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A Review of Wool: Proper Gauge by Hugh Howey
Hugh Howey continues building the
Silo world of Wool in Proper Gauge. We left Sheriff Holston
dead with his secret after his “cleaning” of the outside camera lenses in Wool. In Proper Gauge, it is the next day. A day when revelers celebrate the
release of tension about who will do the next “cleaning.” They are grateful
they didn’t have to clean the lenses, now they can express that joy. While most
of the population in the silo are celebrating, Mayor Jahns and Deputy Marnes
are weighted down with grief over the loss of their friend and sheriff,
Holston. They also face the grueling task of finding the right person to fill
the empty sheriff’s position. This choice is of supreme importance to the mayor,
because “Whoever we decide will probably be here long after we’re gone.” Mayor
Jahns knows that choosing the right person for sheriff is as important as
choosing the right needle for her knitting project. The proper gauge in needles
or in people is, not only important, but “critical.”
Deputy Marnes offers three
possible candidates for the job, but only recommends one, Juliette Nichols. Juliette,
or Jules, was born into a family health practitioners, but she chose a
different path. She is content as Mechanical worker in the lowest levels of the
silo, which is 144 floors deep, and will probably refuse the position. Mayor
Jahns wants to visit these lower levels to “get us a proper gauge of this
Juliette” and take time for silent mourning. Both Jahns and Marnes are older
people, so the journey is a grueling trek down. Plus they are going against the
flow of travelers who are going to the first floor to celebrate the cleaning.
As they travel into the bowels of
the silo in search of a new sheriff, the people they pass look to Mayor Jahns
with eyes crying, “Keep us going, … Make it so my kids live as long as me.
Don’t let it unravel, not just yet.” But Jahns knows it “only [takes] one snip
for it all to unravel.” This is a heroic quest to save their people for one
more generation and we begin to see the possible threads that might unravel in
a segregated society divided by floors. “The silo was mathematically divided
into three sections of forty-eight floors each…” with the administrators and
white collar workers live on the upper floors of the silo. The workers who keep
the silo functional (farmers, electricians, mechanics) are on the lower levels.
And smack in the middle is IT with Bernard Holland, whom we instantly dislike, Head
of IT. We learn that it’s customary for the Head of IT to approve the Mayor’s
choice for sheriff.
The quest for a sheriff also
turns into a personal quest for unfulfilled love between our two travelers. It
is chance to build on a relationship they both chose to keep professional for
years and so, “out of nothing comes something,” has multiple meanings to the
plot. But not everything that comes out of this trip is beneficial and the hitches
in the overall plot of the whole Wool
series becomes more complex.
I still have to give this novella
kudos. It continues to keep us interested in the overall series even though it limits
the number of character we are exposed to. In this way, the characters are
developed into realistically people with pasts and hopes and dreams -even in
what we believe is a depressingly limited world. Each peripheral character from
one story becomes the main character in the next, so there is still continuity
in the storytelling. In fact, our entire knowledge of the silo world of Wool grows with each reading. The rich
imagery and smells carry through from the top levels to the “down deep” of the
silo, and so do the political struggles over power usage and supplies. It’s still
worthwhile, so I’m on to reading, the third book in Hugh Howey’s Wool Series: Casting Off.