LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES is good with light. He made the light and landscape of the Greek island of Cephalonia famous when he used it as the setting for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. In his latest novel, his characters are shaped by the wildness of rural Cornwall.
Like other modern authors who explore the human search for meaning, de Bernières sets his novel in the near future, where AI is more advanced than it is now, but not so advanced that it is impossible to imagine. Self-driving cars and even robot pet dogs dominate the urban landscape.
Q, the main character, is a quantum cryptographer with a direct line to the Prime Minister’s office. He understands, perhaps better than anyone alive, how fragile the AI systems are that humankind has come to rely on, which is why he has moved away from it all to survive on the wild Cornish moors. It is there that he rediscovers how to make human connections, and how to value his children, and begins to understand his failed marriage.
Through his descriptions of the Cornish landscapes, the run-down house that Q is renovating, and the increasingly extreme weather, de Bernières creates an atmosphere that is both threatening and comforting. Q has “no reserves of physical strength left after my lifetime of sitting in front of screens”. Faced with the immediate need to survive, he discovers a world that becomes increasingly vivid and real. As his new life transforms his body, it also transforms his mind, his relationships, and his understanding of the world.
Funny, clever, and optimistic, Light Over Liskeard asks us to consider what really matters in life, and, if these are the last days before the lights go out over our towns and cities, how ready we will be.
The Ven. Catherine Pickford is the Archdeacon of Northolt, in London diocese.
Light over Liskeard
Louis de Bernières
Harvill & Secker £20
(978-1-78730-399-7)
Church Times Bookshop £18
