The Extremes

by Christopher Priest

In an effort to explain the eerie coincidence of two mass murders occurring on the same day halfway around the world, one of which killed her husband, Teresa Simon is drawn into the frightening virtual-reality world called Extreme Experience.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller, Speculative Fiction, Novels, Science Fiction Fantasy

393 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Christopher Priest was born in Cheshire, England. He began writing soon after leaving school and has been a full-time freelance writer since 1968.

He has published eleven novels, four short story collections and a number of other books, including critical works, biographies, novelizations and children’s non-fiction.

He has written drama for radio (BBC Radio 4) and television (Thames TV and HTV). In 2006, The Prestige was made into a major production by Newmarket Films. Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Prestige went straight to No.1 US box office. It received two Academy Award nominations. Other novels, including Fugue For a Darkening Island and The Glamour, are currently in preparation for filming.

He is Vice-President of the H. G. Wells Society. In 2007, an exhibition of installation art based on his novel The Affirmation was mounted in London.

As a journalist he has written features and reviews for The Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, the Scotsman, and many different magazines.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

"Teresa was target training by the age of ten. Her accuracy with a weapon thrilled her. She recognized as natural the weight of the weapon in her hand, the way it balanced there, the jolt of adrenaline that flowed when the recoil kicked at her arm and shoulder, and because these were exciting to her, the condition of gun ownership and use was integral to her personality and identity." - Christopher Priest, The Extremes

Gun violence, gun violence, gun violence, gun violence - The Extremes, Christopher Priest's 1998 novel about Teresa Ann Gravatt traveling to sleepy small town Bulverton on the southern coast of England, the site where a gunman went berserk and killed 27 people in a shooting spree the previous summer.

Teresa had her own good reasons for making the trip - her beloved husband Andy, acting in the line of duty as FBI agent, was shot dead by a gunman's bullet during a similar shooting spree on the exact same summer day in a small town in Texas. Added to this, Teresa was herself raised in England as a little girl before her parents moved to the US, thus she feels a deep kinship with the country and culture of England.

There are no children as she and Andy decided to devote themselves to their respective careers as FBI agents. After more than ten years of marriage, Teresa is now a heartsick widow in her early 40s and takes the bureau up on their offer of leave of absence to better come to terms with her grief. She senses vaguely that speaking to the survivors in Bulverton will give her the emotional support she so desperately craves.

A word on Teresa’s background which lead her to become an FBI agent. The most important person in Teresa’s life while growing up was her dad, a career Army man and gun fanatic - he kept a loaded gun in every room of the house, subscribed to all the gun magazines, continually palled around with his gun buddies and took every opportunity to shoot guns. Her father was so proud when Teresa became quite expert in firing guns herself, winning many national shooting competitions.

Yet there was something unsettling about this macho gun culture. Teresa recounts: “She hated the way her father’s personality had changed when his gun friends were around, or when he was practicing with his weapons: it was as if he grew several inches in all directions, taller, broader, rounder, thicker. His voice was louder, he moved with more energy.” And after Andy had his skull shattered by a bullet, Teresa's attitude toward her background surrounded by guns and her great skill shooting guns takes an abrupt shift.

Once in Bulverton, Teresa decides to conduct her own investigation of gunman Gerry Grove's killing spree. However, the more Teresa attempts to talk to townspeople, including Nick and Amy who run the hotel where she's staying, the more she unearths the timetable and other details of events via police reports, accounts of eye witnesses, newspaper articles, the more she senses things simply don't add up - preeminently, an unaccounted for two hour gap between Grove leaving the local building dedicated to virtual reality technology and walking to town with his guns to commit mass murder.

Thus, there's drama aplenty in Bulverton but the real intensity for Teresa takes place in the worlds of the aforementioned virtual reality technology known as ExEx, short for Extreme Experience. And let me tell ya folks, it ain't called Extreme for nothing.

