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A review by matthewcpeck
The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus
4.0
"Language acts as an acid over its message. If you no longer care about an idea or feeling, then put it into language. That will surely be the last of it, a fitting end. Language is another name for coffin."
Thus states Samuel, the narrator of 'The Flame Alphabet'. This quote is a fine example of the paradoxical brilliance to be found in Ben Marcus's third full-length book. After the mindbending experimentalism of 'The Age Of Wire And String' and 'Notable American Women', he published a conventionally structured story, albeit a very weird one. And though 'The Flame Alphabet belongs one of the most over-saturated genres of recent years - post-apocalyptic - it never feels like familiar territory.
In Marcus's novel, civilization is brought to a screeching halt when the speech of any person under 18 begins to literally sicken adults. Soon language between adults is unbearably toxic, as well as any written, spoken, or even signed language. The cataclysm is experienced completely through Samuel's eyes, as 'The Flame Alphabet' moves from a realistic domestic drama (man and wife and rebellious teenage daughter in upstate New York) to visions increasingly bizarre and unsettling.
This book is overflowing with ideas about consciousness and language, and it's begging for interpretations. Is it about parenthood? The dehumanization caused by mass communication? Antisemitism? (I didn't get into the important subplot about Samuel's religious practice of listening to transmissions from faraway rabbis, in forest huts built over mysterious "Jew holes".)
The inimitable tone of Marcus's writing makes all of this fascinating and funny, as Samuel's detachment and surreal descriptions are shot through with sudden bursts of raw emotion. The only tedious part comes during the second, longest section of the book, in which Samuel is separated from his family and works in a Rochester government facility where he experiments with the toxicity of different written languages. But even when it goes on a little long, it's always inspired.
'The Flame Alphabet' is a marvelous finish to one of the most remarkable and idiosyncratic trilogies in English-language fiction. I hope it's not a prophecy.
Thus states Samuel, the narrator of 'The Flame Alphabet'. This quote is a fine example of the paradoxical brilliance to be found in Ben Marcus's third full-length book. After the mindbending experimentalism of 'The Age Of Wire And String' and 'Notable American Women', he published a conventionally structured story, albeit a very weird one. And though 'The Flame Alphabet belongs one of the most over-saturated genres of recent years - post-apocalyptic - it never feels like familiar territory.
In Marcus's novel, civilization is brought to a screeching halt when the speech of any person under 18 begins to literally sicken adults. Soon language between adults is unbearably toxic, as well as any written, spoken, or even signed language. The cataclysm is experienced completely through Samuel's eyes, as 'The Flame Alphabet' moves from a realistic domestic drama (man and wife and rebellious teenage daughter in upstate New York) to visions increasingly bizarre and unsettling.
This book is overflowing with ideas about consciousness and language, and it's begging for interpretations. Is it about parenthood? The dehumanization caused by mass communication? Antisemitism? (I didn't get into the important subplot about Samuel's religious practice of listening to transmissions from faraway rabbis, in forest huts built over mysterious "Jew holes".)
The inimitable tone of Marcus's writing makes all of this fascinating and funny, as Samuel's detachment and surreal descriptions are shot through with sudden bursts of raw emotion. The only tedious part comes during the second, longest section of the book, in which Samuel is separated from his family and works in a Rochester government facility where he experiments with the toxicity of different written languages. But even when it goes on a little long, it's always inspired.
'The Flame Alphabet' is a marvelous finish to one of the most remarkable and idiosyncratic trilogies in English-language fiction. I hope it's not a prophecy.