Overview

This work can be classified as post modernist absurdist literature in the style of Joseph Heller and Mervyn Peake. It is not a fantasy novel although there is a degree of whimsy within it. Neither is it a dystopian work although it does include elements of imminent calamity. The plot centres on a middle-aged indolent, ineffectual protagonist, who struggles to cope in an environment of incompetence, greed, irrationality and apathy. He bumbles along from one calamity to another in an irrational and demanding environment. There is a subplot with another character, a seagull-riding pixie, who has the same character attributes and is surrounded by disorganised and incompetent sycophants who mismanage their affairs in an equally chaotic fashion. All the action takes place within 'The City', a thinly disguised sobriquet for Blackpool and its environs. The population are engaged in a perpetual internecine struggles with rival groups, in a milieu of conformity, tradition and narrow-minded ineptitude, overseen by a meddlesome, ineffectual government department. Their efforts of all the characters are frantic and comically endearing but underlying the action is the ubiquitous theme of destruction of the environment and the doom that must inevitably follow. In the introduction, the author promises a 'straightforward narrative', starting at the beginning and working to a conclusion, but immediately breaks that promise and shuffles, seemingly randomly, from one period to another, creating a history of The City in a anarchic manner. The disordered timescale is indicative of the randomness of the City's development and indeed the world's progress, for the City can be seen as code for the earth. At the dénouement, the two protagonists eventually meet when their respective worlds are on the brink of destruction. The novel ends in an aura of confused despondency but with the promise of eventual redemption.

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