Review: The New World is a fantastic gem ...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 24, 2013
The New World is a fantastic gem. I have never read the Chaos Walking Trilogy, and so am coming to this prequel with no preconceived notions. I read it as a stand-alone short story, and found it to be one so profound the reader may feel as though she has finished an epic when it’s done. The setting is some distant time in the future, the story is a work of science fiction, but the message is so primal the reader will think it’s set in the beginning of time when man first walked the earth.A nod to Shakespeare’s Viola no doubt, Patrick Ness has christened his protagonist with the same name. She is only thirteen when she sets out on a voyage with her parents to explore a new world, but she is formidable and more brave than we are led to believe at the outset. Viola is loved, admired and respected by her parents, and they give her the most precious gift two people can ever give their child: hope.“’Take my hope, Viola,’ she says. ‘Take your father’s too. I’m giving it to you, okay? I’m giving you my hope.’”Ness makes it a point to remind us Hope is what keeps us alive when we have lost everything else, and “’life is so much more terrifying without it.’”But Ness has not just tapped into the most sacred of feelings, he has also drawn upon that ancient myth separating man from beast. Man’s ability to make fire—to see in the darkness, to gain warmth in the cold—is what makes him likened to a god. In Greek mythology, Prometheus defies the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity. He has become the figure for human striving, for scientific knowledge and risky overreaching. The legend of Prometheus makes an apt appearance in The New World, which cannot help but ask that oldest of questions. Have we crossed boundaries into places we should not tread?I look forward to reading the Chaos Walking Trilogy to find out.