A review by mooseabs
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

4.0

It is scary to see the way this book turned out to be an augury for emerging fascist powers, in one case having even the same taglines ('Make Britain Great Again').

Written in the 1980s, the book is set in a futuristic Britain (1999), wherein fascist powers have used the tumult of war to establish a totalitarian regime, complete with all kinds of intelligence agencies. Amidst this, V, a former victim of a 'resettlement camp' starts disrupting the empire and its mechanisms, with all the pomp of a Broadway performer.

I liked how V was written. I did not enjoy them at first. They exhibited the same monstrosities in one instance that the fascists are blamed of. But I think V wasn't meant to be a likeable character, they were an extreme, the other end of extreme that represented authoritarian forces. And one thing that was said in the book had a profound effect on me: it was about how happiness is a prison, when it comes to living under such regimes. It allows us to deflect the necessity of a revolution.