Maciek's Reviews > Zone One

The problem of this book is that it doesn't really know what it wants to be. Is it genre fiction? Literature? Social commentary? Speculative fiction?

It tries to be a bit of everything, but doesn't really succeed. What really brings it down is absolutely glacial pace, and almost complete lack of plot. Even the action scenes are narrated in a way reminding one's grandfather sitting in his old chair and lazily reminiscing about his war experiences and going on all these tangents in a way which only retired people can do. An action scence of attack of the undead which should be breathless and page turning drags on and on and on, like its own ghosts, or a zombie (this is a pun). To put it simply, the book is not very compelling. Its mundanity might be intentional, but even well written mundanity is still mundanity, and despite its lenght Zone One might prove hard to finish for some readers.

It reminded me of another speculative novel which I also thought didn't quite work out, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. Atwood writes like an angel and her prose style is almost palpably delicious, thought it was hard to me to muster the will to finish that particular efforts of hers. I share the same sentiment with Zone One - good writing doesn't make up for disjointed and confusing narrative, lack of plot and lethargic pacing. I would even go as far to say that Zone One is a case of a talented writer tackling an ambitious subject, but having little, if anything, to say. This work is not as groundbreaking or memorable as Richard Matheson's classic I am Legend, and chances are high that throughout the years it will sink into obscurity, and won't be remembered as the author's finest effort.

Why three stars, then? The author obviously knows and feels strongly about the city of New York. Being born and living there. he can offer what can be named an intimate insight into the metropolis and the community which inhabits it. The concluding passages pick up; the imagery and pacing become stronger, faster, and even the ending of the book is not a real surprise, it's satisfying, though not exactly original. While I didn't found the whole of the book memorable, it's not exactly paperback trash, too; obviously too much effort went into writing and polishing it, but the exact point of it is never made clear, and we're left wondering if the time spent reading about these characters wandering around Manhattan couldn't be spent better.