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A review by rungemaille
The Dark by Emma Haughton
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Well. This read was a study in frustration. On the one hand, the novel's premise had everything to appeal to me: remote station in Antarctica, isolation, polar night, a group of very dysfunctional people stuck together and having to handle a catastrophic situation while dealing with their own trauma...
I was struck by Haughton's making a reference to Michelle Paver's Dark Matter early on in the novel. What, at that point, felt like a nice homage to another author who explored these same themes ended up hobbling the narrative and shining a spotlight on its most jarring flaws. It invited comparison, and unfortunately the delicate blend of darkness, tragic flaws, and deepening alienation that made Dark Matter so engrossing and spine-chilling failed to coalesce in The Dark.
A large part of the issue is the novel's inconsistent, and often nonsensical, characterisation — especially that of its main character Kate. Kate is a doctor with a mysterious *tragic past*, heaps of unaddressed trauma, and an addiction to pain medication, who is brought in as the new permanent doctor in an Antarctic station after her predecessor died in an abseiling accident.
Kate is established early on as somewhat of an unreliable narrator with questionable work practices and even more dubious judgment, which are entirely blamed on her trauma and drug addiction. This, once again, is a premise I would usually roll with, and enjoy if written well, but both Kate's hiring and behaviour are written in such a way as to feel either nonsensical or downright stupid. Are you seriously telling me that none of the physical and psychological tests, interviews, and training she received prior to being shipped off to Antarctica revealed to her employers the fact that she has a severe drug addiction, PTSD, and depression?
Further than that, I'm somewhat dumbfounded by the idea that there would be only one fully medically trained personnel in that station for such a long duration of time, especially when the flaw in that strategy has already been revealed by the unexpected death of her predecessor. What if Kate herself dies, falls ill, or is incapacitated in some way?
This being said, good planning and professionalism are clearly established as being sorely lacking in that station — whether it is Kate, Sandrine (who is described as strict to the point of being unbearable, yet does nothing about the suspicious circumstances surrounding several team members' deaths or behaviour and looks the other way when team members get high on the job, but then calls out Kate for her lack of professionalism/incompetence when she puts in the barest effort to do the job she's actually being paid for?), or pretty much everyone else on the team.
Dipping into the clinic's drug stash aside, Kate —who is supposed to be a highly qualified and smart doctor— outshines everyone else when it comes to dumb choices and incompetence.
I don't think I can overstate how stupid the whole skidoo incident was, as was the way it was handled by Kate. You find out two guys got high and took a skidoo out so that one of them could snowboard attached to it, dude ends up going flying - and you’re like « oh my are they HIgH? » and then do absolutely NOTHING about it?! Worse, when your (just as incompetent) boss tells the two guilty parties to WALK BACK TO THE STATION, and strands them out there, you just go with the flow, despite the fact that one of them is very clearly injured and impaired????
Kate, you are reminded several times throughout the novel, is also supposed to be in charge of her coworkers' mental health — and, one would think, would have received all the relevant training prior to coming to the station. She is appalling at that job, as she surprisingly (and annoyingly) keeps prying and asking really insensitive questions at the worst possible moments, repeatedly alienating coworkers by randomly accusing them of infractions, drug abuse, or even murder. Her way of handling Alex is pretty revealing of her ineptitude: She spends months in his company, making offhanded comments on how taciturn and solitary he is. She quickly finds out that he was close with her deceased predecessor, and that others on the team blame him for the man's death. He’s CLEARLY been depressed and distressed the entire time she’s been there, yet when he FINALLY opens up to her, a quarter of the book in, rather than actually listening to him, she immediately accuses him of smoking too much weed (which she has never witnessed)???
As a (not insignificant) sidenote, there's something deeply annoying about the way the author deals with English-as-second-language characters — the constant emphasis on how they get idioms wrong or need clarification on their meaning; first of all, I'd imagine that at least one or two of the non-native English speakers would still have a pretty good command of the language (as is often the case in international and academic projects such as this one), but the way she writes it is also... just not how it occurs in real life? It feels so artificial and kind of gratuitous (and jarring, when a character will use pretty complex sentence structures and a rich vocabulary, but then stumble over some of the most common English idioms? I don't think I have enough knowledge to give receipts on the caricatural Russian accent, but I certainly cringed at the translated French) — especially because it puts Kate in the position of repeatedly correcting (and educating) them on "proper" English, in a way that creates something of a hierarchy between characters. It's also really unfortunate that the people of colour among the crew are the least developed characters, and the least present within the main plot.
I suppose you could make the argument that Kate's incompetence, tactlessness, and deeply misguided belief in her own powers of deduction and ability to deal with the situation are intentional character traits, and that they help explain why she is so baffled by a mystery the reader will have enough clues to figure out about a third of the way through, if not earlier. But they make for an unbearable experience following along as she, figuratively and literally, stumbles around in the dark trying to solve the case.
