A deeply allegorical and powerfully thought-provoking dystopian must-read.
Debut author Bender offers an Orwellian thriller about an amnesiac’s struggle to understand his place in a fascistic country.
The embattled nation in Bender’s novel has recently created the Department of Purity, a new branch of government dedicated to “national unity and security.” When the protagonist, who calls himself “Seven,” wakes up in a forest with no memory of his life, he makes his way into the capital city and soon finds himself immersed in a society where political propaganda plays a monumental role in daily existence. Residents are either called “Patriots” or “Heretics,” and the president’s primary goal is to rid the country of supposed revolutionaries bent on ruining the unity of the general public: “a great cleansing has begun.” Seven goes on to befriend a young man named Adrian at a youth hostel who helps him get a job and find a sense of stability in his largely blank existence. But after Adrian is senselessly murdered by an Elite Guard and Seven kills the government henchman, he turns to the Underground for safety and support—and learns firsthand just how insidiously tyrannical the government has truly become. Fueled by a brilliantly nebulous backdrop, this briskly paced, action-packed novel is undeniably a page-turner of the highest order. Also, many readers will draw immediate comparisons between the Department of Purity and the real-life passage of the USA PATRIOT Act after 9/11. The only criticism of the book comes in its depiction of women; Seven refers to them as “broads” and unapologetically objectifies them throughout. Such sexism notwithstanding, the novel engagingly explores themes such as invasive governmental surveillance and mind control, which makes for a highly entertaining and enlightening reading experience.
A deeply allegorical and powerfully thought-provoking dystopian must-read.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4348-3274-0
Page Count: 194
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
A quiet tale that considers the way small, human connections can disrupt the callous powers of authority.
A novelist tries to adapt to her ever changing reality as her world slowly disappears.
Renowned Japanese author Ogawa (Revenge, 2013, etc.) opens her latest novel with what at first sounds like a sinister fairy tale told by a nameless mother to a nameless daughter: “Long ago, before you were born, there were many more things here…transparent things, fragrant things…fluttery ones, bright ones….It’s a shame that the people who live here haven’t been able to hold such marvelous things in their hearts and minds, but that’s just the way it is on this island.” But rather than a twisted bedtime story, this depiction captures the realities of life on the narrator's unnamed island. The small population awakens some mornings with all knowledge of objects as mundane as stamps, valuable as emeralds, omnipresent as birds, or delightful as roses missing from their minds. They then proceed to discard all physical traces of the idea that has disappeared—often burning the lifeless ones and releasing the natural ones to the elements. The authoritarian Memory Police oversee this process of loss and elimination. Viewing “anything that fails to vanish when they say it should [as] inconceivable,” they drop into homes for inspections, seizing objects and rounding up anyone who refuses—or is simply unable—to follow the rules. Although, at the outset, the plot feels quite Orwellian, Ogawa employs a quiet, poetic prose to capture the diverse (and often unexpected) emotions of the people left behind rather than of those tormented and imprisoned by brutal authorities. Small acts of rebellion—as modest as a birthday party—do not come out of a commitment to a greater cause but instead originate from her characters’ kinship with one another. Technical details about the disappearances remain intentionally vague. The author instead stays close to her protagonist’s emotions and the disorientation she and her neighbors struggle with each day. Passages from the narrator’s developing novel also offer fascinating glimpses into the way the changing world affects her unconscious mind.
A quiet tale that considers the way small, human connections can disrupt the callous powers of authority.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-87060-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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