Teresa has had previous encounters with such programs, which are, incidentally, infinitely more advanced then anything available today (please keep in mind this is Christopher Priest science fiction). Back in her years training with the FBI, as a way to better understand and deal with mass murders, using ExEx, Teresa entered simulations of the actual past, such as the 1966 University of Texas tower shootings where Charles Whitman, a former Marine, went on the attack. Like other bureau trainees, Teresa will enter multiple times, taking on the role, in turn, of bystander, victim, law enforcement officer and even the gunman himself. Frequently, the simulation will end when the trainee is shot dead. A traumatic experience to be sure, but through such training, the young FBI agents learn fast. Or so the theory goes.

Teresa can hardly believe it - the ExEx programs in Bulverton are even more sophisticated. Wow! With all the new genius software programmers around the globe, upon receiving her injection of 619 neurochips (again, this is science fiction) and entering a scenario, she enters an entire world. And it's all so real. Teresa asks: how do they do that? The articulate gal at the ExEx facility tells her about new developments with shareware and contiguity. Teresa's skills as a sharpshooter pays off- she kills more times than she is killed. As readers, we follow her every step, every shot and every bloody death - an extreme reading experience. Make that extreme extreme.

In one ExEx scenario Teresa assumes the identity of a hard-core porn movie star - one of the major attraction for ExEx enthusiasts since there's such a close connection between sexuality and aggression, sexuality and violence, sexuality and death.

Teresa takes ExEx to even more extremes - she enters the world of Bulverton as Gerry Grove on the day of the killings - her mind and his mind interact, at various point even merge. She can't take the craziness and extracts herself from the program. Then, after scanning the computer menu for other scenarios, she chooses Kingwood City, Texas on that very same fateful day in June when her dear husband Andy was killed by a gunman on a spree.

What follows will be familiar to Christopher Priest fans as the jolt of the weird. Time and space turn, bend and curve beyond the conventional three dimensions. What is the real world, so called, and what is virtual Extreme Experience? What are the boundaries and what happens when each one blends into the other? In this way, in addition to violence, I judge The Extremes as a highly philosophical novel about the very nature and expansion of our perceptions. Ready for such extremes? If so, this ingenious Christopher Priest is a must read.


British author Christopher Priest, born 1943

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

While The Extremes doesn’t seem to be regarded as vintage Christopher Priest, I was drawn in by the fact that it revolves around virtual reality. I love a VR novel, for some reason – maybe because of a book I loved as a child called New World, of which The Extremes occasionally reminded me. It centres on Teresa, an FBI agent whose husband has recently died in a mass shooting. Trying to deal with her grief, she travels to the Sussex coastal town of Bulverton, where a similar shooting took place on the same day her husband was killed in Texas. Her investigation leads her to spend a lot of time in the immersive virtual world of ‘extreme experience’ (aka ExEx). It’s all very absorbing at the start, and meanders along pleasantly for a while... But I got a bit bored of all the digressions, especially when it becomes clear that many of the characters’ perspectives add nothing of value to the plot. I was particularly annoyed with the insipid way the relationship between two of them was wrapped up. The story also takes a rather weird turn into Teresa suddenly becoming obsessed with VR porn. All in all, a book featuring lots of intriguing and engaging elements that unfortunately becomes quite baffling towards the end.

TinyLetter | Linktree

[Stephen Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

VIRTUALLY NOTHING

I’ve read a handful of Priest’s novels and this is the first one to disappoint me. The Extremes is like certain types of food: it seems nourishing at first but soon betrays itself as empty calories. Much of the book is concerned with the everyday lives of a couple of people affected by the events that are central to the story. But these characters actually have nothing to say. We learn nothing from them and then, in the final third of the book, they simply vanish, leaving the reader wondering why we met them at all. The same applies to a group of enigmatic employees from a software manufacturer. Priest expends a good deal of energy making them seem mysterious and then as soon as they appear they’re gone again, to no purpose and with no explanation.

As for the virtual reality aspect, which is, after all, the fulcrum of the story, Priest seems ill-at-ease with this technology. He fails to understand the concept or its potential, and uses it without finesse.

