“Termush” – Sven Holm (translated from Danish by Sylvia Clayton)

Thanks to @fsgbooks and @netgalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

The day we came up from the shelters four people were found dead on the steps of the hotel.

Termush is a luxury resort at the end of the world, a haven for the wealthy. Should apocalypse arise, those with the money and the foresight can find provisions, uncontaminated water and security against anyone who might wish to enter. Our narrator makes clear that such a catastrophe has happened, and that he is one of the few with access to safety.

The book starts at some unknown point after some unknown disaster, with the guests in the hotel seemingly oblivious and uncaring to the world outside. The hotel sends out guests to try to find other inhabited or inhabitable areas, their findings censored, but the guests seem not to care so long as their lives continue unabated.

The narrator begins to rebel against this attitude, this “game of make-believe that nothing had happened”, not least when the fragile bubble of life in Termush starts to be threatened. Survivors appear looking for aid and charity, causing a ruckus amongst the guests who feel the unpaying should not receive ‘services’. It vividly creates this divide between haves and have-nots, even when the commentary dissolves into the almost surreal and completely ambiguous.

I REALLY wanted to love this, as it’s very much my type of book, but something didn’t stick. I felt myself comparing it to something like J.G. Ballard’s ‘High Rise’ or Bae-Myung-hoon’s ‘Tower’ in its exploration of power and class dynamics, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as either. I think I felt it was keeping me at arm’s length, or at least there was some cold distance, so the effect wasn’t as great as perhaps it could have been. Far from a bad book, and I see why others have been drawn to it, but something missed for me.

This strange, speculative story takes place immediately after a nuclear disaster where a group of wealthy people have pre-paid to stay in safety at a hotel. The narrator and the other guests become increasingly disconnected from the world outside the hotel as they face censorship, an increasing fear of outsiders, and their inability to adjust psychologically to what has happened. It's a quick and unsettling read told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First published in Denmark in 1967; published in translation by Faber & Faber in the UK in 1969; published by ‎Farar, Straus & Giroux (FSG Originals) on January 9, 2024

Termush was “rediscovered” by Faber editors who dug through the Faber vaults to find forgotten novels that might deserve to be regarded as classics. Faber released it in the UK in 2023 as part of its “Faber editions” series.

Termush is the name of a remote hotel on an unidentified ocean. The narrator paid a substantial sum for a guaranteed spot in the hotel as a shelter from catastrophe. His lodging includes access to underground shelters, stored provisions, uncontaminated water, and security against outsiders. The hotel’s luxury yacht is berthed nearby, providing egress if life in the hotel becomes unsustainable.

We aren’t given the details, but a disaster (presumably a nuclear war) gave the wealthy guests reason to check into the hotel. The guests are finally free to venture outside, subject to radiation warnings that send them scurrying back to the shelters. There is little to see; vegetation has gone up in flames, birds are dying.

The novel is intentionally surreal in its depiction of hotel guests as largely undisturbed by disasters that don’t immediately affect them. Perhaps the world outside their walls has nearly come to an end, but they are still able to order dinner from a full menu. The guests display little curiosity about the world’s fate. Occasionally returning to underground shelters when the wind brings too much radiation to the hotel grounds is inconvenient, but most guests are content to follow the directions of hotel management.

The hotel staff is sending out reconnaissance parties to look for inhabitable areas, but their radioed reports are censored before reaching the guests. The narrator opposes the censorship; he wants to know what is left of the world. Management isn’t sure the guests can handle the truth. Most guests seem to feel the same way. If the news is bleak, they don’t want to know.

The narrator understands when a guest who can no longer tolerate “this closed compartment cut off from the world” flees from “the game of make-believe that nothing had happened.” Eventually, a few more follow the path of freedom, leading hotel management to act more like jailers than servants. Perhaps an insurrection is coming.

When survivors appear in search of food and medical care, the hotel guests consider whether it is appropriate to be charitable. The survivors come bearing news of the outside world, which is a good thing, but the outsiders didn’t pay a fee for the hotel’s protection, as did the guests. The guests quickly vote on rules that allow a few survivors at a time to enter the hotel for food and water, but only for one night. This leads to a discussion about the perils of democratic decision-making.

Nor do some guests want their reconnaissance teams to be helping survivors. That’s not the job they’re paid to do, after all (payment presumably meaning continued access to the hotel and its resources), so most guests feel the team members should set their humanity aside and do what they’re told. Termush illustrates the divide between ruling class and working class with more flair than Marx.

The narrator develops an intimate friendship with a woman named Maria, but she is an enigma. She never seems to speak, communicating by expressions that convey her emotions. “She keeps close to me, follows me almost stride for stride, as if this were an order.” I was left wondering whether Maria actually exists.

Much of the time, the narrator seems to be in the dark about the world he now inhabits. Hotel management attributes a guard’s injured arm to being “careless with a hand grenade.” Why does hotel security have hand grenades and what did the careless guard intend to do with his? They later morph from “security” to “soldiers” in ways and for reasons that the narrator does not explain. Eventually, the hotel seems to be under siege, but by whom? The narrator refers to “the strangers” and “our adversaries,” later designating them as “the enemy,” but seems to have no clue about their identity. Nor does he seem to care. The narrator is so detached, so free from opinions, that the story’s moral questions are left unfiltered. Should the hotel help outsiders? Should hotel “soldiers” kill them? Readers are free to make of these issues what they will.

