My favorite speculative fiction of all time is Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days which I read back in 2012, while the very first science fiction I read was Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I read these books only a few months apart and I was forever changed because of them and this change has definitely got me interested to venture on acquiring and experiencing more of what the science fiction genre has to offer as much as I could. Eleven more sci-fi books later, I remained insatiable, more so after finishing this one. The very first thing that struck me while in the middle of consuming this novel by Walter Tevis is that it was unmistakably a majestic blend of both the dystopic landscapes featured in Huxley's book, and written in the same nostalgic manner of aching, melancholic sensibility and spiritual contemplation very much alive in Cunningham's work. With that, I couldn't help but find myself deeply embedded in the pores of this haunting tale of Mockingbird.Like most sci-fi books, it started with an off-beat promising premise that slowly developed into something personal and tragic for both the characters and a reader like myself. I think books like this one work very well for me because they lavish on the often inarticulately beautiful quality of human life and the art and terrible burden of living itself; how precious and fleeting our lives truly are, and what happens when a certain moral decay or a disintegration of long-held valuable things occur. Truth be told, Mockingbird is a tapestry of themes I mostly associate with some of my favorite sci-fi stories like Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon and Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, to name a few. There's the usual existential crisis where characters live in an age of detachment from self and/or others but suddenly and quite poignantly awaken from their stupor to contemplate and pursue the meaning of why they exist to begin with and why the world has been reduced to shambles, whether physically or metaphorically.Mockingbird follows the same formula with its own invigorating narrative. The central theme of this book focuses on the grim possibility of humanity losing literacy, particularly their ability to read, and how that seemingly simple negligence would follow a series of other significant losses due to population control via fertility-inhibiting drugs (and other forms of recreational drug use to numb everything away), the disappearance of any creative endeavor like art and literature, and utter extinction of family, community and religious inclinations. All of these set-ups sound awfully familiar already, and rightly so because Tevis does share his dystopic characterizations of his world in the same vein as Huxley's inarguably superior novel Brave New World. However, what does elevate Mockingbird in another new level entirely is the quality it also shares with another novel I love to pieces, Specimen Days, when it comes to its character arcs and relationships."My upbringing, like that of all the other members of my Thinker Class, had made me into an unimaginative, self-centered and drug-addicted fool. Until learning how to read I had lived in a whole underpopulated world of self-centered, drug-addicted fools, all of us living by our Rules of Privacy in some crazy dream of Self-Fulfillment." ~ Paul BentleyThe summary found at the back of the book was slightly misleading. I originally thought that the android character Spofforth would be the main focus of the entire novel but it turns out that this responsibility belongs to two other characters; a man and a woman named Paul Bentley and Mary Lou respectively who are instantly recognizable as the representational equivalent of their world's very own Adam and Eve, as both stumble their way into consciousness and awareness together. Paul was introduced as the only human being who has the ability to read which he picked up on by accident when he unearthed an instructional videotape on the subject. Spofforth hired him to record the written dialogues in the archives of silent films which was an activity Paul has learned to enjoy and appreciate. By learning to read and watching film from a forgotten era, certain feelings were brought forth from Paul; thoughts and emotions he never recognized which only deepened when he begins a relationship with Mary Lou who dared him to question and outright ignore the rules programmed into them as children. True to being a biblical Eve, Mary Lou dares Paul to challenge the status quo.Paul's journey to "memorize his life" as suggested by Mary Lou was done by the very simple act of scribbling his daily grind into pages upon pages of diary entries. But the more he records his own memories and encounters, the more miserable he becomes when he realizes how dull the world has become with its people caught in a standstill, burying all their self-awareness through drugs and quick sex. His nuanced journey from imprisonment to liberation on two levels--the physical and the emotional--is, for me, the most humane aspect of this book. I eagerly discovered things alongside him as he devoured what scarce books he can find in the places he travels. One notable place is an abandoned mall outlet where small groups of Christian families reside. His collective experience with these people is one of the most ironically comical yet heartwarming moments found in the novel."Why don't we talk to one another? Why don't we huddle together against the cold wind that blows down the empty streets in the city? People used to read, hearing the voices of the living and the dead speaking to them in eloquence silence, in touch with a babble of human talk that must have filled the mind in a manner that said I am human. I talk and I listen and I read. Why did we stop reading? What happened?" ~ Mary LouMary Lou is an engaging, clever and intelligent young woman who was inquisitive enough to figure out by herself that there is something amiss in the world she lives in. All her life she has been on the run, disobeying rules and making a mockery of the robot-police state, all for the sake of not forgetting what makes her human and unique in spite of the initial programming all children are required to undergo which diminishes personality and identity. Paul was understandably drawn to her and as he teaches her to read, she in turn opens him up to a realm of turbulent feelings and creative musings, instilling in him dismissed qualities such as imagination and intellectual curiosity. Her journey in this book is about satisfying that same curiosity as well as understanding why children have become