This book is also poorly written. The prose is weary and leaden, containing many clichés and worn-out characters. There is none of Priest’s trademark wistfulness or the wonderful ethereal imagery he produces so well in his better works, such as Inverted World, A Dream of Wessex, or The Affirmation.

I happily recommend the other Priest novels I’ve mentioned above, but The Extremes is nothing but smoke and mirrors, and is best avoided.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Sensaciones de lo real y lo virtual.-

Género. Ciencia-Ficción.

Lo que nos cuenta. Teresa es una niña estadounidense de siete años que vive con sus padres en una base militar del noroeste del Reino Unido. Poco antes de volver a los USA, perderá a su amiga imaginaria Megan, a la que ve en un espejo. Con 43 años, Teresa trabaja para el FBI adscrita al Departamento de Justicia, ha enviudado recientemente, es experta en el uso de los sistemas de experiencias extremas para entrenamiento que usa el FBI (y que otros individuos usan con intenciones recreativas) y vuelve a Inglaterra por razones de trabajo, residiendo en un pueblo llamado Bulverton en el que hubo unos tiroteos el mismo día y a la misma hora que el tiroteo que terminó con la vida de su marido, agente especial del FBI, en acto de servicio.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Ivo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wie immer fesselt mich die Schreibe von Christopher Priest von der ersten Seite an, wie immer verweben sich Realität und Fiktion (oder sind es doch verschiedene Realitäten?) und wie immer lässt mich Priest am Ende ziemlich verwirrt zurück.
Ergo: Wie immer ein intensives Leseerlebnis!

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every time I read a Christopher Priest book I realise I should read more of his work. Priest deals with complex themes in very straightforward, accessible prose and The Extremes is no exception. I dislike giving plot summaries where the unfolding of the plot is integral to enjoying the novel, so suffice to say the themes of the book are concerned with virtual reality, consensual reality, coming to terms with loss, mass-murder violence, and shifting timelines.

In some respects the novel is sprawling: characters weave in and out, some storylines aren't resolved, the POV gradually shifts between a few characters and becomes focussed on one, and I can imagine for some readers this might be frustrating. Certainly the 'science' underpinning the novel seems to be more theoretical than actual, but this is the kind of book I prefer. Priest takes 'what if' and extrapolates it to the extremes, yet manages to keep a human focus that ensures his characters and their hopes are firmly identifiable. I can't say I was satisfied with the ending, but I was happy with it. Now to seek out more of his work.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3422081.html

It seemed to me a bit of a departure from Priest's usual beat, set firmly in a coastal town in Kent with virtual reality, coming to terms with the ghosts of mass murder and a bit of sex all key ingredients to the plot. If anything I felt it was a bit too straightforward compared to some of Priest's other work, but it was still highly satisfactory, with a beginning, a middle and an end which all cohered from the two main characters' viewpoints.

[Dragan Nanic · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Priest's writing. This novel is a great example how style alone can be sufficient to propel the reader to the end.

Of course, there is an interesting mix of the themes of violence, mass shootings, survivors and virtual reality on top. However, there is too much repetition, sometimes with only subtle changes in each revision.

Priest is the master of atmosphere, of plunging the reader with the character into the world that is unstable, that may turn into something unexpected. Only in this case it is a bit more predictable and left too ambiguous in the end.

[Mark Nuzzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

ExEx...the Extreme Experience. Another version of reality, a bit more ruthless and violent than others I have read by Priest. Released in 1998....it fits well in 2025. Crime sprees possibly linked, many based on actual events.

Do you, reader of this brief review, prefer living and speaking in the real world with your actual voice? Or instead choose to text, type and record your thoughts. Wait a second....I think that's what I'm doing now...the hypocrisy. I think I'll descend into Priest's ExEx machine before I speak...I mean...write any more.

Four confusing, yet engaging stars for The Extremes.

[Ty-real · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whilst certainly not his best work, The Extremes is a solid novel. It is very much typical Priest: we are introduced to a seemingly mundane (as opposed to fantastical) setting and plot, laced with subtle hints that things are not as they seen. Slowly, the very narrative of the plot itself is brought into question. Reality is obviously a big concern for Priest, and this book continues to look at that.

