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A review by essjay1
First Person by Richard Flanagan
5.0
What is the truth? How does the truth affect freedom? Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of movement, personal freedoms such as the right to privacy ... Have we allowed big corporations too much access to our lives in exchange for a few conveniences? At what point will we have no choice in signing up, having our movements tracked?
A thought provoking and interesting book. I really enjoyed it. This book is definitely a novel for our times. So apt when we see lawmakers and governments legislating based on fear rather than long term strategy.
Flanagan is able to distil complex ideas into satire, while never leaving the reader in any doubt: this is not a joke. It's a reflection on the emptiness of "the pursuit of happiness", the way we moronically follow "influencers" and allow our thoughts and lives to be manipulated without stopping to question what we are giving up. The fact that we even have such a thing as an "influencer" is hilarious and horrific at the same time.
Funny in parts, although mostly terrifying. What is truth? Is this a memoir or not? By incorporating parts of his own history, especially at the beginning, Flanagan tries to rattle our cage and asks us to take a good long look at what is going on in the world today. The book can be tedious at times too - there is only so much of Kif's craziness we can take without wanting to slap him, but again, without these long passages would we understand his confusion, how out of depth he feels in this situation and in his life. The layout of my copy (a first edition hard cover) is printed in quite large font, big side margins, lots of white space - just like the book finally produced by Kif in the novel.
I was so reminded of George Orwell that I downloaded and read Dennis Glover's "The Last Man in Europe" as a kind of companion read, and I can thoroughly recommend this. Orwell asks many of the same questions, especially after his time in Spain fighting Franco when he realised that communism and fascism were equally bad, and the democratic workers paradise he fought for was just as susceptible to corruption as any other ideology that suppressed individual thought and punished those who question.
A thought provoking and interesting book. I really enjoyed it. This book is definitely a novel for our times. So apt when we see lawmakers and governments legislating based on fear rather than long term strategy.
Flanagan is able to distil complex ideas into satire, while never leaving the reader in any doubt: this is not a joke. It's a reflection on the emptiness of "the pursuit of happiness", the way we moronically follow "influencers" and allow our thoughts and lives to be manipulated without stopping to question what we are giving up. The fact that we even have such a thing as an "influencer" is hilarious and horrific at the same time.
Funny in parts, although mostly terrifying. What is truth? Is this a memoir or not? By incorporating parts of his own history, especially at the beginning, Flanagan tries to rattle our cage and asks us to take a good long look at what is going on in the world today. The book can be tedious at times too - there is only so much of Kif's craziness we can take without wanting to slap him, but again, without these long passages would we understand his confusion, how out of depth he feels in this situation and in his life. The layout of my copy (a first edition hard cover) is printed in quite large font, big side margins, lots of white space - just like the book finally produced by Kif in the novel.
I was so reminded of George Orwell that I downloaded and read Dennis Glover's "The Last Man in Europe" as a kind of companion read, and I can thoroughly recommend this. Orwell asks many of the same questions, especially after his time in Spain fighting Franco when he realised that communism and fascism were equally bad, and the democratic workers paradise he fought for was just as susceptible to corruption as any other ideology that suppressed individual thought and punished those who question.