In Other Words The Wall by John Lanchester

John Lanchester’s The Wall is a dystopian allegory set in the near future after the Change, an undefined cataclysm that drowns much of the world.

The Wall by John Lanchester, W.W. Norton & Co., 288 pages, $25.95 It seems a bit cheeky, even opportunistic, for an Englishman to title his new novel The Wall, and cheekier still to set it in his own country. Now that Berlin is no longer divided, walls are an American fixation, one that seems to amplify vast schisms in us-against-them thinking. Its opponents say the wall is merely a symbol. Its supporters say it’s concrete.

The Wall in John Lanchester’s dystopian allegory — note the capital “W” — is both. Its concrete does double duty, repelling Others and holding back the sea. The story is set in the near future after the Change, an undefined cataclysm that drowns much of the world. Only England is spared. Unlike Noah’s, this flood does not retreat. The survivors of the Change, the Others, are adrift at sea. They seek solid ground, fresh water, and sustenance. The Defenders, a term also deemed worthy of capitalization (Breeders is another), are on the Wall to keep them out.

This isn’t the first time Lanchester has exploited the timely and topical in his fiction. His 2012 novel

Capital is set in London during the financial crisis of 2007-2008. It brings home the consequences of the property bubble, making it something of a sociological study that’s gained Lanchester comparisons to Charles Dickens. Like Capital, The Wall doesn’t develop its characters as much as it does their circumstances. It follows a group of Defenders, the conscripts that populate the Wall at roughly 200 meters apart all along the British Island’s 10,000 kilometers of coastline. Our narrator is the new recruit, Joseph Kavanaugh, and all the story’s personality comes from him. “Life on the wall is more like a poem than it is like a story,” he says. He is struck by the cold when he first arrives and searches for metaphors: “It’s cold as slate, as diamond, as the moon. Cold as charity — that’s a good one.” This little activity reveals a lot about our hero, as does his exercise in concrete poetry, inspired by his station, which envisions the word concrete stacked like bricks on a page to make something of a wall. In another attempt, he reduces the starkness of his world to a single word: “concretewaterskywindcold.”

Everyone on the island is required to serve time as a Defender, minus certain elites (no capital letter for those who don’t want to draw attention to themselves) and Breeders, whose breeding, it’s reasoned, is necessary for the future supply of Defenders. Enlisting for extra tours of duty beyond the one required promises perks and privilege — a way, maybe, to become an elite. More likely is that a Defender will suffer the consequences of allowing Others to breach the Wall. For every Other who makes it over the Wall, a Defender is put out to sea. The Others who make it in are rounded up and given a choice: become a kind of slave known as Help, be put back out to sea, or be euthanized. No one comes to the Wall expecting a welcome or amnesty. They come with guns, crossbows, and grappling hooks. Kavanaugh feels their impact on his personality. “They are clever, they are desperate, they are ruthless, they are fighting for their lives, so all of those things had to be true for us as well.”

What Kavanaugh learns most on the Wall is how to suffer the cold and weather in an endless sea of time. His Defender comrades include Hifa, bundled so thoroughly that her appearance, even her gender, are at first a mystery. There’s Shoona and Cooper, a pair who the new arrival suspects will become Breeders, and Mary, the cook, who delivers tea and cheer on a bicycle every few hours. In charge are the Captain and the Sergeant, both from the Sgt. Rock hard-nosed school of troop commanders. The lurking threat of attack and the consequences of failure are balanced by a gray tedium. Defenders spend their time off drinking and imagining a future. Drills in which Defenders challenge other Defenders break the monotony. Eventually, attacks come, there is killing, and breaches are made. Defenders become Others.

With all its ironic complexity, The Wall might seem an allegory gone too far. The encroaching sea and desperate refugees are the reality, but so are the less visible issues raised here: conscription, privilege, false meritocracy, class distinction, and the use of fear as a psychological motivator. The cold takes on its own character and becomes the book’s operative symbol, coldness masquerading as charity, its numbing effect felt by the defended as well as the Defenders. Life on the Wall, as Kavanaugh believes, might be a poem but The Wall, as Lanchester writes on the book’s last page, is a thought-provoking story, one that’s as much about the present as it is about the future. — Bill Kohlhaase