Nowadays most written works are incomprehensible or confusing to the majority of the public. The constant references to the larger world or to almost all aspects of nature are alienating. Only a few ‘classic’ authors are able to break through into the public consciousness. The most successful of these authors is, of course, Philip Thornton whose work was discovered almost twenty years ago by teams exploring the surface.
Before his sudden death in 2015, Philip Thornton had been writing for two decades. The fact that barely any of his works had been published is a testament to the state the publishing industry had let itself fall into before the inevitable demise of paper itself. It is only in the last few years that his work has seen wider distribution and his continually growing appeal is almost certainly due to the vast destruction that now surrounds us.
Born in 1985, thirty years before The Incident, in Manchester, Philip Thornton led a relatively normal childhood. His exam results were consistently high, receiving a coveted three A grades in his A-Levels, but he declined to continue his education at a degree level because of the untimely death of his parents in a car accident. Very little of his writing from before this period remains; it is believed Thornton destroyed it all later in his life.
With the considerable inheritance he received Thornton bought a small flat near his parents’ old house and, from then on, was rarely seen. There is some anecdotal evidence that he would occasionally leave the house for short five-minute intervals but these occurrences were so rare as to be barely worth mentioning. I only write of them here as a possible explanation to where Thornton’s limited knowledge of natural wildlife came from and to point out how similar his own life was to ours today. The only other experience his neighbours had of him was either the sound of rapid typing or an incredibly loud and long-lasting hammering noise as if Thornton was conducting metalwork within his apartment. As only a typewriter and a huge amount of paper were found in the flat, we can only assume the neighbours were mistaken or that Thornton would beat out his writers block on whatever metal was in the house.
From the age of eighteen to twenty-eight, Thornton stayed in his flat and wrote. He left behind twelve novels, over one hundred and twenty short stories and countless articles all written from the viewpoint of a man with very little knowledge of a world beyond his own home. His early works show some awareness of the outside world though there is always some element of ignorance that would later be seen in practically everything he wrote. In an early short story, The Sensual World, the central protagonist sits by a then clean river and renames all the birds he sees. ‘Groots’ and ‘Hamlins’ take the places of the traditional names as the character David sits on a bench by a river. David even has plans to name the plants once he has finished with the birds. It is hardly a stretch to suggest that ‘David’ and Philip are one and the same. This view is only further cemented by the discovery of a number of botanical textbooks in his room with the names carefully etched out and left blank. Thornton was likely trying to make sense of the increasingly out of reach world he viewed through his window.
His work grew more introverted as time went on. Where he would once mention rivers or birds he now seemed unable to focus on anything beyond a single street. His third novel, Hounds of Love, the first two being largely semi-autobiographical accounts of unsuccessful teenage relationships, focussed on Gilbert Road, a fictional street based in the equally fictional, but unmistakably English, country of Cantaloupis. The thirty or so inhabitants of Gilbert Road betray Thornton’s ever-growing isolationism, half of them having jobs which are never fully explained (they simply get in their cars and come home later in the day) and the other half mostly being stay at home parents who take their children for constant walks in the park, an area of greenery and wildlife that used to be found near cities for recreational purposes. The only characters with regular employment are the park wardens who work in the park at the end of the road or the postman. Also, we once again we see a character called David, this time an eligible bachelor who the story revolves around. The plot is simplistic. David has a choice between two women who live on the road and spends almost two hundred pages determining which one to pick. Eventually, having deemed it too much of a responsibility, almost unable to cope with the interaction that would have to take place, he instead leaves the road and, in the final scene, walks away into the fog that persistently surrounds the road and park throughout the tale.
The novel itself is fascinating not for the quality of writing or the skilful use of plotting but for the warped view from which it was clearly written. For its time it is an almost surreal novel portraying a fuzzy world fuelled entirely by Thornton’s ignorance. The only detail in the book that even hints at the real world are the occasional planes that fly over, always heading to countries whose names cannot be found in any of the old encyclopaedias. It is as if his lack of interaction with the world is manifesting itself in a refusal to learn anything about its existence. This level of alienation in his work only grows as Thornton gets older. We are also already seeing how prophetic Thornton’s work would become with the introduction of the now familiar all-encompassing fog.
