Gorgeous descriptions
3 stars
My overriding feeling while reading Heroes And Villains was that this was one of the earliest of the dystopia genre novels, it having been first published in 1969. A quick Google destroyed that theory - Wikipedia points to H G Wells' The Time Machine in 1895 - but to me Carter's story has a certain freshness and naivete that I haven't observed in recent dystopian novels. Hers is set in a land which is recognisably England and where the only peoples to have survived are walled in intellectual communities - the Professors, travelling communities - the Barbarians, and hideously deformed barely-humans - the Out People. In an illustration of 1960s moral standards we barely catch a glimpse of the Out People and the Barbarians seemed to be either the descendants of present-day Irish travellers or perhaps simply the Working Classes. I did wonder if whoever designed Jack Sparrow's appearance had …
My overriding feeling while reading Heroes And Villains was that this was one of the earliest of the dystopia genre novels, it having been first published in 1969. A quick Google destroyed that theory - Wikipedia points to H G Wells' The Time Machine in 1895 - but to me Carter's story has a certain freshness and naivete that I haven't observed in recent dystopian novels. Hers is set in a land which is recognisably England and where the only peoples to have survived are walled in intellectual communities - the Professors, travelling communities - the Barbarians, and hideously deformed barely-humans - the Out People. In an illustration of 1960s moral standards we barely catch a glimpse of the Out People and the Barbarians seemed to be either the descendants of present-day Irish travellers or perhaps simply the Working Classes. I did wonder if whoever designed Jack Sparrow's appearance had read and been inspired by Heroes And Villains. The Barbarian character Jewel's appearance kept bringing Johnny Depp to mind!
I struggled to decide exactly how much I enjoyed this novel - 3 or 4 stars. On the one hand, Carter's descriptions of this ravaged land are superb. Abandoned mansions drip with decay and I loved imagining the look of the people, especially the cobbled-together Barbarian outfits adornned with beads, feathers and mirror fragments. On the other hand, our heroine Marianne is frequently an exasperating snob and I wasn't convinced by the Doctor's hold over his tribe. The world is richly detailed, but I was underwhelmed by the storyline which seemed, dare I say it, dull! I suspect I would have benefited from reading Heroes And Villains in the early 1970s when I am sure it would have been exciting and shocking. Almost fifty years later however, I felt it needed more tension in order to keep me gripped.