By the high standards Priest set with The Prestige or The Glamour, this book is a bit disappointing. Tantalising hints that should be picked up on are left unexplored, and the melding of tone is not so slick as many of his other works. By the end there is the impression of reading two interlinking novels rather than one mutating one, and the effect is a little jarring. The ambiguity, too, that is so rich in many of the others goes a little too far - most interpretations have to be contrived rather than pieced together.

The ending seems very devisive, but I liked it. Too many authors don't have a sense of climax that books often miss, but this did and delivered beautifully. It's just a pity that it feels so disconnected from the start.

Still, it's a story with complex ideas and structure, drenched in ambiguity and provoking in thought. It side-steps cliches and, once you take it out of context of the author (which any good reviewer or reader should) it is a very accomplished novel.

[Dearbhla · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were two reasons I picked this up at the shop. First of all I recognised the name Christopher Priest from the film The Prestige and second of all I quite liked the cover. Why a slightly blurry photo of a man pointing a gun at me appealed I’m not sure, but it did. Reading the blurb I wasn’t too sure. Virtual reality and police procedures didn’t grab my interest, so I opened the first few pages and took a quick skim. That made up my mind.

Full review: http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2...

[lunaticprophet · Rating 3 out of 5]

*** Interesting story and plot, good sci-fi.. ending could've been better.

[Carol Kerry-Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

An uneasy read in many respects. It wasn't the ending I was expecting (I thought they would all be acting out a scenario in ExEx), but it was a sort of solution.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

FBI operative Teresa Simons has lost her husband in one of those shooting incidents typical of the US. In an attempt to assuage her grief and probe the circumstances of similar tragedies she has travelled to her native England, from where her parents emigrated when she was young, to visit the south coast town of Bulverton, also scene of a (much less typical) mass shooting several months before. In her FBI training to improve the responses of law enforcement agents in such cases Teresa had undergone many immersions in virtual reality scenarios of shooting incidents. We are given accounts of several of these where Teresa inhabited the minds of different participants - victims, bystanders, perpetrator. Commercial VR outlets are also a feature of this world and, in them, shooting simulations (as well as the inevitable porn) are widely popular. Employees of the GunHo Corporation, purveyors of ExEx (extreme experience, their version of virtual reality, which overall amounts to the second largest economy in this world) also occupy the hotel where Teresa is staying and are willing to pay the town’s inhabitants enormous sums for their recollections of the fatal day.

Like Philip K Dick, Priest has always been a slippery prospect. In his work appearances can be deceptive and reality tenuous. As Teresa delves deeper into ExEx’s wares, trying to find the limits to their scenarios, the outside world starts to become less concrete. If, in a scenario, you enter an ExEx property within it and immerse yourself in one of its simulations where will you emerge when you activate the trigger that is supposed to restore you to the ‘real’ world? In particular she has to face up to her own responsibility for, within an ExEx simulation, inadvertently showing the Bulverton shooter how to handle the gun he is carrying. Is she to blame for the subsequent deaths? This has the potential to takes us down a rabbit hole which Priest manages to sidestep but the phrase, “Extreme reality was a landscape of forking paths,” is undoubtedly a nod to Borges’s famous short story wherein he presaged the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics by decades.

The subject matter invites comment. The fascination some people have with guns is undoubted but I suspect they would not be swayed out of it in any way by the observation, however true, that, “the more there were people who owned guns, who made themselves expert with guns, who prepared to defend themselves with guns, who went on hunting trips with guns, who mouthed slogans about freedom and rights being dependent on guns, the more those guns were likely to be abused and to fall into the wrong hands.”

As usual Priest’s characters are well drawn and believable. This is so even within the virtual realities. For a twenty year-old narrative this still holds up remarkably well.

[Brendan Newport · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a re-read, but having read it when the paperback was first published in 1998, I'd pretty much forgotten the story altogether.

I've been reading Christopher Priests novels and short stories since my late teens. Bizarrely, I lived in his home town of Cheadle, part of Stockport, for twenty years. He used to live in Arnos Grove (I think) in North London, and I lived just a few miles from him in Winchmore Hill. We briefly corresponded long ago, but I've never met him.

