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.
1 comment:
Definitely finish it!
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