A compelling read but very difficult to figure out the threads of the book. It centres around the story of what seem to be two refugees arriving somewhere in a country that seems northern or Scandinavian in culture - a rather bloodless, unemotional but equitable society. There is a thread of conflict between natural versus modern sanitized man; between the moral complaisance of bureaucratized social assistance and true human need. There is another thread around the nature of work - the dock workers' view vs the new man's view. There is the deconstruction of sex and sexual desire. Centred around the child, there is a conflict of the development of the individual child vs socialization to societal norms. Around the child there is even a certain deconstruction of the common language of reality when the man reflects on the child's unorthodox views of reality. This nature of reality theme is also reflected in the discussion of the "new arrival's" state of being wiped clean, of starting anew, of the wiping of memory needed to accept and fit into the new society. This could also be a reflection on the west's modern society of forgetting, of disappearance of history and the past. All of this of course also ties to modern social issues around refugees, population displacement and cultural conflict, especially as seen in Europe.
Worth rereading at some future date.
To find:
Waiting for the Barbarians
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