Written just as the public Internet was becoming more popular (but still nine years before the first smartphone) The Extremes is remarkably prescient, and perhaps still ahead of its time. We are deep in William Gibson territory here, with socketed virtual reality, but it's a story set in (for a UK audience) a fictional Surry seaside town called Bulverton - not the Devon village - just a few years after first publication.

So less cyberpunk, more J.G. Ballard.

Priest's books often deal with the fallibility and frailty of memory and this is no exception. In this case, the ability to influence reality though memory is the key theme and its one he carries off adroitly.

I'm reminded of a movie whom the script might well have been influenced by The Extremes; not enough for a legal claim I suspect, but certainly worthy of an acknowledgement. Duncan Jones Source Code (2011) starring Jake Gyllenhaal has some major echoes of Priest's novel.

The Extremes is certainly different to most of his novels. It's not anywhere connected to any of his Dream Archipelago books, but like many of his long-form work, notably The Glamour (my favourite Priest novel) and The Prestige it rests upon a compelling idea that can only be described as 'Priest-like'. Unlike many of his novels though, and I'm thinking of The Adjacent particularly, this one doesn't have a rubbish ending. Priest often seems to have no problem coming-up with a fabulous plotline, but sometimes seems to miss out on a coherent final chapter that leaves the reader satisfied. On this occasion he got the ending spot-on.

[Ptjerónimo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classificação: 2,5. Relido. Priest começou por ser um escritor indiscutivelmente fantástico. Os seus livros narravam histórias que nada tinham a ver com a realidade e a sua forma de escrever era perfeitamente consentânea com essas narrativas. Os primeiros livros da série "Arquipélago do Sonho" são paradigmáticos desse tipo de narrativas fantásticas e da forma onírica que tinha de as narrar. Com a passagem do tempo, porém, Priest foi-se tornando cada vez mais num escritor realista. Os enredos dos seus contos e romances continuaram a ser fantásticos ou, pelo menos, a conter sempre algum elemento fantástico, mas a forma como Priest passou a desenvolver as suas histórias modificou-se substancialmente, tornando-se completamente realista, sem qualquer traço onírico ou maravilhoso. Passou a focar-se no aqui e, se não no agora, pelo menos num futuro muito próximo e relativamente fácil de antever e a dedicar grande atenção às inovações tecnológicas que iam surgindo. No caso vertente, na realidade virtual que na época em que o livro foi escrito era um tópico de grande actualidade e cujas potencialidades pareciam inesgotáveis. A trama é complexa, mas cheia de contradições e paradoxos e o estilo de Priest (pelo menos nesta versão em francês) muito vulgar e pouco cativante.

[Jan Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As ever, especially with his later novels (the ones that aren’t ‘straight’ SF, and are rooted in some security of place and personage) CP messes with your head. Well, he messes with your eyeballs and your brain, but they share the same postcode, so we’ll go with that..

‘The Extremes’ is a tale of reality vs virtual reality. A tale of violence, and the violence of love. Of the extremities of hate and tolerance, and how we are able to be pushed from one towards the other. It’s about the capitalism of death, emotion, and longing.

How do we know what -or where - we are? It’s well known that our eyes transmit inverted imagery to ‘us’ and we reconfigure it into something ‘normal’. But what is the ‘us’ and the ‘we’ in this? Priest doesn’t answer these questions, but he leads us to ask them of ourselves. Which is a good thing.

[Farid Hasanov · Rating 3 out of 5]

What happens if you ask a large language model to write a novel with the prompt: “source code, detective story, virtual reality, rural England”? You get this book. All the ingredients are there, but they never quite click — the machine hums, sputters, and stalls.

At first, the foggy atmosphere keeps you intrigued: confusion feels like mystery. But the deeper you go, the clearer it becomes that the confusion hides nothing. Priest hangs Chekhov’s guns all over the place and then never unloads most of them. The ending doesn’t tie anything together; it just wanders off, as if the book itself lost interest.

