Blind Faith by Ben Elton – Novel Review
Satirical Novel by Blackadder Writer a Light Update of Orwell's 1984
Ben Elton is best known as a writer of British sitcoms such as Blackadder and The Young Ones, or of the Queen musical We Will Rock You.
But Elton has also written over a dozen novels in a variety of popular genres. In Blind Faith, Ben Elton's 2007 novel, he tries his hand at social satire and futuristic dystopia with some success.
The Premise of Ben Elton's Blind Faith
Generations after global warming has flooded coastal regions around the world, London has become a series of islands, and its people live in a repressive society. Religious fervor is mixed with consumerism and internet exhibitionism, and all fear the Inquisition of "the Temple."
Blind Faith's hero is Trafford Sewell, a "civil servant of sorts," who is uncomfortable with the culture of endless "sharing" and enforced blogging, group hugs, and the like. When he meets a member of the secret Humanist sect, he discovers the lost joys of science (especially the theory of evolution) and literature. Trafford has his daughter secretly vaccinated – infant mortality is high thanks to selective medical ignorance – and he starts down a path toward open rebellion.
Blind Faith's Debt to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four
The well-read reader will quickly notice that the story of Blind Faith follows George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four quite closely. Trafford Sewell, in his journey from repressed bureaucrat to enlightened martyr, resembles Orwell's Winston Smith, and his fate mirrors Smith's in many ways.
Elton makes no secret of this connection, though. Cassius, the old vaccinator who recruits Trafford into the Humanists, even mentions Nineteen Eighty-Four explicitly in one scene. But Elton approached his own dystopian novel as "an entertainment," telling the U.K.'s Independent when Blind Faith was published that "Orwell ... is truly one of the greatest writers in the English language, and I know damn well that I'm not."
This curious technique is reminiscent of Stephen Fry's The Stars' Tennis Balls (2000). Fry (also of Blackadder fame) wrote this modern retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo which, like Blind Faith, is a serviceable read in its own right, but hardly surpasses its more famous literary antecedent.
Ben Elton's Novel-Writing Style in Blind Faith
Elton's background as a scriptwriter means that characterizations in Blind Faith are sharply humorous, and the novel's dialogue is fluid and natural.
But he doesn't quite heed the novelist's adage, "Show, Don't Tell." Many times in Blind Faith, Ben Elton writes expository paragraphs that could easily have been left out without losing any important details. For instance, Trafford's thoughts are routinely laid out, as in this early scene before he turns away from the teachings of the Temple:
"He wanted his position clearly on the record. Everybody knew that Before the Flood it was fiction that had been the principle corrupter of men. Confessor Bailey reminded them of it week in, week out. Of that terrible time when society had been colonized by made-up people." (p. 59)
Exposition of this kind makes some scenes a little too obvious, especially in the book's final chapter. It's ironic that Elton's novel, with secrecy and anti-intellectualism among its themes, should be dumbed-down in this way. Blind Faith might have been more than a mere "entertainment" had its characterizations been more subtle, its prose better crafted to mirror its satirical moral.
Is Ben Elton's Blind Faith Something to Believe In?
While it is not startlingly original, Blind Faith is certainly timely and engaging. Its message that faith is opposed to thought gives the novel greater resonance than its attacks on consumer society. Unfortunately, though, Blind Faith is little more than a good read – it is a touch closer to the throwaway culture which it mocks than to the redemptive literature which its hero seeks out.
Cover of Blind Faith by Ben Elton (Detail)
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