Termush (Faber Editions): 'A classic―stunning, dangerous, darkly beautiful' (Jeff VanderMeer)

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It’s a series that puts the spotlight on rediscovered gems from Faber’s archive and beyond, resurrecting radical literary voices who speak to our present. The furniture in my room was stored for safety in the cellar, even the mirror, the bookshelves and the prints on the wall. Everything was brought up and the room was arranged before I moved in. One of the guests suggested that the reconnaissance men’s reports should be transmitted direct via the hotel’s loudspeaker system, and even though the suggestion was meant seriously, it aroused considerable merriment and shaking of heads. Of course the idea was in itself melodramatic, but it is important that guests should suggest alternatives that can be discussed.

I am so in love with this writing style, I can’t even describe it, it’s so poetic and stunning. The story and everything about this was captivating and perfect I adored it! A few years ago, Holm’s vision of life after a nuclear holocaust may have seemed dated. It is less so now, when the use of nuclear weapons is again a realistic possibility. In Termush, however, nuclear conflagration is a metaphor for a subtler change. The true theme is not the prospect of a mass dying-off, but an inner mutation that is already under way. The world has been decimated by a nuclear explosion. A community lives in a remote hotel called Termush, a safe house from radiation. All of the guests applied and paid money to stay at the hotel in light of impending apocalypse. Aka - a book the super wealthy all ought to read if they think they can shelter themselves from a global catastrophe. Ella, Faber’s resident mole and heritage editor, wanted to position this book as a ‘cult classic’. She provided some enticing comp titles and keywords to get the ball rolling: ‘eerie, prophetic, minimalist, poetic, dreamlike, uncanny, alienated, existential’ – what more could you want!?

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Originally published by Faber in 1967, welcome to a luxury hotel at the end of the world in this post-apocalyptic dystopian novella. With a new foreword by Jeff VanderMeer, The faith persists that Western societies can avoid the anarchy advancing across much of the planet. Progressive rationalism, neoliberalism and eco-utopianism are branches of fantastic fiction, which serve to distract us from the daily corrosion. In contrast, Termush is a testament to realism, a travel guide to the world in which we are learning to live. The wealthy guests are survivors who reserved their rooms long before the disaster. But despite weathering a nuclear apocalypse, their problems are only just beginning – this is the hotel at the end of the world.

Like the “gigantic lions and tigers in stone, lying with their limbs curled” in the statue garden, N experienced an ossification of self (60). N speaks more and more of “our” experiences rather than their own (97). Rather than individual desires, Termush’s guests act more and more as a unit, a unit motivated by fear. The inhabitants of Termush are but stone relics of the past, transfixed in place. Their last performance of agency only postpones the inevitable. Did we believe that we would find a wooden table transformed into spongy pulp, the surface of a mirror into impalpable phosphorescent light? Did we imagine that the door-handle would crumble beneath our touch, or the glass window-panes collapse into a heap of burning silica, that cloth would become as rigid as steel plates and a bunch of fruit would splinter in our hands like china? Did we expect that the molecules of the air would be as sharp as crystals and that our own skin would turn into something dark and glazed, nothing to do with ourselves at all?The end of the world in Termush comes by nuclear Armageddon, and if the fear of nuclear apocalypse has been superseded today by fears about climate change and pandemics, Holm’s vision of a world transfigured by an invisible poison is surprisingly applicable here too. Much of the book is given over to surreal descriptions, as the narrator imagines the invisible contagion that could kill him without him even knowing until it’s too late. We did not envisage quite such a ruthless change in our environment. But one of the reasons for our feelings of weakness may be that things have retained their outward appearance, now that the disaster has happened. Without knowing it, we put our faith in the disaster; we thought our panic would be justified if we had to use symbols as violent as those our imagination needed earlier.

A fascinating and slightly disturbing novella about a group of wealthy guests sheltering from a nuclear disaster in a well equipped hotel (with underground bunker) Introduced by Jeff VanderMeer, welcome to a luxury hotel at the end of the world in this post-apocalyptic 1967 dystopia ...

Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from Bookshop.org, who support independent bookshops After more research into Faber’s publishing archives, I learned that Termush was a Danish novella first published by Gyldendal in 1967 by an author called Sven Holm – a prize-winning novelist who largely wrote realist fiction and essays, so Termush was a beguiling outlier in his oeuvre. Radiation levels produce regular warnings, and the residents are advised not to leave the grounds. The management of Termush shields the worst of what has happened in the rest of the world from the residents but, gradually, the real-life global disaster begins to creep into their lives. The arrival of a bedraggled stranger in poor condition from a nearby village begins to unsettle the residents as it compromises their future: 'we bought the commodity called survival'. The guest is offered a place and treated for malnutrition, thus stirring further cynicism: 'And suddenly the stranger appears and expects to share in our protection'.

Introduced by Jeff VanderMeer, welcome to a luxury hotel at the end of the world in this post-apocalyptic 1967 dystopia … I have discussed this with my neighbours and some of the other guests here in the hotel and they do not disagree with me, even if they feel that I attach too much importance to one small incident. Faber & Faber was founded nearly a century ago, in 1929. Read about our long publishing history in a decade-by-decade account. N, and his fellow occupants, grapple with a disjointed experience. The hotel reproduces the world as if nothing has occurred–“We had unconsciously thought in terms of something more drastic, a radical transformation, with every single object showing traces of what had occurred, the furniture and the walls changing character and the view outside our window revealing a totally different world” (7). But even Termush isn’t spared from the tangible external signs of the apocalypse as survivors wander in from the surrounding towns, often on verge of death, and appear at the door.I absolutely fell in love with the more political and moral elements of this story, and found it really highlights the journey of self-discovery once everything you thought you knew about yourself is stripped away from you. It is in fact the scientific principle of observation and can thus easily be applied to the rest of existence. I wanted above all to avoid over-simplification, and individual action appeared to be a form of simplification.”