The result isn’t a thriller, or a philosophical novel, or cyberpunk — it’s something stuck awkwardly between them, like a glitch in the simulation. Ambitious idea, weak execution.

[Andrea Neves António · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um romance diferente, surpreendente, que nos leva para uma realidade obsessiva, por vezes angustiante e confusa, da violência, crime e serial Killers, assim como para os limites da realidade com um tipo de realidade virtual, construída a partir de memórias individuais sobre determinado acontecimento.
Teresa, a protagonista, agente federal que usa a experiência extrema para estudar cenários de crime, vê-se envolvida num massacre, em que a sua presença, como observadora, pode ter influenciado e dotado o assassino, alterando o curso e as memórias decorrentes.
Envolvente, bem escrito, intrigante, mantém até ao final a curiosidade, a dúvida, o alarme e a respiração em suspenso.

[Dave Morton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Priest takes us on a scary visit to Bulverton, a run-down town on the south coast of England, where a lone gunman had gone on a killing spree. As always, he describes the place with the deftest of touches.

The central character has, herself, just lost a husband in a similar event in the USA, and the journey she takes back in England is a disturbing one. Slightly off Priest's usual track, but as always beautifully written and full of inventive details.

[Michael D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a while to warm to this - I found the second half much more compelling than the first, where you have several characters vying for attention who basically just disappear. Not sure that was necessary, but that can work (Psycho). It gets mind-bendy and has some similarity to Cronenberg's 'Existenz' which came out shortly after. I prefer this.

[Mony_peny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lo primero que leo de Priest y espero que no sea lo último porque mi experiencia ha sido tan nefasta que espero poder leer algo más de él y que me cambie la opinión. Supongo que en un futuro lo retomaré porque no ha habido forma, no he entrado en el libro de ninguna manera. Supongo que es problema mío.

[Steve Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grieving FBI agent takes a holiday in England, at the site of a massacre-by-crazed-gunman. Seeking answers, she indulges in the virtual reality world of Extreme Experiences. Priest continues his long-running exploration into the nature of reality in a not-altogether successful melodrama, which, typically for him, is unredeemed by an ending which makes sense of it all -- it doesn't.

[Alex Torres · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with other of his books, struggled to fully comprehend what was going on. Nevertheless, it was sufficiently intriguing and well-written to complete. The loss of a star-rating reflects my puzzlement at the end.

[Pierre Kopa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to read sometimes, but you can really get into it and feel it

[Kevin Barney · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning and middle of this were great. The ending ... was just okay, or I missed something, and it was as good as the rest of the book.

[TimmyMcFunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

rather good

[Georgia Hampton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting premise but did not build to much. Too long.

[Sarinys · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disdetta. Avevo letto Mondo alla rovescia di Christopher Priest (1974) e mi aveva entusiasmata. Questo suo romanzo, più recente (1998), parla di cose interessantissime: la percezione della realtà, il confine ambiguo tra reale e virtuale; l’empatia, l’elaborazione del lutto, i traumi collettivi e financo la violenza nella società dei consumi e dell’intrattenimento. Quindi, cosa non va? Per essere breve, il problema è che il libro dopo un po’ diventa una palla mostruosa.

È estenuante. C’è una continua ripetizione e sovrapposizione di situazioni e azioni; per un po’ si crede che questo abbia una funzione narrativa, che ci sia un rompicapo micidiale da risolvere. Dopo 150 pagine ci si trova con qualche dubbio, perché la storia è andata avanti del 2% e siamo sempre lì. Niente di male, se fosse un espediente raffinato per ragionare sui loop, sulla ripetizione nella nostra vita e nella realtà virtuale, nel videogioco. Il vero problema è che la scrittura non è ha nessuna vocazione letteraria o brillante. In questo libro non c’è la dimensione della lettura per amore della prosa, che può guidare un lettore attraverso le parti più pesanti di libri come 2666 di Roberto Bolaño. Questo è un romanzo scritto come uno che non ha pretese, eppure ne ha parecchie; non ultima, quella di tenere il lettore inchiodato a una vicenda impalugata nella sabbia mobile.

