You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Not So Out of This World

The word ‘dystopia’ brings to mind some of the most powerful and prescient works of English fiction: Brave New World, 1984, and The Handmaid’s Tale are just a few examples. I am drawn to these stories for their breadth of imagination, sharp satire, and dense gloominess.  The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson is the new dystopia in town. However, the world it describes is not so new – nor so very far away.

Set in North Korea, Johnson’s novel follows the story of an everyman (albeit a trapped in hyper-communist, despotic North Korean everyman) as he seeks his identity. The protagonist, Pak Jun Do, wants to connect with others, and in doing so to know himself. He struggles in this desire against a society where self-reliance, not connectedness, is esteemed.

At the center of this story is the question of trust. In Pak Jun Do’s world, the ‘story’ of the truth is constructed for one purpose only: to support and venerate the state and its leader. No other versions are permitted, on pain of death, or – unbelievably – worse than death. The book is not without beauty; there is a tender love story, and humour. The landscape is gray as ashes, but bursts of colour and hopefulness peek out.

If you are not familiar with the setting, this book will enlighten. Johnson describes a nation where there are perfectly groomed highways, but no cars; modern high-rise apartment buildings, but no electricity to light them after dark, and no news, music, movies, or books, except for those sanctioned by the ‘Dear Leader’, Kim Jong Il (or smuggled at extreme risk). The author had little need to invent. One symbol I felt must surely be pure imaginative hubris on the part of the author is the KIMJUNGILIA, a species of begonia specifically bred to honour Kim Jung Il. It blooms on his birthday. Absurd, but very real details like this punctuate the book.

           

Read The Orphan Master’s Son because it is an engaging story, hauntingly told, but also to experience North Korea, a dystopia in our midst.

For some excellent photos that capture the feeling of the novel, I encourage you to visit this site:

http://www.testroete.com/northkorea.html

I don’t know how I feel about commercials for books, but here’s a link to the ‘book trailer’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx0eAfegTjg

Mid-winter Reading? Dubious.

Currently Reading (and deeply disturbed by) The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus.

Truthfully, I had to take a break from this book and read the first four chapters of A Passage to India just to just to feel like myself again. The Flame Alphabet begins with a mother and father, Claire and Samuel, fleeing their home to escape the toxic effects of their child’s speech. Esther, their obnoxious teenage daughter, has the potential to make one slightly queasy without the poison voice problem. She sneers and scorns her parents for all she’s worth. Meanwhile entire neighbourhoods empty as the voices of children and teenagers become like so much thrown acid to the shocked and ever-weakening adults. The effects of hearing a child speak (or sing or laugh) include crushing pain, faces that shrink and harden (‘facial smallness’ Marcus calls it, in one of many cringe-worthy descriptions), skin that turns to paper, fatigue, vomiting, bruising, blood… and, as in the worst of plagues, victims linger. Additionally, Marcus includes a parallel plot. Claire and Samuel are Jewish, and in Marcus’ creepy world, they worship in hidden forest huts (“an entirely covert method of devotion”), where sermons are piped in to be listened to, but never discussed. Sheesh.

According to my Kindle I have read 63% of The Flame Alphabet. Should I continue? What would Mrs. Moore do? Respond softly, gentle reader.