Jenni Fagan’s satirical fifth novel, The Delusions, opens with an epigraph from the Kurt Vonnegut-inspired science fiction curiosity Venus on the Half-Shell by Philip José Farmer. “The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.” The afterthought leaks again into the unique assertion, underpinning and undermining every thing.
Infinity and eternity are each unavoidably current in The Delusions, which takes place in an enormous anteroom to the afterlife, “the largest soul terminus in existence”. It’s the metaphysical equal of a big-box retailer, the place they aid you kind your false perceptions of your self from what you really had been, earlier than you’re Processed and despatched on to no matter comes subsequent (or, do you have to fail the Questionnaire, Dissolved on the spot). Though to be trustworthy, nobody in Processing is for certain what that subsequent factor is.
The queues have all the time been lengthy, risky of mood and, like life, full of the indignant, the entitled and the afraid. But these days issues are getting worse. It’s attainable the broader universe has grown sick of the human race, and the Earth is being wound down. In consequence, ribbons of lifeless folks wind throughout the infinite flooring of Processing; unable to deal with the overload, the Leaderboard goes mad and can’t be mounted. Something is going on, up right here, down there, and within the broader continuum. The Processing flooring is out of the blue full of one million cats, and issues are more and more not what they appear.
The Delusions fizzes with impatience, invention and humour. Fagan’s targets are precisely what we’d hope: greed, politics, movie star. Smartphone tradition. Fantasy tradition. The billionaires, the media, the “conversation”. Always and particularly, anybody who thinks that by giving themselves as much as the digital simulacrum they will evade not simply inevitable dying however precise life. The course of of expelling delusional programs like these is grotesque. They should be wrestled out of the sufferer’s physique in public, as reside and slimy eels. Instantly, everybody else within the Processing queue is aware of who you’re: mass assassin, rapist, corrupt CEO, procurer of underage women. They know what you probably did, and the way you hid it from your self. And that’s earlier than you’re requested the actually embarrassing questions. So, Processing isn’t heaven. It’s extra like a cross between Heathrow safety the day earlier than Christmas and a job centre on a moist Monday someplace in Wolverhampton.
The workers, nonetheless they really feel in regards to the work, haven’t time to work together with you. Your Processor, or Admin, known as Edi. Edi died of most cancers, and she’s been working right here ever since. Her recommendation to the newly lifeless is to focus on figuring out their self-delusions, and to not waste time – hers or that of the candidates within the queue behind them. Don’t ask your Admin if she’s watched your favorite movie. “I haven’t but if I did I’d probably think it was shit.” Edi’s been right here a very long time, she’s simply irritated and all she cares about is her personal son. “He was my life, my heart,” she says – as a result of admitting who you’re and proudly owning it are the central points right here – “the better part of me by far.” He’s nonetheless alive down there, she firmly believes, and he’ll quickly be within the queue. It’s a serious breach of Admin protocol to maintain an eye out for him, however how can she not?
Edi is doing her greatest as a narrator, however she will be able to turn into somewhat tiring. Her monologue is all we now have, and it’s so rammed with details about every thing, from the particulars of Admin organisation to the ambivalent wooshy constructions of the Universal Beyond. She has to behave as agent for the creator’s entire worldbuilding effort. Consequently, different characters can really feel a bit skinny and clear, even for lifeless folks. As earthbound readers, not even lifeless but, we’d generally like Edi to take the odd breath, be much less hectically decided to place every thing into phrases, present us one thing we may have a look at instantly. It could be simpler to course of all of it. But usually we’re laughing or wincing an excessive amount of to care.
At the start, it’s tough to not suppose of The Delusions as a model of the Powell and Pressburger movie A Matter of Life and Death, its paternalistic values and hierarchies slyly reversed. But quickly the values of the afterlife, as Edi describes them, start to look delusory, a spectacle managed by shady, hypocritical overlords. As under, so above. Later, a form of celebratory pathos replaces satire as the principle engine of the novel, and we’re left with a momentary feeling that Edi has by no means been what she thought she was, and her supply, with its rants and repetitions, has been the cleverly simulated monologue of a stressed spirit who hasn’t but solid off her personal delusions. We’re uplifted, nevertheless it’s half of Fagan’s genius to make even the uplift appear fragile, unsure, wishful.
The Delusions by Jenni Fagan is revealed by Hutchinson Heinemann (£18.99). To assist the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery fees could apply.
