Little Brother
2008-05-12 | Filed under Books |
A couple weeks ago, Patrick Nielsen Hayden announced the availability of Little Brother ARCs, and I was lucky enough to snap up a copy. (The early bird gets the worm; do your very important blog reading early in the day.) ARCs are fun, more because they’re different than because they’re free. (Especially when Cory Doctorow is the author in question, and free versions abound.) So now I’m part of the marketing plan outlined on the back cover.
I did not expect to enjoy Little Brother. I’d only seen good reviews, but I noted a trend of those reviews praising the didactic nature of the book. Generally speaking, I do not like didactic novels. They don’t feel like novels, but are instead some weird chimera: half-formed characters popping up to interrupt a serious discussion, or engaging plots grinding to a halt while the author clumsily discusses Something Important. And Little Brother does have a dual nature—Larry’s already discussed it in his review—but I was pleasantly surprised by how readable a book it is. If it occasionally turned into a Boing Boing post…well, I like Boing Boing just fine. And since Marcus is going to grow up to be Cory Doctorow, the enthusiastic asides remain more or less in character.
There’s a fair bit of wish fulfillment, at least as much for the author as the audience, and one is left with the distinct impression that Cory Doctorow thinks it would be really cool to overthrow the Department of Homeland Security. (Especially if he could do it from his home in DisneyWorld, or his hot air balloon.) His glee is infectious, making it easy to forgive instances where authorial discipline takes a back seat.
Is the resulting book going to become a beloved YA classic? I don’t know about that. It’s very much a period piece (even if the period doesn’t quite exist in our reality) and I hope it won’t am not sure it will have the same punch ten, twenty, thirty years from now. Certainly the tech will be outdated, and that alone may be enough to dampen wide popularity. But I can see it being beloved by the people reading it now. I can also see it being internalized by the people reading it now, and I suspect that is more Doctorow’s intent.
Some of his previous works (I’m thinking most specifically of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and “Beat Me Daddy (Eight to the Bar)”) ended with alienated protagonists picking up their balls and going home. Little Brother could easily—and, perhaps, more naturally—have ended in such a way, but instead it’s a bit more complex. On the surface, it’s an upbeat ending. Marcus and his nearest and dearest are basically okay, the wheels of justice are turning in the right direction, and the Truth Has Come Out.
But that reading of the ending that focuses on the one step forward, not the two steps back. The corrupt regime remains in power. The bad guys are not punished. Only activists are efficiently prosecuted. The public education system remains a joke. Prisoners not held in Gitmo on the Bay are still in custody and, presumably, routinely tortured. Though he can declare victory and use his fifteen minutes of fame to do some good, Marcus is tamed. He settles into the role of a more traditional activist and commentator, never even stopping to wonder about the confidentiality of therapy sessions.
That’s a dark note to end on, even if it’s wrapped up in youthful enthusiasm for political activism and a new girlfriend. It’s an appropriate note to end on, too, given the real world relevance of the book.
Comments
Leave a Reply