The World Before Us
When fifteen-year-old Jane Standen was minding a youngster named Lily near a broken-down Victorian asylum in the North of England, she lost her in a fleeting unexplained moment and her life irrevocably changed forever.
Twenty years on, and Jane is working as an archivist in a minor London museum soon to be barred for lack of funds. It is in the museum’s closing, as she shuffles through its past, that she discovers the story of another woman who vanished in the same woods over a century ago. Along with her story are others also linked to the area and the asylum, voices of heartbreak, concern and wanderings. Will these voices and discoveries help Jane solve her own long-ago mystery?
The voices belong to deceased residents of the asylum, though exactly who they are and what their connection is with either story, past or present, becomes murky and quickly seems like a deflated literary technique. And while we know what happened to Jane at two points in her life, her life itself and the people in it aren’t fleshed out. These are characters that should have an impact beyond mere introductions and occasional sentences.
The World Before Us has an intriguing concept rather on the level of Byatt’s Possession and stunning language, but its disconnected plot and spectacularly slow pacing make for a time-consuming read.
