A review by cervine_cunt
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester

adventurous dark funny tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The first thing that strikes me about this book is the PACING!!! This book moves like an absolute lightning bolt and does not let up for the entire time.
I was so excited that the murder happens in the like, first 50 pages because then there’s SO MUCH BOOK left to cover the fallout and BOY DOES IT!!!
 

The murderous Monarch Corporation president Ben Reich is an all-time guy. Absolute shitshow of a man. Evil wretched bastard and the book knows it. This book gleefully delights in presenting the manic, egocentric ideology at the heart of him and the kind of men at the top of powerful corporations (who is also described as a conventionally attractive and charming man!) His rival, the telepathic Police Prefect Lincoln Powell, is also an immensely engaging protagonist. He is much more plain, pleasant, and well-mannered, and also serves extensively as our connection to the wider society, starkly contrasted with Ben, whose relationships with the world begin and end with how they can further his increasingly-insatiable desires. The “Dishonest Abe” aspect is an interesting wrinkle that adds further symmetry but could have been honed in on further. 

The stuff between Powell and Barbara is kind of weird but it’s ultimately played as complicated and charming enough that it works. Women in general in this book are largely confined to their romantic involvement or interest with the male characters (with the exception of Ben’s chief 2nd and T’Sung’s secretaries, who are still both defined by (subordinate) professional relationships to men), which is unfortunate and disappointing. While the book is in many ways explicitly a refutation of cool guys who think they’re at the center of everything, it is also very committed to those cool guys and their exploits and relationship. Which are still AMAZING – just still telling of the limitations of a certain kind of focus. 

Despite this hamstringing, the women themselves are enjoyable to read! They are personable, get to be somewhat complicated and mischievous, do not feel morally degraded by the narrative for their non-effusive interactions with the central protagonists; they are acknowledged as real actors within the world with psychologies and thoughts and desires. There is perhaps an element of fetishization present, but given the thematic subtext of the nature of power, history, and human connection, I would interpret it as genuine. Also, regarding this section, the 1950s are not a period with which I am really familiar with literary and popular culture beyond stereotypes, so my analysis is limited to my own terms and frame of reference. 

The prose is incredible, fluidly shifting between scenes and tones and worldviews with ease and sharp rhetoric punctuation. Of particular note are the typographic elements present throughout the text, illustrating the exchanges and particularities of a telepathic society through the formally playful visual depictions of the telepathy itself! A a film adaptation of this novel, while of course not necessary, could be something really special if the crew were able to conceive of its own cinematographic approach to demonstrating this flow of information. As it stands, however, it’s the kind of visual trick whose parameters and effect are uniquely suited to the conventions of the written and printed word on the page. 

The big conceptual pull in this book, which is central to the entire work but deftly woven into the background rather than being exactly what the plot itself revolves around (in comparable but distinct fashion to jaunting in *The Stars My Destination*) are the proliferation of Espers, colloquially referred to as *peepers*, a burgeoning population of humans with the telepathic abilities of mind-reading and thought-broadcasting (the latter restricted to other peepers). This is most directly explored in the book through the avenue of policing and investigation, which allows for a rather thorough view of the extents of this society, along with its protocols and conceptions of justice, law, regulation, and proper social function and control. A whole history is alluded to, enriching the world without being bogged down in the details of how society got to “there” from “here.” This conception of a wider history, and the struggling expansion of human connection heralded by the advent of Espers, are intertwined in a non-exclusive, non-utopic, non-idyllic, and non-romantic but still hopeful vision of human advancement appreciative of its joys, critical of the individual dogged accumulation of power and charm of great men and cognizant of the complexities networks of community and power that bind us and bring us in reach of each other. 
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