extinct and accepting that there is a faint glimmer of hope that she may have found a way to turn things around if she's brave and resolute enough to do it."I would like to know, before I die, what it was like to be the human being I have tried to be all my life." ~ Robert SpofforthSpofforth is the first character we get introduced to in this book but the role he plays is much less personal but nonetheless just as moving and sad. A robot created by implanting another living person'a brain, he suffers dreams and thoughts from that late person's life and so develops an acute sense of 'humanness'. This is troubling because what Spofforth really wants to do is to cease to exist but his programming does not allow him to die as long as humans still have a need for his kind, a robot of the Make Nine series, and probably the last one there is. For an android, Spofforth is surprisingly humane and often relatable, especially during such times he is subjected to gloom and suicidal thoughts. Mockingbird is an enduring work of the heart and the imagination, an enchanting tale about human resilience and creativity while also being a painful yet also humorous commentary on the qualities that we as humans value and celebrate and the awful aftermath that follows once we take these same things for granted in the long run. Much like Brave New World, this book's take on a dystopic society of drug-addled and individual-based society is unforgettable, and its prose is sparse yet can powerfully illuminate dark recesses of the soul in the same manner Specimen Days has achieved as well. The world Paul and Mary Lou live in may be underpopulated but their story will certainly proliferate strong emotions from readers who will consume it and hopefully appreciate such simple yet essential things in life we can so easily forget and destroy. A MUST-HAVE AND READ!RECOMMENDED: 9/10DO READ MY REVIEWS AT
Also published on my blog here.The best known novels by Walter Tevis are famous as films: The Hustler, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and The Color of Money - a trio which certainly demonstrates versatility. As a genre writer, he is also known for Mockingbird, here reprinted as one of Gollancz's "SF Masterworks" series.One of TS Eliot's most famous lines, known to many who have no idea who wrote it (one online quotation search engine bizarrely attributes it to actor Vin Diesel) is "This is how the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper". It is almost a one sentence summary of Mockingbird, and is quoted at one point towards the end of the novel. Perhaps "human civilization" would be more apt than "world", but otherwise the mood and fit of the line is pretty much perfect.The setting of Mockingbird is at the end, then, of the human history. With all tasks handled by robots, humans have sunk into a listless, drugged apathy, almost entirely of their own (or their ancestors') making. The main characters include one of the last, most advanced, robots to be made, named Spofforth, and one of the youngest remaining humans, named Bentley, who eventually realises the meaning of the demolition of his school once he and the rest of his year group leave: there are no more children.The third major character is a woman named Mary Lou, who has been living an outsider's life in New York Zoo, inhabited otherwise only by the robots who manage it and who pretend to be children visiting - and which may well also be many of the exhibits. She has been surviving by eating sandwiches made available by a bug in the management system: a robot is provided with them to fill a vending machine, but always has five more than fit, and no instructions for what to do with them, so is effectively immobilised until May Lou takes them from it. She has managed somehow to escape from the system and is therefore free from the drugs taken by every other human. The robots have seen that humans are happier in general without high intelligence or dramatic events, so the drugs make their takers less excitable and less clever.Once this is established, a strange thing happens, the most important event in the story, and one which almost knocks the whole novel off its mournful path. Spofforth denounces Bentley as a criminal - a true accusation, for Bentley, having worked out how to read from a book, teachers Mary Lou, and this is a crime because reading can distract from the bland happiness which humans are supposed to experience. Bentley is sent to prison, and Spofforth moves himself and Mary Lou into an abandoned apartment, following a rather atavistic prompting of a hidden part of his mind, which was not constructed but is based on a recording of the mind of a human being.With the end of reading, of education, there is so much that people just don't know any more. Like a prehistoric inland dweller who has never seen the ocean, Bentley comments: "I did not know sea water was undrinkable. No one had ever told me." This, on top of the general apathy brought by the drugs, is really what is bringing the end; things break down, and no one knows how to fix them or how to get a robot to fix them, and no one cares to do either, anyway. Temporary measures, such as the one which added contraceptives to the drugs to curb population increase, are set in place, but then no one remembers to rescind them afterwards.The title of the novel comes from a caption in a silent film watched by Bentley, who is put to recording the words of such films as no one can read the captions any more: "Only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the forest". Apparently, the Northern Mockingbird does indeed live and sing at the edge of forests during their breeding season, but Tevis' intention is to say something about his theme, but I found it hard to choose between several different interpretations of the phrase. The lives which are led by Bentley, Spofforth, and Mary Lou could be said to be a mockery of those who are living normal lives in the forest, and the mockingbird a symbolic outsider; the odd relationship between Spofforth and Mary Lou, while she is pregnant, is a mockery of twentieth century city life (as well as referencing the breeding season of the bird); or it could refer to Tevis' role as a commentator on the negative sides of the human drive to increase comfort and settle for the banal in experience as safer than living on the edge.This is the kind of novel I would point to as a counter to those who think nothing with a science fiction genre label on it can be literary, or discuss real issues. Dealing with apathy, depression, and suicide as it does, Mockingbird is hardly cheerful reading, but is definitely recommended.
