Oh God, the Sun Goes

Growing up in Britain it can seem during certain times of the year that the sun has disappeared, but we all know it is still there, just behind many rain clouds in the few daylight hours of the winter. It would be a hugely different thing if the sun did disappear, for one, life on the planet would soon be over. In David Connor’s Oh God, the Sun Goes, the protagonist does not seem too worried about the missing Sun, yes, he wants to find it, but in this America, life is going on, just in shades of grey. What is happening? Can other people see that the Sun has disappeared, or it all in our hero’s mind? 

People are still going to work, children are at school, but the traveller wants to know why the Sun is no longer in the sky. There is a hole where it used to be, a grey over the Earth. The traveller heard a rumour that the Sun can be found in the American Southwest in places like Pheonix or Sun City. The Sun may be hidden much deeper than in the South of America, it may just be hidden in the mind of the man. 

Oh God, feels like an avant-garde, experimental book. It has a story that suggests dystopian science fiction, but if the Sun really disappeared, we would all be dead quickly. It is not that book, it is the story of a man looking for something, the Sun may not be missing from without, but from within. It has a dreamy style, a Kerouac road story, with noir tones and a sense of the unreal. Both the reader and the protagonist do not always know what is happening. We are on a journey of discovery that will go to many strange places. 

The story as it is, is about the Traveller finding new places that the Sun may be and then talking to some of the characters there. These people are often eccentric and speak in riddles, but there is a meaning to what they say. As you progress in the book you start to realise that this is a story all about the main character and where they are in life. A book of metaphors. 

In keeping with the story, the structure of the book is also different, short chapters that lead from one vignette to the other. We start in the real world and then into the mind. In many places these two blend into each other. It takes an observant reader to understand what is going on. I have to say that I had some sense of what was happening, but I think a lot of the deeper meaning hidden within the book was lost on me. Instead, I read it as a dreamy, odd tale. I enjoyed the Americana style of world that Connor created, a sense of lost America that even someone from this side of the pond can recognise.  

Is Oh God a book for everyone? No, it is also not a book that would appeal especially to a genre fan. Instead, this is a book for a reader who enjoys a challenge, something that will make them stop a few times and ponder what is happening. It is the type of book that ten people could read and all find something different from it. Was the Sun missing? Does it even matter if it was? An eccentric and dreamlike novel for fans of general fiction.