The premise of this novel is that a nation hopelessly divided by internecine strife, presumably the UK, divides itself into four nations, whose inhabitants are assigned to one of them according to a psychological profile based upon the four medieval physiological humors. Intercourse between the nations is strictly controlled, save for a group which the authorities believe defy classification. Called Achromatics, they constitute a sort of Dalit class; harassed and despised, they live on the margins but have the right to travel between the nations. That's one impressive premise and the author delivers in spades. His protagonist is a civil servant who has been removed from his parents as a child and assigned to the sanguine nation, but who develops a wanderlust whilst attending a conference in the phlegmatic nation, instilled in him by visits to a sort of virtual reality site therein which allows him to revisit the most idyllic moments of his life. However, exigency intrudes, and he finds himself forced into an odyssey which sends him on a wander through all four nations, sometimes in the company of Achromatics. The book is a surreal picaresque delight throughout its ramblings, somehow extremely believable amidst all the magic realism.. ( )

Intriguing idea but the author doesn't really do anything with it. And obviously if you think about the proposal of segregating people by class geographically for longer than 30 seconds it's rather absurd. OK, they call it humours but it's just class, like we have today except without border guards. Who's going to clean the houses of all the upper class in the red quarter? But I would've gone with it if there was any story to go with it. ( )

Fascinatingly unique take on the dystopian genre. Thomson makes a somewhat outlandish idea believable, thought provoking, and chilling. ( )

Fascinatingly unique take on the dystopian genre. Thomson makes a somewhat outlandish idea believable, thought provoking, and chilling. ( )

My post-apocalyptic book club selection for this month.
Not actually post-apocalyptic as dystopian, Thompson's novel posits a near-future England which has been divided into four sectors, based on the four 'humors' of Hippocratic medicine. In order to describe these four areas, Thompson then has a narrator who manages to travel through all four restricted sectors: Red: for those of a sanguine temperament, who are expected to be positive and energetic. Yellow, choleric, for those with a tendency toward violence. Green, melancholic, for the depressed and insane. Blue, phlegmatic, for the tranquil and artistic.

I like Thompson's writing style, and his handling of the beginning of the book, with forcibly divided families, is very good. The creation of artificial geopolitical divisions is very much based on Berlin during the wall, and feels convincing.

However, as the book went on, I felt like it lost focus. The narrator was being mechanically moved from one place to another simply to illustrate the author's ideas. I liked the author's point about how people will often live up to the expectations placed upon them, but I didn't see the political utility of having whole sectors full of people expected to be aggressive yobs, or expected to be cripplingly depressed. I didn't feel like the execution of the idea lived up to its full potential. It wasn't bad though - I'd try another of the author's books if I come across one. ( )