The story’s surreal atmosphere is illustrated by the final sentence: “Outside the sea is still; there is no darkness and no light.” Without darkness or light, what kind of reality exists? The novel’s ambiguities might explain why the Faber editors regarded Termush as a potential classic. The story could be set in any country, in any time. While the guests are sheltering against drifting clouds of radiation, any other apocalyptic event could as easily be substituted. The story resonates because of its focus on group responses to crisis and how those responses may be a function of social class.

RECOMMENDED

A post nuclear disaster novella from 1967. Termush is a hotel on the coast where rich people have paid big money to survive just such an event. There’s radiation shelters, security, healthcare, posh food etc. but it can’t last. The outside world (other survivors) eventually wants in and the doctor and some others want to help them. Management and many of the guests want security to take care of it. The unnamed narrator(one of the guests) reveals the unsettling fear that the ‘guests’ are starting to feel through weird dreams and other psychological reactions.
I always find it amazing that the rich think their money will mean something in a post apocalyptic world and why is their survival so important when they don’t care about others surviving?
I found this a good read. It’s not as bleak as something like The Road but there is nothing hopeful here either.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me access to an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Termush is a piece of science fiction history that acts as a window into the fears of a different generation. Termush is a vacation resort for the apocalypse that caters to the needs of the wealthy in the case of nuclear disaster.

Our narrator for the story is a wealthy professor who chronicles his day to day life after the bombs have dropped. We get an intimate picture of the growing disconnect between the wealthy guests and the dire situation of the world around them. The narrator himself goes into detail discussing how his own writing and interactions seem stuck in an age that was obliterated, but he can't seem to bring himself to accept the change. The story feels almost as though Hemingway were recounting the early years of Mad Max.

There is a strong moral and social commentary that arises throughout the book as well as discussion of the limits of the human psyche. This is a very dark story as well so beware CW for Self Harm and Sexual Assault. There are a number of descriptions of the damage to people and animals from nuclear fallout. This is a very gritty book and there are no clear protagonists. Our narrator recognizes that they could be doing more for the people, and acts to temper less altruistic tendencies of other guests. However, he does so without having to sacrifice much of his own comfort. Termush, is ultimately a spotlight on some of the darkest tendencies of human nature.

Termush is as much a commentary of the world we live in as it is a piece of sci-fi history. It's definitely an interesting read if you're in the mood for something entirely different from the modern post-apocalyptic trends.

I’m not sure what drew me to this little book. The mid-century sci-fi cover, maybe? Or that it’s a rediscovered Scandi classic? Possibly—probably—it’s the fact that it reads like a pandemic novel, and the pandemic is still so recent in memory. Anyway, what’s made this group of people withdraw into isolation in a coastal hotel is not plague or disease, but a(n implied nuclear) disaster.

What the novel tackles is not really the disaster, but the moral implications of being a survivor with money, one who can make plans to retreat into a bunker (see tech billionaires, New Zealand). What happens when the horde is at the gate, seeking help? What are the dynamics between those who may feel compassion, and those who will not?

What my mind went to almost immediately was that this was like a Zombie narrative, and the implications of that Western societal obsession: Could the horde at the gates be the undifferentiated mass of the Other? The horror of migrants at the border, perhaps? That made the philosophical exploration at the centre of Termush much more interesting to me, even if the narrative got pretty bland. In some ways, then, this novel shows its age, but is a deserved classic in its treatment of timeless issues.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux/FSG Originals and to NetGalley for access.

Very interesting take on end of the world politics. Pretty slow and at times may have suffered from being translated, but very pertinent for the times.

I gobbled this novella up. TERMUSH tells the story of a fancy resort that becomes a kind of refuge for the end of the world. When I learned it was written in the 60s, I nearly couldn't believe it. The story feels timeless, almost, though uncannily prescient too. The prose was hypnotic. I loved every word of this gem. Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley.

We live in a world where the separation between the most privileged among us is becoming a chasm—a subject that this book explores with urgency. This short but thought provoking book explores many important moral questions: What responsibilities do we have to our fellow human beings? To what extend should we reserve resources for our future use when others need them desperately now? What stories do we tell ourselves to satiate our guilt and excuse our own selfishness? To what extent is it selfish to deny others basic needs when doing so might endanger our own way of life? How do communities form that perpetuate and even celebrate immoral behavior?

As a teacher of world literature, I’m always looking for works in translation that relate to issues that students care about, particularly works that speak to current issues facing our world today. This book was a high-interest and gripping moral tale that feels oddly contemporary.

I loved this book! It was so interesting to see this story play out about how the rich pay for membership into a protective place to keep them safe when things get bad in the world. Their thoughts don't seem to go beyond that. How will they feel when others request hope? How will they mentally cope with the rules required to keep them safe? What autonomy do they have over their body and their choices when living in community? So many great discussions could take place as a result of this book.

a short novella set in the future after a big nuclear apocalypse where wealthy residents at a hotel seek refuge as the world around them ends, and it quickly becomes clear that the residents can't protect themselves from the radiation that threatens their lives, regardless of their wealth or social status. an interesting critique from the 1960s of what comes after the end of the world, but found the prose to be a bit too sparse for my taste.

Didn't realize this had been published before! But it read like a modern day book which I really enjoyed. I am always a fan of dystopian novels, so this one was a short and exciting read.

I’m a fan of the southern reach trilogy and found the premise intriguing, but didn’t find this to be a compelling read for me.