Un altro problema è che il romanzo sembra proporsi come la classica narrazione rompicapo. Vengono forniti elementi misteriosi e conturbanti: viene dato a intendere che certe storie raccontate forse si sono svolte in un altro modo, sono buttati lì indizi ed elementi che paiono doversi ricomporre. Poi però tutta questa roba semplicemente svanisce. Non serviva a niente. Il discorso è lo stesso di prima, e si può riassumere così: questo non è Infinite Jest. Non è un romanzo metaletterario in cui la prosa è talmente forte da rappresentare essa stessa il vero senso dell’esperienza di lettura. È un libro più modesto, con meno forza e complessità, e finisce per risultare noioso.

Le storyline si scollegano, non sembrano nemmeno pensate per esistere insieme, come se Priest avesse scritto le parti di Theresa in un altro momento e poi avesse deciso di innestarle in una struttura più grande, che però non le riesce ad assimilare con coerenza. Pure il mindfuck si perde, annacquato dalla verbosità del racconto, dell’accumularsi delle pagine. Sembra la bozza di un altro romanzo, non la versione definitiva. Ho il sospetto che la storia originale fosse una novella di un centinaio di pagine, dove Theresa vive l’esperienza delle realtà incrociate (in sostanza, la seconda metà del libro), a cui siano state aggiunte 130 pagine di altra roba senza una finalità precisa (la storia della coppia inglese), che viene completamente abbandonata a metà romanzo.

Se fosse stato scritto meglio, avrei detto che Christopher Nolan si era ispirato a questo romanzo per costruire la storia di Inception, ma non è il caso.

[Ubik 2.0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ai confini della realtà (virtuale)

“Esperienze estreme” (The Extremes) è un romanzo misconosciuto di un autore poco noto, benchè Christopher Priest abbia al suo attivo almeno un ottimo precedente (“Il mondo alla rovescia”) ed un curriculum di rilievo in campo cinematografico: da suoi romanzi sono tratti “The Prestige” ed “eXistenZ”, quest’ultimo molto vicino alle tematiche di The Extremes.

Si tratta di un’opera ascrivibile all’ambito della fantascienza, ma quella per così dire “umanistica”, piuttosto tipica degli autori inglesi: niente alieni, niente astronavi, niente galassie lontane ma un’ambiente vicino a noi fisicamente (costa meridionale dell’Inghilterra) e temporalmente: un mondo simile a quello che conosciamo ad eccezione dell’enorme sviluppo assunto dalla realtà virtuale in scenari preconfezionati a partire dalla scannerizzazione dei ricordi delle persone gestiti da potenti multinazionali ed erogati in una rete di esercizi simili ad internet point un po’ più sofisticati.

Detto questo, evito di inoltrarmi nella trama vera e propria del romanzo, non solo per la sua complessità ma perché alcuni dei numerosi fili narrativi restano (o almeno a me sono restati) piuttosto incomprensibili e dal finale di dubbia interpretazione.

Il grande pregio di “Esperienze estreme” è tuttavia l’eccezionale ricchezza di materiali narrativi in poco più di 300 pagine, innumerevoli spunti che avrebbero potuto dare vita a diversi romanzi o racconti: in questi anni in cui la SF in crisi lamenta un respiro asfittico, concentrato in opere ipertecnologiche e monotematiche o artificialmente dilatato in saghe fantasy prive di qualsiasi originalità, suscita notevole interesse la poliforme fantasia di Priest che in qualche modo mi ha richiamato, e qui mi sbilancio, certi caratteri del sommo Philip Dick.

Chi ha vissuto la nascita e la rapida evoluzione di videogames e scenari di simulazione sempre più sofisticati e realistici non può restare indifferente di fronte alla suggestione delle infinite potenzialità suggerite dalla narrazione di Esperienze estreme: cosa c’è oltre i confini dello scenario, cosa succede a trasgredirne le regole, ad aprire porte secondarie o imboccare strade che escono dai margini della scena?