The Optimists (novel)
The Optimists is the fourth novel by English author, Andrew Miller, released on 21 March 2005 through Sceptre.
Plot
The novel focuses on a veteran photojournalist named Clement Glass, and his struggle to come to terms with the aftermath of a church massacre. Although these events take place in an undisclosed African location, there are close similarities to Rwanda and the genocide of 1994. The novel follows Glass as he travels from Africa to locations in Europe and North America, and tries to reconcile his memories, while dealing with a family crisis, eventually journeying to Brussels, where the perpetrator of the massacre may be in hiding.
Reception
The novel received mixed reviews, with some critics praising the novels meditative approach and striking imagery and detractors citing the unsettling themes of the book being left unresolved as the main transgression.
Reviewing for The Seattle Times, Michael Upchurch praised "a narrative that is alive, unpredictable and stirringly deep", stating that he found the "orchestration" of the protagonist's "flailing movements" "impeccable" and stated, of the novel as a whole; "it takes on its chosen terrain head-on and renders it into a shifting, complex fiction". In a review for The Observer, Stephanie Merritt commented on the difference between he language in this novel and Millers previous, historical, offerings, stating "his prose here is deliberately unadorned, an accumulation of observed detail in brief, one-clause sentences to create scenes of photographic reality.". She does note that this level of detail sometimes "weighs a little too heavily", however found the novel, as a whole, to be "profound" and "meditative", stating "it leaves the reader with a feeling of courage and, in the face of so much evidence to the contrary, hope.".Publishers Weekly also reviewed the novel in a positive light, finding the novel to be a "powerful study of emotional trauma" and "starkly illustrative".
