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A review by rebus
The Golden Age by Mark Buckingham, Neil Gaiman
4.25
It's an effective enough coda to the works of Alan Moore, which themselves started quite strong and finished less so, tying up many of the loose threads in an elegiac fashion, as those touched by Miracleman and the rampage of Kid Miracleman seem quite damaged in the future Utopia created by Miracleman. One might say they are among the living dead, as even his wife would not take the near immortality MM offered her in Moore's saga.
Gaiman effectively asks what it means for this Golden Age to have been ushered in, one in which war and crime were abolished and all the sick were cured. However, he takes a sly shot at the sort of bubble of upper middle class privilege that currently has sole access to this by asking if everyone in the city is spying upon one another (an almost anarchist condemnation of human civilization). Is it part of the growing body of proof that our society has always been fascist, one informed by anthropological and archaeological research and certain many fictions that are bold enough to explore the topic as the mass media and academia will not as the keepers of the status quo.
Indeed, he makes cheeky mention of librarians leading people to the fictions and suggests that Gargunza, like all who create, is a sociopath and speaking of nouminous hallucinations, suggesting the religion is the first source of propaganda (as the first true widespread media, even if its words could be corrupted in the pre-literate age when civilization began in order to further control the masses).
It is also ultimately about mourning, with an interesting commentary on those who would wear armbands in mourning to draw attention to the fact, a practice that he mentions is not evident in Japanese culture (during the Carnival there). Perhaps he is mourning for a civilization that is dying, even if a celebration portrayed near the ends suggests that mourning is over and it is carnival now.
Is it indeed?
Gaiman effectively asks what it means for this Golden Age to have been ushered in, one in which war and crime were abolished and all the sick were cured. However, he takes a sly shot at the sort of bubble of upper middle class privilege that currently has sole access to this by asking if everyone in the city is spying upon one another (an almost anarchist condemnation of human civilization). Is it part of the growing body of proof that our society has always been fascist, one informed by anthropological and archaeological research and certain many fictions that are bold enough to explore the topic as the mass media and academia will not as the keepers of the status quo.
Indeed, he makes cheeky mention of librarians leading people to the fictions and suggests that Gargunza, like all who create, is a sociopath and speaking of nouminous hallucinations, suggesting the religion is the first source of propaganda (as the first true widespread media, even if its words could be corrupted in the pre-literate age when civilization began in order to further control the masses).
It is also ultimately about mourning, with an interesting commentary on those who would wear armbands in mourning to draw attention to the fact, a practice that he mentions is not evident in Japanese culture (during the Carnival there). Perhaps he is mourning for a civilization that is dying, even if a celebration portrayed near the ends suggests that mourning is over and it is carnival now.
Is it indeed?