I remember when this was first released. There was a set-up in the plaza, books arranged on a tall square table/shelf to stare up and out at the world and tempt readers to pick them up. A square banner was posted overhead, and the entire thing was set up outside the bookstore – a Collins. It was the first major book display I’d seen in that town, so of course I took notice, but ultimately decided against buying the book.
Fast forward, and now-adult me buys a new game – Metro 2033 Redux. Which I quit after a few months trying to pass the level with the traincars and no I am not bloody joking but was completely captivated by otherwise. The atmosphere of the games, the world it was set in… it caught my imagination, and I wanted more. So this is based on a novel? Hmm, off to look it up… and it’s that book, the one outside the Collins. So it was added to and languished on my already-too-long wishlist until a certain reading challenge unleashed the urge to buy it on me…
Still with me? Great. You’re the kind of people who’d appreciate the first chapter or so of Metro 2033 a whole lot more than I did – and hopefully love the whole book as much as I do!
Now, to business….
At first, I was unimpressed. It begins abruptly, immersing us in the daily life and guard duty of our eyes in the Metro, Artyom, often whisking us off into worldbuilding and mood-setting, mostly through dialogue. Credit where credit’s due, though: they’re engaging little slices and when I was listening to the audiobook, it was almost a disappointment when the story moved on. That is an element of the book I truly love: all the different stories, not just the ones Artyom stumbles into at each station and with his various companions, but the myriad theories and philosophies shared by the characters. And how vividly the characters are written!
Most of my reading was actually listening to the audiobook, and after my first listen I was ready to hear more. The narrator, Rupert Degas, was engaging and did a fantastic job with all the voices and moods (and the constant accents!) he had to manage. The distorted line, “I am dead, there is no more me.” will live on in my nightmares. Once the initial infodumps were out of the way, I was quickly hooked and eager for the next chapters.
The book has in its front and back covers a map of the Metro with the various factions and other notable things marked… I’m grateful for this, because reading Artyom planning which stations he would travel through made me want one for reference – and I’m not usually a visual person. There’s an interesting little catch there, too, because it would bug me that I don’t know the distances involved. Between scenes, was Artyom hunkering down over a fire and roasting some fungi on a cast-iron pan? How do you find a safe place to sleep between stations, or are all the stations in basically a half-hour’s walk from each other? It’d be pretty disappointing if it turned out that all the tense drama and eerie horror of the tunnels was packed into a stone’s throw!
Speaking of the horror… the author isn’t pulling his punches, even with the child characters. There are many flavours of horror here – from the eerie, creepy kind to the squishy, brutal kind, to the more ‘mundane’, specific horrors, like that of a losing a child. I am going to spoil one part, because it is the one that got to me the most: the scene between the old ‘priest’ and Oleg, with the latter being prompted to betray his own father, even to say that he deserves death, to his father’s face. Like, what else could Oleg do? It’s the gentle, teacherly way he’s forced to say these things that really gets to me, and the despair and shock and sadness you can imagine Anton must feel. And the whole part where he’ll be forced to cannibalise him tomorrow doesn’t help either. I actually found the Librarian easier to handle than that repulsive brainwashing scene.
I wonder if someone’s written a Discworld/Metro crossover fic…
Sorry, I had to 😛
Now, as to that ending… it’s a nice twist, but I’m not 100% buying the Dark Ones’ motives – and why only Artyom? It’d be a lot quicker and easier to just find some other human who could be made receptive. Don’t tell me the Dark Ones are just that into dramatic symbolism?
Skepticism aside, the ending was magnificently executed. You would have to read it for yourself, but it’s been a long time since a book left me feeling so… so what? Wide-eyed isn’t the right word. The final line was perfection, ambiguous and giving nothing away. It’s left up to you, the reader, to decipher… but why? There is nothing more to say.
Metro 2033 is a lovely rollercoaster, following Artyom’s journeys through the stations and the surface, but also exploring the peoples and stories of the Metro itself along the way. It’s a fascinating world, full of horrors but never allowed to get too bleak. Life goes on, after all. Down in the Metro…
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NOTE: Trying to avoid spoilers – at least the important ones – means there is a good deal I can’t talk about. So here we go, because I really want to talk about the bit of the plot that takes up the final part of the book: the quest to rid Moscow of the threat of the Dark Ones once and for all. The horror of this snuck up on me, despite even the diary Artyom read… it all sounds straightforward, yes? Nuke desolate Moscow to wipe out the threat, while everyone remains perfectly safe below. Do to Moscow what was done before – and what seems to have ripped apart reality and created the hellscape it is now. Nuke Moscow, and commit genocide against a peaceful, young species of beings with not just intelligence but hopes and dreams of their own (and a fondness for symbolism and mindrape, but oh well, six of one, half a dozen of another?) And why not? Humanity has done it once before, haven’t they?
That’s the real horror, I think, and it’s a message hiding in plain sight, whether it’s the decision to nuke Moscow, or just what the squabbles of the various Metro factions clearly signal: humanity never learns.
And the lingering, additional question: But can it improve?
What will Artyom do next?
j writes 