Patrick Ness, More Than This

More Than This tells the story of 16-year-old Seth, who dies in the first chapter but wakes up alone in a different society in the second chapter. The town, although familiar to him, is abandoned, and everything is overgrown and shows signs of not having been inhabited for years. Gradually, Seth remembers that he used to live in the house he wakes up close to, and he has to try to figure out what is going on in this society. On one of his exploration trips, he is hunted by a figure called the Driver, who does not appear to be entirely human. As it turns out, the Driver is guarding a prison, and inside the grounds Seth finds large storage halls that contain thousands of human-sized boxes “[w]ith people inside. Asleep. Living their lives” (Ness, 2013, p. 263). The explanation

for Seth’s experiences and the strange container halls full of humans is that in this society sometime in the future, nature has been so damaged by humans that the government has encouraged people to enter into digital, virtual-reality lives instead of living in the real world. Only a few guards remain to watch over the bodies, which are sustained through a sophisticated system of nutrition and waste-disposal inside the boxes. As long as everyone is connected to the system, the government has complete control over them. However, because of a technical malfunction, Seth woke up in the real world when he died in the virtual reality. Eventually he also meets a teenage girl, Regine, and a young boy, Tomasz, who have experienced exactly what he did. Towards the end of the novel, Seth decides to free the people that are kept in the container halls, and he realizes that the only way to do this is by reconnecting himself with the system, trying to fight it from within. The novel therefore ends with Seth leaving Regine and Tomasz in the real world, and attempting to return to the virtual world.

In this long and complex novel, there are several important sub-plots in addition to the main storyline. It becomes clear that in the digital world, Seth had fallen in love and engaged in a secret relationship with another boy, Gudmund. This gay relationship was not looked on positively by Gudmund’s parents, and when his boyfriend was sent off to school in a different part of the country, Seth was in such despair that he attempted to commit suicide – and thus the readers realize that the death scene in the beginning of the novel was willed by Seth himself. Additionally, we find out that Seth’s younger brother, Owen, was abducted when the boys were young and left at home alone, and that his parents seemingly blame Seth for this. Seth’s discovery of what really happened to Owen, and his own part in the abduction, is an important turning point in the novel. Regine and Tomasz, who become Seth’s friends in the real world, also struggle with problems of their own. Regine died in the digital world because her stepfather pushed her down a flight of stairs, showing her to be a victim of child abuse. Tomasz was also killed in the digital world; he and his mom were trying to escape poverty in Eastern Europe and were killed by human traffickers, thus portraying the violence illegal immigrants are subjected to.

An interesting point to make regarding this novel is that although people are not allowed to venture out into their natural environment, More Than This can actually be

viewed as an ecological novel since nature recovers when humans are removed from the equation. Controlling and confining human bodies lead to the natural world as a whole thriving, which means that the dystopian organization of society as presented in this novel is not an entirely negative thing. As previously discussed, there are several YA dystopias that address environmental destruction – either as an imminent threat or as the aftermath of a disaster – and frequently, technology and consumerism are to blame for the environment’s breakdown (Ostry, 2013). In More Than This, though, advanced virtual reality technology is being used to remove human exploitation of the world and in turn save the environment. In terms of the issues discussed in section 4.2, therefore, Ness’s novel combines environmental and technological concerns with social organization. Additionally, Seth’s personal development is central to the plot, especially his realization of what his past, present, and future actually consist of. Because of the issues More Than This addresses, the novel may – just like Adlington’s and Bacigalupi’s novels – be used to meet the aims of both the subject curricula and the core curriculum. However, I would argue that Ness’s novel is perhaps not suitable for all types of upper secondary students. This book is much longer and more complex than the others, which means that it might be best suited for the students taking the elective English courses in Vg2 and Vg3 general studies. As this novel addresses several aims of the core curriculum, I still think that it is worth reading in school. The complex relationship between humans, nature, and technology is one reason, another is the moral and ethical complexities in the life of the protagonist.