What do You think about Mockingbird (1999)?
This is my nightmare: a world where the human population is declining (though the android population is thriving), no one can (or even desires to) read, and everyone pops Valium (also designed to help curb fertility) just to get through the day. There's very little human interaction, and what little there manages to be is highly monitored.That's this story, and it freaked me out, the solitary cat that I am. It unsettled me, which is certainly the point, mission: accomplished. Published in 1980 I wonder what Tevis would say about the state of things today, where most people carry phones called Androids, and so much communication is done via technology. I don't know the actual figures of where things stand when it comes to literacy today, though as far as I'm concerned people don't read nearly enough. Most interaction is through our phones and our computers; maybe it's just me but it seems when people actually get together there's this level of weirdness, like they don't know how to talk to each other anymore. Nine times out of ten someone in a group is texting someone else in a different group. It seems to be hard for people to communicate face-to-face.Oh, who am I kidding? I'm getting old and curmudgeonly. This is nothing new.This book made an impact on me - not in the same way other dystopic novels like Dhalgren did, but any good dystopia makes one think about the state of society in which it was read, and not so much just when it was written. Mockingbird doesn't seem so impossible today, which is frightening, especially considering the story is to take place far into the future where none of us will actually live. Still, it's not unfathomable and it makes me want to read up on how to dig for clams in case I ever need to be on my own, finding my way to New York along the Eastern Seaboard.Above all, though, it makes me want to read. And read some more. And not stop reading.
—El
Mockingbird is a thought-provoking novel and probably one of the best books I've read in quite awhile, especially in light of our current climate of big government. The story describes a futuristic America (or what is left of it) run by androids and robots who dictate every aspect of human existence. Although originally designed to serve humans (and perhaps create a better society), the robots, led by a very unique android with a cloned human memory, are now the masters. For the humans it is a wretched existence made barely tolerable by ingesting daily doses of tranquilizers and marijuana. Then, one of the humans learns to read (a skill long abandoned by the human race) and begins to think for himself and question his world.
—Patricia
what a marvelous little book.at its core is a question--how many of us would give up the life of the mind, if we had the choice? tevis' answer is, a lot. and however much one is uncomfortable with the thought, one cannot but have a sneaking suspicion that his answer is in fact the correct one.in tevis' future, robots have taken over all the drudgery of life--making food, toasters, clothes, running sewer systems and city buses and fast food outlets. theoretically this leaves the rest of us to more lofty pursuits, like self-actualization and self-development. but what it really brings, for the majority, is a useless life of tv and soporific drugs and Individuality writ large.most find Individuality adequately onerous that they spurn it.one exception is Spofforth, the highly intelligent, aware, and feeling robot. two others are Bentley and Mary Lou, rare humans who exist outside the pale, the former by teaching himself to read, the latter by teaching herself to be. each of these characters is rather beautifully drawn, in particular Spofforth. how odd that the robot of the trio is the one most achingly feeling.it's an odd little book--it fails to conform to expectations again and again, which is its delight. it is a lovely hymn to the power of intellect and feeling, both undervalued enterprises in our (US) world of anti-intellectualism and emotional anaesthesia. it takes quite a few swipes at Received Opinion and collective wisdom. yet it feels strangely antiquated, as if the book were a 1930s visionary tale. i am unsure why this is, as its sensibility in terms of morality, technology, and religion are quite thoroughly modern, and it was written in the 1980s. still it's a lovely book, and a pleasure for its extended meditation on the joy and power of literacy and genuine individuality. i expect to be reconsidering it from time to time, which is the hallmark of a really good book.
—Ryandake
