This first novel is an engrossing work of speculative fiction set on a vast North Sea wind farm. The author refuses to fill in much of the wider context, but this fits the story very well and mirrors the experience of the characters.
The protagonists are a Boy, and an Old Man, who live and work on a decrepit rig. Their computer system shows a map of the wind farm, blips on the screen alert them to approaching ships (very few), and weather forecasts. There’s a dashboard of some kind that represents how much power the wind turbines are generating (about half their capacity) and which ones need repairs (masses, more all the time).
The wider world is merely a pixel-less void around the edges of the on-screen map.
And that’s very like their experience and ours as readers. If you can’t cope with not knowing then this book is not for you. And, in my opinion, if you can’t cope with not knowing, maybe you deserve to live in a world where all the important decisions are made for you?
Much of the story is told from the perspective of the Boy. He has never tasted a cup of coffee. Never seen a fish. He knows no place names, and all the wind turbines look more or less the same. He half-recognises some old logo he finds on a package, and it triggers some submerged memory of a tune (advertising jingle, of course), but his only memories otherwise are of his missing, presumed dead, father. Dad’s contract with the Company has to be fulfilled, though it’s not quite clear why, hence his indefinite indenture on the rig.
When is the story set? I’d guess mid 21st century. What has happened to the rest of the world? Why do only two or three container ships a year sail past? How come there’s no life in the sea, just debris, netting, plastic bottles…?
Who is using the electricity that’s being generated? Is anyone reading the periodic progress reports they send?
The only other human being they encounter is the Pilot, who brings supplies, sometimes even the ones they actually asked for. Mostly tins of protein slime, maybe that’s fish…? and ‘vegetables’. Also, maybe, some contraband if you ask him the right way and make it worthwhile. He insists that dealings should be businesslike and based on wants not needs. Maybe there’s a lesson there.
Who is buying the generators made out of parts stripped out of the wind turbines and shipped away by the Pilot?
None of this is made clear but none of it matters because really this is a story about the human spirit. Having somewhere you belong, even if you mostly hate it, and passing the time, refusing to be crushed, and above all the sheer dumb power of nature.
Interspersed with the narrative are a series of short, poetic, interludes describing how Doggerland rose and then was submerged again beneath the sea, separating Britain from continental Europe.
The novel has some pronounced similarities to Cormac McCarthys The Road, but while it is bleak it is not that bleak, and also it reminded me of Life Of Pi, maybe because so much of that novel is set at sea and the narrator is so utterly powerless.
I’d say that Doggerland is every bit the equal of those two (justly) celebrated novels but really it is sui generis. A really fine novel.