“Sometimes darkness fell in the middle of the day. The city of Ember was old, and everything in it, including the power lines, was in need of repair. So now and then the lights would flicker and go out. These were terrible moments for the people of Ember. As they came to a halt in the middle of the street or stood stock-still in their houses, afraid to move in the utter blackness, they were reminded of something they preferred not to think about: that someday the lights of the city might go out and never come back on.”
Out of all the young adult literature I have read recently, The City of Ember was my least favorite. After seeing the movie, which follows the book closely, the whole story is a rather anti-climatic experience. Oh, certainly there are a few differences (for example, the time spent in the book talking about the main character Lina’s hobby of drawing), but most of them are minor. This led to there being no real surprises for me in the book, while lacking the kind of depth of character, language, and theme that could have replaced the suspense of experiencing a new plot. Nevertheless, the story is a lot of fun, the language if not mind-blowingly original is still decent enough writing, and the idea is a generally original take on science fiction.
A great tragedy has struck the earth so that scientists known as the enigmatic builders created a city underground to save the human race. However, this solution was meant to be only temporary; the instructions for evacuation procedures have been lost over time. The time to evacuate has long expired. The City of Ember is falling apart. Desperation spreads among the populace over the dearth of food and supplies, the black-outs grow more frequent, and everyone fears that the power may soon fail for good, leaving the city in permenant darkness. The corrupt politicians have no answers, hording prized goods in secret and growing fat on the fruits of their theft.
Lina and Doon, two childhood friends, understand the problems facing their city better than most adults. Doon wants to do everything in his power to find a way to save the city. When Lina finds a message that may have been written by the builders, she teams up with Doon to find a way to escape the City of Ember and save its residents from impending doom, even as the government works to stop them.
The story does a nice job capturing the corrupt politician, that most unholy of characters who follows human beings across different times, lands, and cultures, even into the very heart of the earth itself. It is also interesting to note that the troubles of the people above the earth parallels the city’s current troubles. Human beings build Ember as a way of surviving hard times, the fear of ultimate destruction at the hands of nuclear war, while the residents of Ember who overstay their welcome in the temporary city also fear that the end will soon arrive with the failing of the lights: we briefly hear the fears of a civilization on the brink of destruction in the beginning–presumably our own–only to return two hundred years later to find the solution to that problem transformed into a new civilization on the brink of destruction for different reasons. It is a stark reminder of how quickly civilizations can come and go, implying that the human race must continually strive for progress in order to survive, a testament reflected in the much stronger theme of Lina and Doon’s story itself as two individuals struggling against society to stake new ground that will lead to their survival. The story makes clear that Lina and Doon are to be admired because they do no sink into corruption as a response to impending doom like the mayor or Lina’s friend Lizzie or passively waiting for the government to fix the problems like most of the other residents in the city, but rather they take initiative to finding the solution to the city’s problem themselves. DuPrau demonstrates some intelligent structuring of her plot and themes, each complementing the other, making up for the fact that she is not exactly an amazing wordsmith (though, a servicable one).
The real magic, however, is in the world-building itself. A city of light in a world of perpetual darkness plays on our childhood fears and reminds us how much we take the sun for granted. A reader cannot help shivering at the thought of being left without light in the middle of the earth to rot away in the dark; the consequences to the citizens is genuinely frightening. The deeper charm of the story relies in sharing the naivette of the citizens of Ember, who do not understand the principles of electricity or photosynthesis, but know that these things work in their everyday lives. The culture fascinates with its adaptations to the limitations: recipes for canned foods (no protein from meat), vitamins as daily supplements, jobs picked randomly out of a hat based off the city’s needs, red-coated messengers who serve as the city’s primary form of communication. We even have a religion that worships the builders of the City of Embers; they sing hymns, dance, and believe that soon the builders will return to take them away from Ember and that the blackouts are merely a sign of their coming. There are so many nice and convincing touches to this world that you’re instantly drawn into the story. Most importantly we have both a male and female protagonist with which the reader can identify.
I haven’t read the book, but I did not like the movie.
The problem with the story is it’s plot, particularly the lack of focus, and lack of a sustained constant menace. First the problem is the girl dealing with life, a coming of age tale where she meets a boy and gets a job. Then the story shifts over to being about the decay of civilization as embodied by the blackouts and food shortages. After that, the conflict is turned up with a distinct villain as the Mayor and his henchmen try to capture the girl and her boyfriend. But he’s not a believable antagonist either since he gives up the chase after about two minutes and forgets about her. From there to the end it’s just a predictable children save the world puzzle/adventure story.
Compare it to The Goonies. In that story, you have children wrestling with adolescent angst over sexuality, poverty, and the break up of the family. That’s the background. Then you have the dual carrot and stick plot catalysts driving the characters forward in pursuit of treasure, and fleeing from a gang of robbers. Throughout the story the characters are constantly incentivised by these two forces: greed and fear. The development is regular and rapid. It’s like a squeezed tube of toothpaste. Characters move from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. They meet up with the robbers at the same point in the tale as they do with the treasure and a climax emerges, with a resolution to both forces. It’s elegant when compared to City of Ember’s plot which is something happens, something happens, then something else happens.
::shrugs:: I don’t remember the movie’s plot being that bad. I think all of those different focuses that you described tie together into one mostly coherent plot.
When Doon and Lina switch jobs at the beginning it is because Doon understands that Ember is falling apart and he wants to help fix it. Lina I would agree has her head up in the clouds, but part of her coming-of-age is deciding to take action rather than living life in ignorance and looking the other way at her world’s problems. So the decay of civilization brings them closer together and is the backdrop of her coming-of-age plot. Lina and Doon get closer because they are trying to solve the puzzle that will save civilization because it is decaying (the fact that she is trying to find a solution is her coming-of-age). The mayor becomes the villian because of what they discover as part of solving that puzzle, etc.
I don’t remember feeling at all like it lacked focus. All of those plot points rely on the fact that Lina and Doon live in a civilization that is on the verge of apocalypse and need to do something about it. Everything else is just the snag and bumps they must overcome to succeed in solving their main conflict.