Lennart Kueck - Ordinary Thunderstorms Book Review

ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS
BOOK REVIEW

                                                      Novel by William Boyd

                                                   Review by Lennart Kueck


"Ordinary Thunderstorms" is a novel by William Boyd, a British author, which was first published in 2009. The novel is a fictional thriller of approximately 400 pages. It takes place in London and works with a lot of different themes, of which the most important are identity and anonymity.

The novel is written in a way that emphasize different theses. The main one is that in a big and diverse city, like London, one can just disappear and change his identity without the mass noticing. The main character Adam goes through this process, which is described in many ways. Especially the point that the young man Adam loses everything and is forced to reinvent himself by leaving his identity behind and adapting a new one is, from my point of view, what the Author wants to express. The story creates the fictional world in which there is no other way for Adam to live.

This theme is especially marked by the narration. The different points of view presented in the novel emphasize the difficulties of disappearing in a city without the right conditions.
The omniscient narrator enables the reader to overview the situation and be part of the whole city-life around the main plot of Adam, which, so to say, "sneaks" through the novel.

The novel also presents the metropolis London and its inhabitants. This is obviously connected to the theme of disappearing. There are many places and people described in the novel and especially the last is interesting, since there are different social classes represented in the novel. In side plots which happen at the same time as the story of Adam the reader gets to know many people like Rita, a policewoman, Mhouse, a prostitute, and Ingram, the chairman of a big pharmacy company.

What Boyd mainly wants to do with his novel is answer the question how a person could lose everything, even his identity, and not be able to get it back at the current time. Therefore he creates the world and fills it with different characters, creating their fates, so that they all come together in a rounded plot. In an interview Boyd said that for him it was most interesting to look at the life of a "non-person" as he calls it. He says his book covers the idea of a "modern nightmare" of losing your identity.

These themes brought together, so I think, give the essence of Ordinary Thunderstorms. It is a fascinating thriller, which does not just show us how to survive in a big city, but it covers all questions and even builds up a possible scenario for the question: "What happens when you lose everything?" (William Boyd said this in an interview)

I recommend and, for all fans of fiction literature, I even advise you to read this book once since it covers such a unique area of themes that not many authors have written about. Boyd has made up a great scenario for the story and presents it in a very interesting way. The plot holds something new all the time you start a new chapter and, although the story itself might not be too realistic, Boyd manages to create an atmosphere as if you were present at that time and place.

Ordinary Thunderstorms is a piece of literature, of which kind I have never read one before. It gives the reader a rough insight into London living and social issues, besides providing a tense story about losing and gaining identity, which is a very up to date theme. Therefore I can, so I think, give a positive feedback on the novel and recommend you to read it, if you have spare time.