Divided Kingdom

Rupert Thomson

Bloomsbury

Otago Daily Times, March 4th 2005

Following in the tradition of the great dystopian visions of Orwell and Huxley, Divided Kingdom by Rupert Thomson (details a political experiment in social control.  Overnight the British population is divided into classes based on personality type and the country partitioned into four; the brutal and violent Yellow quarter for cholerics, the phlegmatic Blue Quarter (wet and dreary), the Green Quarter for melancholics, and the well-organised, peaceful Red phlegmatic Quarter.  Families are separated, children removed and assigned new names and parents in the appropriate Quarter, and communication between the different populations strictly prohibited.  The narrator, Thomas Parry, lives contentedly as a phlegmatic for 25 years, until he attends a diplomatic conference in the Blue Quarter.  While there a late-night visit to a mysterious “nightclub” reawakens lost childhood memories, and rather than return home, he escapes in an attempt to recover his stolen past.  Assisted by a variety of other social rebels, he travels through each of the quarters, finally joining the Whites-people who have lost the power of speech and, unclassified, are free to travel unmolested between Quarters.

As Thomas is exposed to each society, he comes to realise that there are aspects of each personality type in himself, and the novel leaves him at a moment of choice which may, or may not, be ambiguous. The concept is an interesting one, and competently written, but Divided Kingdom ultimately lacks the conviction and force of 1984 or A Brave New World.