The Elements Analysis: Linked Narratives of Suffering

Young Freya is visiting her self-absorbed mother in Cornwall when she comes across teenage twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "is having one of your own." In the days that ensue, they sexually assault her, then entomb her breathing, combination of nervousness and annoyance darting across their faces as they eventually free her from her improvised coffin.

This might have stood as the disturbing centrepiece of a novel, but it's just one of multiple awful events in The Elements, which assembles four novellas – issued individually between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront historical pain and try to achieve peace in the contemporary moment.

Disputed Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been marred by the inclusion of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other nominees pulled out in objection at the author's controversial views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Conversation of gender identity issues is missing from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of major issues. Homophobia, the influence of traditional and social media, family disregard and assault are all explored.

Multiple Stories of Pain

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow transfers to a remote Irish island after her husband is imprisoned for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the mature Freya balances revenge with her work as a surgeon.
• In Air, a father travels to a funeral with his teenage son, and considers how much to reveal about his family's history.

Trauma is accumulated upon suffering as wounded survivors seem fated to encounter each other again and again for forever

Linked Stories

Links abound. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, works with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one story resurface in cottages, taverns or judicial venues in another.

These plot threads may sound complex, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his prior popular Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been translated into dozens languages. His businesslike prose bristles with thriller-ish hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to toy with fire"; "the initial action I do when I arrive on the island is change my name".

Personality Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are drawn in brief, effective lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with tragic power or perceptive humour: a boy is struck by his father after having an accident at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade jabs over cups of diluted tea.

The author's talent of transporting you fully into each narrative gives the comeback of a character or plot strand from an previous story a genuine thrill, for the initial several times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is numbing, and at times almost comic: suffering is accumulated upon trauma, chance on accident in a dark farce in which hurt survivors seem destined to meet each other again and again for forever.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds different from life and closer to limbo, that is aspect of the author's point. These wounded people are burdened by the crimes they have suffered, trapped in patterns of thought and behavior that stir and plunge and may in turn damage others. The author has discussed about the influence of his individual experiences of mistreatment and he describes with compassion the way his ensemble traverse this risky landscape, striving for treatments – isolation, frigid water immersion, resolution or bracing honesty – that might let light in.

The book's "fundamental" structure isn't terribly educational, while the rapid pace means the discussion of gender dynamics or social media is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a thoroughly accessible, victim-focused epic: a appreciated rebuttal to the typical obsession on investigators and criminals. The author shows how suffering can permeate lives and generations, and how years and care can soften its echoes.