Delphi by Clare Pollard
Lyrical and ambitious, humorous and disturbing at points, Delphi is a relatable tale which captures 2020 as a sharply realised microcosm
‘I am sick of the future,’ begins Delphi’s narrator. ‘I don't want anything to do with it.’ Everything is uncertain, and so divination may be the way to go – hand that feeling to a greater power.
Capturing 2020 as a sharply realised microcosm – home-schooling, tensions in relationships, grief, struggling – it is set against a backdrop of global impact; pandemics, movements, political upheaval. In zooming in on how we in isolation deal with, well, isolation, as the world keeps moving, working (or attempting to) in chaos, Pollard navigates the expected perseverance as everything shifts and stalls.
Tied to ancient prophecies and how they filter into the narrator’s life, these are vignettes – some of tarot, disappointing sexual encounters and less disappointing Zeus fantasies – that vary in significance. Moments of plot grab the reader, a visceral feeling or panic seep from the page; elsewhere, it feels random, reminiscent of the year itself: how much did many get to truly live, so much as experience things in some sort of order that we can vaguely remember?
Lyrical and ambitious, humorous and disturbing at points, Delphi is a relatable tale. The question is whether you’re keen to return to the black hole of the past two years or try to forget it existed where possible. If you do, Delphi gets to the heart of what we might not see coming when the future isn’t on our radar.
Fig Tree, 28 Jul
penguin.co.uk