麻豆传媒

Veronica Roth (Tor)

THERE isn鈥檛 much world-building in Veronica Roth鈥檚 sci-fi retelling of Sophocles鈥檚 classic Greek tragedy Antigone. Then again, in Arch-Conspirator, there isn鈥檛 much world. A dusty dystopian city (Thebes in the original, but it isn鈥檛 clear where we are in the reboot) is all that remains after a thinly sketched environmental polycrisis has turned humanity into an endangered species.

Or, at least, that is what a reader surmises. The citizens don鈥檛 seem to know much about the arid wilderness outside their city鈥檚 limits, apart from the fact that no one has come back from it alive. There is no mention of long-range transportation like planes or trains. And blue sky is a rare sight from beneath a poisoned cloud cover.

While it would be possible to get information from 鈥渢he old internet鈥� (accessible in dusty shops that sell odds and ends), few bother. Roth鈥檚 claustrophobic details paint a picture of an island in space and time: the inability to see beyond your immediate environs is very much the point.

But the technological backslide hasn鈥檛 been complete. Among the few reminders of humanity鈥檚 peak is the Archive, a massive Parthenon-like library filled with our species鈥� store of heavily edited genetic material 鈥� the 鈥渋chor鈥�.

This is now the only acceptable method of reproduction, after a viral pandemic has disfigured the human genome so that, unless it is edited extensively, an individual鈥檚 DNA will begin to deteriorate from birth. The old-fashioned way of making babies is now taboo.

The new system has turned women into slaves of the state, even though each forced birth carries a 50 per cent risk of death. The rationale is that, for this last scrap of humanity to survive until Earth can accommodate the species again, everyone must be fastidious in obeying the new draconian rules.

Kreon, who enforces them, is a fascist who seized control in a coup that killed Antigone鈥檚 father, Oedipus. In a clever nod to her original backstory, in which she was conceived from the sinful union of Oedipus and his mother, Roth鈥檚 Antigone is stained because she was conceived in the old way. Putting his needs over society鈥檚 is what got Oedipus killed, and it drives the rest of the fast, inevitable plot as his children vow revenge.

Contrary to what a reader might expect from Roth鈥檚 popular young-adult series, Divergent, her new book doesn鈥檛 traffic in easy answers. How do you govern a civilisation in decline? This question would have weighed heavily on , who witnessed the collapse of the Athenian empire. A declining state strains the balance between the individual and their society. Fascist rule may preserve things by putting society鈥檚 needs before those of the individual; equally, a society that does the opposite collapses into a messier version of the same authoritarianism.

Roth could hardly have chosen a more timely tragedy to explore. It isn鈥檛 clear to me whether this book seems so relevant because the feeling of doom is a feature of many similar periods in history, or whether a retelling of Antigone feels particularly apposite because we are really living at the end of something. Either way, it is a great time to go back to the Greeks.

Without giving too much away, Roth鈥檚 ending offers more hope than Sophocles鈥檚 grief-burger. Not much, mind you. But it does leave the thinnest possibility that the benighted citizens of this dystopia might be missing the big picture.

Sally Adee is a technology and聽science writer based in聽London. Follow her on Twitter @sally_adee

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