
"Kafka meets Orwell in contemporary England" says the blurb on the cover.
Well, not quite, but one can see how they arrive at the comparison. [a:Simon Lelic|3220121|Simon Lelic|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1335398039p2/3220121.jpg] simply extrapolates some trends in British society and politics into the near future, and the picture he gives is generally quite believable. All it needs is the detention-without-trial legislation that some British politicians desperately wanted, but didn't get.
[a:Franz Kafka|5223|Franz Kafka|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1287463493p2/5223.jpg] and [a:George Orwell|3706|George Orwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1175614486p2/3706.jpg] wrote about dystopian futures in which there are extreme changes in every aspect of society. [a:Simon Lelic|3220121|Simon Lelic|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1335398039p2/3220121.jpg] writes about a society that is deceptively normal.
In that respect this book more closely resembles [b:A Dry White Season|65249|A Dry White Season|André P. Brink|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170631767s/65249.jpg|63299] by [a:Andre Brink|6168903|Andre Philippus Brink|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]. For the first 50 pages of [b:The Facility|13542689|The Facility A Novel|Simon Lelic|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1340734084s/13542689.jpg|13924685] I thought it was about a Britain that resembled South Africa c1968, after the passing of the Terrorism Act. It was a Britain transformed into Vorster's South Africa.
After the first 50 pages the plot is slightly different, and there are a few plot holes that make it fall short of Kafka, or Orwell, or Brink, but it is still a pretty good read. And scary, too. This is something that could happen, and something that some British politicians are on record as wanting to happen.
See, for example, here Notes from underground: The swing to fascism in the USA and the UK, when the British media lauded Tony Blair's attempts to turn Britain into Vorter's South Africa as "the moral high ground". And [b:The Facility|13542689|The Facility A Novel|Simon Lelic|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1340734084s/13542689.jpg|13924685] shows how very easily that could happen.
