Review: D

D by Michel Faber
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Reads like a very old-fashioned children's book with an avuncular and intrusive narrator. Dhikilo, the protagonist, is 13 but reads younger, and the plot is a linear there-and-back-again, encountering various odd characters along the way. I'm apparently not the only reviewer to be reminded of The Phantom Tollbooth.

I was left with questions, including: If the child from our world, who must do the thing that apparently nobody in the world on the far side of the portal is capable of doing, is African, is it still a white-saviour trope? And if the stupid, violent, primitive, cannibalistic savages with spears are grey in colour and the person they capture and threaten is African, is it still offensive?

I'm inclined to answer "yes" to both of those questions.

What I did like was that the civil servant in one of those odd encounters was as helpful as he could be, and as defiant of the regime as he could be, while still overtly observing the rules. So at least in some ways we are stepping beyond the tropes and stereotypes - though mostly we are not.

There are some important themes here about despotism and how it gains, keeps, and loses its hold on people, which are more relevant than ever today. But the delivery vehicle was a bit lacking for me.

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