I was struck by Haughton's making a reference to Michelle Paver's Dark Matter early on in the novel. What, at that point, felt like a nice homage to another author who explored these same themes ended up hobbling the narrative and shining a spotlight on its most jarring flaws. It invited comparison, and unfortunately the delicate blend of darkness, tragic flaws, and deepening alienation that made Dark Matter so engrossing and spine-chilling failed to coalesce in The Dark.
A large part of the issue is the novel's inconsistent, and often nonsensical, characterisation — especially that of its main character Kate. Kate is a doctor with a mysterious *tragic past*, heaps of unaddressed trauma, and an addiction to pain medication, who is brought in as the new permanent doctor in an Antarctic station after her predecessor died in an abseiling accident.
Kate is established early on as somewhat of an unreliable narrator with questionable work practices and even more dubious judgment, which are entirely blamed on her trauma and drug addiction. This, once again, is a premise I would usually roll with, and enjoy if written well, but both Kate's hiring and behaviour are written in such a way as to feel either nonsensical or downright stupid. Are you seriously telling me that none of the physical and psychological tests, interviews, and training she received prior to being shipped off to Antarctica revealed to her employers the fact that she has a severe drug addiction, PTSD, and depression?
Further than that, I'm somewhat dumbfounded by the idea that there would be only one fully medically trained personnel in that station for such a long duration of time, especially when the flaw in that strategy has already been revealed by the unexpected death of her predecessor. What if Kate herself dies, falls ill, or is incapacitated in some way?
This being said, good planning and professionalism are clearly established as being sorely lacking in that station — whether it is Kate, Sandrine (who is described as strict to the point of being unbearable, yet does nothing about the suspicious circumstances surrounding several team members' deaths or behaviour and looks the other way when team members get high on the job, but then calls out Kate for her lack of professionalism/incompetence when she puts in the barest effort to do the job she's actually being paid for?), or pretty much everyone else on the team.
Dipping into the clinic's drug stash aside, Kate —who is supposed to be a highly qualified and smart doctor— outshines everyone else when it comes to dumb choices and incompetence.
I don't think I can overstate how stupid the whole skidoo incident was, as was the way it was handled by Kate. You find out two guys got high and took a skidoo out so that one of them could snowboard attached to it, dude ends up going flying - and you’re like « oh my are they HIgH? » and then do absolutely NOTHING about it?! Worse, when your (just as incompetent) boss tells the two guilty parties to WALK BACK TO THE STATION, and strands them out there, you just go with the flow, despite the fact that one of them is very clearly injured and impaired????
Kate, you are reminded several times throughout the novel, is also supposed to be in charge of her coworkers' mental health — and, one would think, would have received all the relevant training prior to coming to the station. She is appalling at that job, as she surprisingly (and annoyingly) keeps prying and asking really insensitive questions at the worst possible moments, repeatedly alienating coworkers by randomly accusing them of infractions, drug abuse, or even murder. Her way of handling Alex is pretty revealing of her ineptitude: She spends months in his company, making offhanded comments on how taciturn and solitary he is. She quickly finds out that he was close with her deceased predecessor, and that others on the team blame him for the man's death. He’s CLEARLY been depressed and distressed the entire time she’s been there, yet when he FINALLY opens up to her, a quarter of the book in, rather than actually listening to him, she immediately accuses him of smoking too much weed (which she has never witnessed)???
As a (not insignificant) sidenote, there's something deeply annoying about the way the author deals with English-as-second-language characters — the constant emphasis on how they get idioms wrong or need clarification on their meaning; first of all, I'd imagine that at least one or two of the non-native English speakers would still have a pretty good command of the language (as is often the case in international and academic projects such as this one), but the way she writes it is also... just not how it occurs in real life? It feels so artificial and kind of gratuitous (and jarring, when a character will use pretty complex sentence structures and a rich vocabulary, but then stumble over some of the most common English idioms? I don't think I have enough knowledge to give receipts on the caricatural Russian accent, but I certainly cringed at the translated French) — especially because it puts Kate in the position of repeatedly correcting (and educating) them on "proper" English, in a way that creates something of a hierarchy between characters. It's also really unfortunate that the people of colour among the crew are the least developed characters, and the least present within the main plot.
I suppose you could make the argument that Kate's incompetence, tactlessness, and deeply misguided belief in her own powers of deduction and ability to deal with the situation are intentional character traits, and that they help explain why she is so baffled by a mystery the reader will have enough clues to figure out about a third of the way through, if not earlier. But they make for an unbearable experience following along as she, figuratively and literally, stumbles around in the dark trying to solve the case.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction and Drug abuse
Moderate: Medical content and Murder
Minor: Gun violence and Car accident