Jennifer Government

Latest read in my current series of dystopian novel is Jennifer Government, by Max Barry.

Great book, great vision of society, and great story. I could bitch that it doesn't last long enough but apart from that, it's a great read :)

First the dystopia: in the novel, private companies have taken over the society, just as the United States have taken over most of the world. Your job is the most important thing and people take the name of the company they work for as their last name (which is why we get two "John Nike" in the story), children attend Mattel or MacDonalds' schools and the governments' only purpose is to ensure that people are globally safe by preventing crime. Quoting the book: "The Government's budget only extends to preventing crime, not punishing it." so no one is going to look for a murderer unless the victim's family is able to provide the operating budget, the Police is a for hire mercenary force, competing with the NRA depending on corporate alliances...
If you thought that this corporate world brings the worst in human nature, you're in for a treat: people don't get more selfish and indifferent about other humans than when they have budget, power, and sell sneakers...
Another great quote from a NRA general: "In the military, we have always had a healthy disrespect for democracy"

Then, there's the story: most of it takes place in Australia, which has just been assimilated by the US. There works Hack Nike, a lowly logistics employee; when John Nike offers him a job in marketing, Hack signs the contract without reading it. John's idea is that, if about 10 teenagers get killed just after buying the latest Nike model, people will go crazy over the shoe! And Hack is to do the killing... Since he signed a contract, he has to do the killing or it's a breach of contract and jail! But since he does not want to kill innocent kids, he goes to the Police, who offers to subcontract!
The story goes crazy from this point on, and we can follow it through a large cast of characters, in a pretty classic style nowadays, where each chapter is narrated from the viewpoint of a different character. The form is classic, and it has some slow moments but overall, the story has several plots, is interesting and it's a page turner, so I guess it values the dystopia.

And finally (and probably the most important thing), I'm now able to brag that I read the same book as Superman!

Brave new world

I'm starting a cycle of dystopian books; I’ve bought Brave New World, Jennifer Government, The Time Machine and I’ll probably read 1984 again. First in the list is "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, which I wanted to read because I‘ve read a lot of comparisons between this novel and 1984.

It’s been a great read. The actual transition from the society as we knew it in the thirties (when the novel was written) to this new one is not too documented and a bit unclear: we’re only told that violence had to be used because humans prefer the freedom to suffer to a forced happiness… But there’s a great deal of detail on how such a society can be better for humanity, be stable and eliminate sufferings, by depriving man of what makes him really human: his individuality.

A broad look at the society and the way it works gives this:
• Humans are not born from women anymore, and the birth process has been industrialized; humans are grown in hatcheries, in batches of similar individuals which are specifically engineered to fit castes.
• Society is layered in castes, and humans thus belong to a caste from alpha to gamma, where alphas are few and cogent, while gammas are numerous and dumb. But all have their place and role in the society. Since each individual is groomed for that caste and conditioned from the infant stage on to like to belong to it, everyone is happy. Conditioning includes things like neo-pavlovian training and hypnopaedia (being repeated thousands of times in your sleep until the lesson becomes a reflex). Basically when you are repeated “I’m happy to be a gamma, being a delta would be annoying and dumb and being a beta is too complicated to be worth it” over and over, you believe it…
• Industrialization is everywhere; this society is a society of progress, consumption and production. The people are encouraged to participate in this society: “Ending is better than mending” or “the more stitches, the less riches”. And which better god for this society than Henry Ford: the new calendar of the society is not based on Jesus Christ anymore, but on the production date of the first Ford T model and the novel is rich of expressions like “My Ford”, “His Fordness” or “For the love of Ford”…
• The one concept that primes upon all the others is the stability of the society. To achieve this, all sources of instability have been dealt with using scientific means; for instance:
  • Promiscuity and gregarious behaviours are encouraged since individuality and loneliness are seen as dangerous.
  • Since people are not born, the concepts of father, mother, family, husband and wife do not exist anymore, eliminating all the drama usually coming with feelings and competition
  • Sex is a recreation that you should have with anyone and sexual games are encouraged among children in order to inculcate the motto: “Everyone belongs to everyone else”
  • Of course, there are no real culture, no book, no poetry and there’s no need for it since there are other society-approved activities and pleasures
  • Fear of death and decay does not exist: people look 25 years old and are fit until they’re old and then, they surrender their life.

And the one thing that makes it all work is soma. Soma is the omnipresent happiness/forgetfulness drug which a person takes in any situation of either happiness or unhappiness and it solves everything. “A gramme is better than a damn”, it is the ultimate drug! It discharges violent instincts, makes you forget your problems, makes you happy and balances the society. Says a World Controller, it has “All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects”.

So, in the novel, there’s the description of the society, of this different ideal, far away from Utopia; and that part is great! And then, there’s a story. A story about John, who was “really” born in an Indian reserve, where people live in the dust, refusing the progress of the new society. John has a mother, feelings, creeds, thoughts, has read Shakespeare. And since John’s mother is in fact from this society (she’s been lost in the reserve for years…), John has a chance to go in this society and make a choice as to where he’d like to go from there: stay in the society or return to the Indian reserve.
I won’t delve in the story, its development I found disappointing and its characters shallow; its only purpose is to oppose a crude humanity to an advanced dehumanized society and it serves it OK. What I found disappointing is the choice that is proposed to John is a false choice between two bad solutions; which could be OK but the Indian reserve option is so badly crude compared to the refinement of the dystopian society that you can’t help thinking that there’s more than a hole in this story of a choice…

Overall, it’s well worth reading and I’ll only retain that the vision of the dystopian society more than makes up for the weak storytelling.