A few short stories and two more novels followed in a similar vein. One novel named Lionheart looked at an apartment block rather than an entire street. A series of short stories looked at a single floor and its inhabitants. Shortly after Thornton turned almost entirely in on his own world.
Aerial, his seventh novel and the first that really start capturing our own ideas of life, takes place inside a small flat clearly modelled on Thornton’s own. There is one person living in the apartment and the novel follows their adventures from room to room until they finally fall asleep. It takes part over the course of a single day and, thanks to Thornton’s skill as a writer and complete familiarity with his subject matter, remains a gripping and compelling read. Simple acts such as frying an egg or choosing what to wear are made into daring acts of action. The latter is especially impressive as Thornton makes it clear that the only character, once again named David, is wearing the same clothes as the day before. The outside world is mentioned only twice. Once as a large cloud casts a shadow on David’s bedroom floor as he wakes at the start of the novel. The second is when he sees a bird which Thornton once again calls a ‘Hamlin’, sitting on the sloping roof outside his attic window. The only other animal mentioned is a mouse. There is an entire chapter dedicated to the capturing of the rodent through a method described in an eerie familiarity to the events of The Incident. These alternating themes of freedom, seen through the bird, and capture, the mouse, are key to understanding Thornton’s entire output. While Thornton himself rarely lets his central character, so often an avatar of himself, become trapped by someone else’s actions, other characters are often left cornered by the actions of his protagonists. Take Hounds of Love into consideration. David walks away at the end of the novel leaving the two women trapped on the street with only their previous rival in love for company. No mention is made of the consequences of his actions or the possible destruction he leaves behind him. Thornton manages to embody the central aspects of thought that bridge his world and the one that exists today. The gross selfishness of then coupled with the mass and unforced imprisonment of now. It is this aspect that has surely made him such a popular author today.
His novels continued to shrink in scope. Based on the flat seen in Aerial Thornton wrote an anthology of short stories on a similar theme before seemingly growing tired and working his way further inwards. His tenth novel The Kick Inside is set simply in one single room. The character, whose name we can already assume to know, occasionally leaves but no reference is made as to where or for how long. They exist when in the room and do not when they leave. If you remove the aspect of return, Thornton’s attitude to life is worryingly prescient. There is no glimpse into the inner thoughts of this David, there is only action and one very short glimmer of hatred appears on his face three chapters from the end of the novel. It isn’t entirely clear where this comes from. Some speculate that it is the characters distaste for the world that may have spurned him. Others have theorised that it is the character showing hatred for himself. I believe that it is a direct view of Thornton’s displeasure at the scope he allowed for the novel.
Once again there was a gap between novels while Thornton concentrated on short stories. His eleventh novel was lost, only the title page remains. It was to be called The Ultimate Selection but we know nothing more than that.
The twelfth and final novel, Never for Ever, was finished on the final day of Thornton’s life. It is once again set entirely within one room but this time the character of David doesn’t leave once. Over almost one thousand pages we see, in Thornton’s incredibly tense prose, David move from one side of the room to the other. Almost a third of the book is taken up with David lying in bed. The fact we once again get no access to his thoughts but continue to read regardless is astounding. The book ends with a positive note as David reaches over to an often mentioned metallic device, presumably a radio or television, and turns it on. As the device flares to life we see the only emotion that Thornton allows though, instead of the hate from The Kick Inside, David starts to smile uncontrollably.
The Kick Inside and Never for Ever are similar novels bar the differences of the one emotion and the physical limits placed upon the character. Perhaps Thornton had finally made peace with his self-imposed loneliness and was finally prepared to move into the outside world. The hate seen in The Kick Inside may have acted as a step towards Thornton’s final decision to improve his life. Ultimately, we shall never know as Thornton, like almost the entire population, perished as an explosion of still unknown origin decimated almost all life on Earth.
It is little wonder why Thornton’s work is currently enjoying a resurgence as it employs the thoughts of many of the current population but with added additions from the past such as blue skies or the brief spark of nature. It perfectly encapsulates the past and the present in an unthreatening and easy to understand manner. With any luck we too shall one day understand the final smile of David and, presumably, of Thornton himself.
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