The Elements Analysis: Interconnected Stories of Suffering
Young Freya is visiting her distracted mother in Cornwall when she encounters 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than knowing a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that come after, they violate her, then bury her alive, a mix of unease and irritation flitting across their faces as they ultimately free her from her makeshift coffin.
This could have served as the disturbing focal point of a novel, but it's just one of numerous horrific events in The Elements, which collects four short novels – published separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters confront past trauma and try to discover peace in the present moment.
Controversial Context and Subject Exploration
The book's issuance has been overshadowed by the addition of Earth, the second novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, the majority other candidates withdrew in dissent at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been cancelled.
Discussion of LGBTQ+ matters is not present from The Elements, although the author addresses plenty of major issues. Homophobia, the influence of mainstream and online outlets, caregiver abandonment and assault are all examined.
Four Stories of Suffering
- In Water, a sorrowful woman named Willow relocates to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for awful crimes.
- In Earth, Evan is a footballer on court case as an accessory to rape.
- In Fire, the adult Freya juggles retaliation with her work as a surgeon.
- In Air, a parent journeys to a funeral with his adolescent son, and considers how much to disclose about his family's background.
Trauma is accumulated upon pain as damaged survivors seem fated to bump into each other continuously for all time
Interconnected Stories
Relationships abound. We first meet Evan as a boy trying to flee the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who shows up again in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Secondary characters from one story resurface in houses, pubs or legal settings in another.
These storylines may sound tangled, but the author knows how to drive a narrative – his previous successful Holocaust drama has sold millions, and he has been converted into dozens languages. His businesslike prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "ultimately, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to experiment with fire"; "the initial action I do when I reach the island is change my name".
Character Development and Storytelling Strength
Characters are sketched in succinct, powerful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the disturbed pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes resonate with sad power or perceptive humour: a boy is hit by his father after wetting himself at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade insults over cups of weak tea.
The author's ability of bringing you fully into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an previous story a genuine thrill, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is dulling, and at times nearly comic: trauma is piled on trauma, chance on accident in a dark farce in which damaged survivors seem doomed to meet each other continuously for eternity.
Conceptual Depth and Final Evaluation
If this sounds different from life and more like limbo, that is aspect of the author's point. These hurt people are weighed down by the crimes they have experienced, stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that churn and plunge and may in turn harm others. The author has talked about the effect of his own experiences of harm and he portrays with understanding the way his cast navigate this perilous landscape, extending for remedies – isolation, frigid water immersion, resolution or refreshing honesty – that might bring illumination.
The book's "fundamental" structure isn't terribly informative, while the quick pace means the exploration of social issues or social media is primarily shallow. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a completely accessible, victim-focused chronicle: a welcome response to the usual obsession on detectives and offenders. The author demonstrates how suffering can affect lives and generations, and how time and compassion can soften its echoes.
