When a Story Fails

I tend to really enjoy teen fiction, especially when it's set in dystopian worlds. I enjoy the directness of the analogies, how the very setup of the setting reveals the problems. The protagonist lives in a society that is rigidly controlled, usually but not always in North America far in the future. At some point between now and then, the powers that be decided they knew what was best for everyone and forcibly implemented--and now forcibly maintain--the structure they think best for society. Usually this involves segregating people or some kind of caste system. But the protagonist, though not always from the start, can see that the price paid for enforcing the structure (such as required pill-taking to make people docile, strict laws or curfews, slavery, lying and deception, etc.) is not worth it. The protagonist becomes the special one (or one of the special ones) who join the resistance (which is always already in progress, and often includes their parents) and find a way to break down the society. I've just summed up 90% or more of the genre.

I love how pure and sweet it is when authors harp on how wonderful it is to have a family or at least loved ones, to be near open flame even though it might burn you, to enjoy the natural world, to listen to whatever music you want and earn a living the way you choose all while risking the possibility you might fall in love and make a few decisions based on your hormones. To be happy and sad, sometimes both at the same time, and make your own choices even though that means the world will contain cracks in its beauty, crime, and actual crack (the drug). I find that each and every one of these books in its own way champions free will and asserts that without it, life is senseless and unreal. They can't help but link love and free will, because these two are nothing if not soul sisters. I see Christianity busting out at the seams, even if the story itself never mentions Jesus or faith. The truths of human nature as revealed in the Bible cannot be denied in such a nakedly direct view of the world as this genre presents, even when they explicitly pick on religion (I say, go ahead you guys, not even Jesus defends empty ritual; in fact, He condemns it). It's basically the opposite of an obscure postmodern story about nothing, in which layers of meaning are shrouded in mystery and pretty senseless words and nothing quite ever happens.

Though they all follow a similar basic premise, there's a wide range in storytelling quality. I find myself intrigued at this vast range. Arrogant as it sounds, it sometimes comforts me. While reading the lower end of that spectrum I think, "if this could get published, maybe I have a shot at a book someday."

Today I read most of a teen dystopian fiction book that was pretty terrible. I'm not entirely sure why I finished it, actually. Perhaps as a form of procrastination, or simply because it was going quickly and I could add it to my list of books I've read in 2016. I don't want to be Cruel (that's your only hint about the book's title) so I won't reveal specifics. I doubt you've heard of it.

Now that we're anonymous, why was it so terrible? What sets it apart from (below) other stories? For starters, it was message-driven rather than plot- or character- driven. And the message was unclear. The world they wove (that's another clue, actually) was extremely complex, yet barely explained. It reminded me of the idea, "if you could walk through walls, why wouldn't you fall through the floor and never stop falling?" In this book in particular, if an all-powerful group of people were able to manipulate time and space, why would anything ever go wrong at all? What is even the point of life? Seriously... none was ever given. I didn't understand why anyone in this universe bothered to want anything, nor did I see them wanting anything besides for their relatives not to die. What an awful and colorless existence. Plus, unrealistic. In real life, you want all kinds of things. For people to like you, new headphones, to be a better cook, to have a meaningful life. This book: none of that.

In the same vein, the book had a conspicuous lack of character motivation. A motive for controlling others (which was, like, the primary function of this world) was never named, except in passing. In this genre, "safety" is given as the number one reason for rigid governmental control. I think today's book briefly mentioned that concept, but never in a specific way or with a specific example. A teacher kills a town of people to prove some kind of point or lesson, without explaining what that lesson was. I mean, the lesson was, "obey, or people will get hurt," but no explanation for why or how they'd be hurt if the teacher hadn't killed them for the student's disobedience. The overall lack of motives for all the characters' behavior made for a tiresome and disjointed narrative.

In these books, the villains tend to be one-dimensional. It's always an exception to the author's credit when they have some humanizing backstory. Typically, none of them see any issue with wiping people's memories or minds and making them walking zombies with no personality. Warning: this reveals some deep roots of my nerdiness... there's an Animorphs book in which they run tests on humans to try to remove their free will. Though it appears the researchers succeed (I think Cassie doubts all along), eventually one of the scientists admits that a human without free will is nothing at all, a paradox, an impossibility, comatose. All they really did was get some people to pretend they didn't have free will to appease whoever commissioned the research. This struck me as intellectually honest in a way that the offending teen fiction books are not. To me it's a plot hole that memory removal would even be possible. I suppose for the sake of story I'm willing to permit the idea of slight memory modification, though I think that would be pretty damaging to a person in manifold unpredictable ways. But wiping someone entirely and making them blank? No way. How would such a person make decisions like which shirt to put on or when to eat? Memory defines us. We're influenced a million different ways by subtleties of past experience we may not even be aware of. There would not be enough structure in a memory-free brain to put a sentence together. What is language if not remembering how the letters are pronounced and what they mean when they're put together? (By the way, I think language is absolutely amazing... we remember hundreds of thousands of words, not to mention the countless ways they can be arranged, and we start doing this even as children!) No, I don't think forcibly taking someone's free will from their mind is a possibility, though it could possibly be done by tricking them into neglecting to use that power.

I suppose that's enough critique of this book for now. I respect that this author pursued her (is that considered another clue?) dream of being an author, and that she worked the system enough to publish a series (shoot, another clue). I don't want to tear her down, which is why I'm leaving her out of this. But having said all that, this book was the opposite of compelling. It's okay, she chose an incredibly ambitious premise, perhaps too ambitious for even a master storyteller. There's truly something to be said for simplicity. Good thing, because it means our lives can matter tremendously even as we live out a course of ordinary days.