Chris Flynn's latest novel, Orpheus nineHe examines a tiny town of a global catastrophe: something so inexplicably cruel that it forces her heroes and us, to re -assess the point of existence. How do you continue when it seems that this is all hope, like a chance for the future, has disappeared?
It is Saturday morning in the village of the Gattan Australian city, and children play football. Everything is quite normal. While children are playing, parents unofficially train from the side when they do not dream of themselves.
We meet Jess, whose nine -year -old son Tyler stands out on the pitch; Dirk, whose ten -year -old son Alex also plays, although technically a bit too elderly for the band; And Hayley, whose eight -year -old daughter Ebony regrets that she was not adult enough.
Review: Orpheus Nine – Chris Flynn (Hachette)
Then at 11 am everything changes. Children stop playing. They stand, they are afraid on their faces and begin to sing the King Lear line: “Like flies to mindless boys, we are for the gods; they kill us for sport.” And then they die. Horribly.
That is, all players except Alex. Only nine -year -olds affected this terrible, inexplicable event. Helpless, Jess is forced to watch Tyler's dying. Dirk saves this horror; Alex, just a week ago, turned ten. Hayley's whole world is now steeped in fear because it is still happening.
Every morning, since, on the day the child turns nine years elderly, they freeze, sing and die. Nobody knows why. And no one can stop it.
Karli Michelle/Hachette
Supernatural turning point
Orpheus Nine or O9, when the event becomes known, is a supernatural point of hiding places in the already stressed and destabilized world. Its consequences are intricate: a social, political storm, religious shock. The novel never loses the eyes of these immense influences, noticing the failure of supply chains, growing conspiracy theories and protests have met with state violence. But he does it through the lens of the inhabitants of Gattan, so we experience their influence on personal level.
This is a powerful narrative choice. A immense picture tends to keep us at a distance-we can appreciate what is happening with the rule and large-scale demographic changes and attract similarities to the world as we know. But emotionally, these are “small” stories about everyday life that affect us. The characters are what we connect with. Their broken heart, their anger, their fear make O9 real to us.
Chris Flynn does something very specific with his imagined city and characters that live in him. By using them, he examines individual and joint reactions to regret, in different sexes, classes and life experiences. Each of the main characters feels like a “type” or “trop”, but if you ask me, it's not an accident. Flynn seems deliberate and self -aware when it comes to using archetypes.
Jess is an orphan, the term transferred to parents whose children were taken by O9. It comes from destitute origin, with dead parents and unstable childhood. After O9, she fights that her voice is heard in a way he has never really been before.
In Hayley we have a terrified mother who wants to do everything to save her daughter. As “devoid of salt”, she deals with a campaign against “large salt”, believing that its excessive consumption contributes to the death of O9. Her crusade of “healthy eating” is her response to an uncontrolled situation, although sometimes it borders with abuses.
Dirk is the heir to the luxurious family of Gattan, a tiny town of the elite, who seems to have everything, although his father was a monster behind the closed door. He is a decadin: his child has just missed the cut -out O9. Conservative and time-honored, is based on its name to accept authority over the city when the crisis worsens.
These characters represent various broader social experiences, so they all react to O9 and the up-to-date world order in different ways. What's more, because the up-to-date traumas bring elderly to the surface, Orpheus nine jumps over time to show us what made these people. As we process the trauma, it does not leave blue. This is the result of our stories, childhood, our upbringing and people around us.
Yes, Jess, Hayley and Dirk are archetypes, but for this reason they are not reduced. They just don't wear human masks over demographic faces. They even have the opportunity to develop and change, because O9 events undermine the structures of normal everyday life, which would otherwise keep them on their belt.
They kill us for their sport
Orpheus Nine is sold as a supernatural thriller, but I'm not sure if I agree with the category. Definitely supernatural. But there are no story action or actions that I identify with a thriller.
Instead, it is a thought experiment based on a character that concerns countless ways in which we try to cope when something terrible and unexpected breaks in our lives. Through social organizations, internet forums, religious cults, warrior groups, government conspiracy – and even the ingredients of the food they consume – our characters are trying to restore certain certainty, some control.
And not all of us know how they feel! Thanks to Covid and more and more full of global policy, we all survived. We still live.
I read Orpheus nine a week after the former Alfred cyclone hit the south-east Queensland. Delivery chains still fought for recovery, and in the Internet there were murmurs of conspiracy theories. Some of us were lucky and saved any effects without obvious reason. Others were heavily hit, unexpectedly and unfortunate: houses destroyed and ruined.
Like the “gods” of Orpheus Nine, who kill us for their sport, we are all at an uncertain grace, sometimes unclean, the future. And each of them will come to meet him in our own way.
Image Source: Pixabay.com
