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joekelly37 's review for:
The MANIAC
by BenjamÃn Labatut
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I am obsessed with Benjamin Labatut. And that's appropriate as the Chilean's work is built on a fascination with the relationship between mankind, knowledge, and the mysteries of progress.
Central to both Labatut's previous work and The MANIAC is the overlap between chaos and logic, visionary insight and delusion. Here he turns his hand to plotting technological development over the last century as a series of human losses. Firstly, the leap away from concrete logic, the seeming loss of morals in the white heat of the Cold War, and in a terrifying finale perhaps the final loss of hope.
Labatut's a master at writing in the key of madness and many chapters here sing with the mania suggested by the title. Blending fact and imagination he lines up a series of grotesques from the history of science at whose genius we can ogle and at whose madness we can gawp.
He ventriloquises the great minds of the 20th century to give a sense of the horrors they potentially unleashed whilst keeping capital and the state shadowy in the background. The result is a compelling alternate history that remains deeply convinced of the inexplicable beauty of the human mind. That is until it's chilling end...
Also the paperback version of this is beautifully typeset and a real use of the form.
Central to both Labatut's previous work and The MANIAC is the overlap between chaos and logic, visionary insight and delusion. Here he turns his hand to plotting technological development over the last century as a series of human losses. Firstly, the leap away from concrete logic, the seeming loss of morals in the white heat of the Cold War, and in a terrifying finale perhaps the final loss of hope.
Labatut's a master at writing in the key of madness and many chapters here sing with the mania suggested by the title. Blending fact and imagination he lines up a series of grotesques from the history of science at whose genius we can ogle and at whose madness we can gawp.
He ventriloquises the great minds of the 20th century to give a sense of the horrors they potentially unleashed whilst keeping capital and the state shadowy in the background. The result is a compelling alternate history that remains deeply convinced of the inexplicable beauty of the human mind. That is until it's chilling end...
Also the paperback version of this is beautifully typeset and a real use of the form.