THE NAMING SONG by Jedediah Berry (BOOK REVIEW)
When something fell from the something tree, all the words went away. And the world changed.
Monsters slipped from dreams. The land began to shift and ghosts wandered the world in trances. Only with the rise of the named and their committees―Maps, Ghosts, Dreams, and Names―could humanity stand against the terrors of the nameless wilds. Now, they build borders, shackle ghosts and hunt monsters. The nameless are to be fought, and feared.
One unnamed courier of the names committee travels aboard the Number Twelve train, assigning names to the people and things that need them. Her position on the train grants her safety in a world that otherwise fears her. But when she accidentally pulls a monster from a dream, and attacks by the nameless rock the Number Twelve, she is forced to flee. Accompanied by a patchwork ghost, a fretful monster, and a nameless animal who prowls the borders between realities, she sets out to look for her long-lost sister.
Her search for the truth of her own life opens the door to a revolutionary future―for the words she carries will reshape the world.
At once a love letter to the power of language and an exploration of its limits, The Naming Song is the perfect fantasy for anyone who’s ever dreamed of a stranger, freer, more magical world.
Imagine a world which is literally shaped by the power of words. That people travel around to share a new name for a Thing or a Feeling, because all the words were lost during a great disaster. Even the details of what exactly happened were lost, because there were no words to remember… until they are found again.Our protagonist herself has no name, because her father chooses not to grant her one for her own sake. This sounds immensely strange, but as the story goes on, we see the power that the ‘Nameless’ themselves have, as the everyday, normal state of life begins to be challenged. Because those who do the naming control the words, and so the world.
‘It’s hard to speak something out of existence when it was never named in the first place.’
Those of you who’ve read my personal writing know that I have a lifelong love-affair with language: the different shape and feel of every word, how they inspire and shape things with their similarity and difference. This book understands that deeply, and is itself so many descriptors: beautiful, evocative, engrossing, challenging, and so very timely. It tells of being willing to change the very story of the world for the sake of what is true.
I was reminded of other great world-shaping novels as I read on, from the doublespeak and thoughtcrime of 1984 and the stratifying colours of Brave New World. This tale gently explains how we describe a Thing in our head based on how we sense and connect to it, but ask if that Thing – say, perhaps, a cat? – is truly Itself without a name (because after all, the naming of cats is a difficult matter). When we encounter a troupe of dramatists who convey the forgotten history of how this all came about, there are shades of Hamlet’s play-within-a-play. Jedediah Berry is a master of knowing his own literary history, allowing it to flow through his storytelling with all the power of every author gone before.
I rarely found myself lost in this strange land, despite the first few moments seeming intensely weird. After all, what is a book but a collection of words? So how can this book exist if the very words that make it are being discovered as we read? Some may find this journey slow, as time is taken to set up the world and how it communicates and understands, but that’s true of the characters in the story as well. The pages soon begin to move as effortlessly as a train on its track, painting their reality inside our own heads, ramping up the tension as the courier makes discoveries that she never asked for, finally running with her few allies to deliver the one ultimate, crucial Word to where it needs to be.
‘She had to maintain vigilance on every border, especially those inside her head.’
Nothing I write here can adequately convey just how wonderful this book is. For those who love literature and the deep messages of humanity, it’s an absolute must-read. I tip the piece of clothing that sits atop my head to the master wordsmith who birthed this amazing adventure.
The Naming Song is available now from Titan books – you can order your copy HERE!
