The Elements Analysis: Interconnected Stories of Pain

Twelve-year-old Freya is visiting her distracted mother in Cornwall when she meets 14-year-old twins. "Nothing better than being aware of a secret," they advise her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the weeks that come after, they violate her, then inter her while living, blend of anxiety and annoyance flitting across their faces as they ultimately liberate her from her temporary coffin.

This could have served as the shocking focal point of a novel, but it's only one of numerous awful events in The Elements, which assembles four short novels – issued separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters negotiate historical pain and try to find peace in the present moment.

Controversial Context and Subject Exploration

The book's release has been overshadowed by the addition of Earth, the subsequent novella, on the longlist for a prominent LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, nearly all other nominees withdrew in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been called off.

Discussion of gender identity issues is absent from The Elements, although the author touches on plenty of major issues. Anti-gay prejudice, the impact of conventional and digital platforms, family disregard and assault are all examined.

Multiple Narratives of Trauma

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow transfers to a remote Irish island after her husband is jailed for horrific crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a soccer player on court case as an participant to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya balances revenge with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a parent travels to a memorial service with his teenage son, and wonders how much to disclose about his family's background.

Trauma is layered with pain as hurt survivors seem destined to encounter each other continuously for forever

Interconnected Accounts

Links abound. We initially encounter Evan as a boy trying to escape the island of Water. His trial's panel contains the Freya who reappears in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one story return in homes, pubs or legal settings in another.

These narrative elements may sound complex, but the author understands how to propel a narrative – his earlier acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been converted into many languages. His straightforward prose bristles with suspenseful hooks: "in the end, a doctor in the burns unit should be wiser than to toy with fire"; "the initial action I do when I come to the island is alter my name".

Character Development and Narrative Strength

Characters are portrayed in brief, impactful lines: the caring Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at conflict with her mother. Some scenes ring with melancholy power or perceptive humour: a boy is hit by his father after urinating at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour swap insults over cups of diluted tea.

The author's ability of bringing you completely into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an previous story a authentic thrill, for the first few times at least. Yet the cumulative effect of it all is dulling, and at times nearly comic: pain is layered with suffering, accident on chance in a bleak farce in which hurt survivors seem doomed to encounter each other continuously for all time.

Thematic Depth and Concluding Assessment

If this sounds not exactly life and resembling limbo, that is element of the author's point. These damaged people are weighed down by the crimes they have endured, stuck in cycles of thought and behavior that stir and descend and may in turn damage others. The author has spoken about the impact of his individual experiences of harm and he describes with sympathy the way his ensemble negotiate this perilous landscape, reaching out for remedies – isolation, frigid water immersion, forgiveness or invigorating honesty – that might provide clarity.

The book's "basic" structure isn't particularly educational, while the quick pace means the examination of sexual politics or online networks is mostly surface-level. But while The Elements is a defective work, it's also a completely accessible, victim-focused epic: a valued rebuttal to the common fixation on authorities and perpetrators. The author demonstrates how pain can run through lives and generations, and how years and tenderness can silence its echoes.