The Mandibles - Europe Next?
Kind of a book review
Spoiler Alert - Plot of Novel Discussed!
Published in 2016, Lionel Shriver’s “The Mandibles” has risen to cult status over the last few years. The novel concerns the fortunes of four generations of the Mandible family - wealthy Americans - as they pass through the financial turmoils of the near future - from 2029 to 2047.
Libertarians extol the book’s virtues in the way they did for those of Ayn Rand, a couple of generations earlier. Left-leaning academics are more scathing in their reviews. But one can tell from their language that the book has also shaken them up - “Uhm, this couldn’t really happen, could it?”
Like Rand, Shriver makes use of the story, and her characters, to pound out her own free-market fundamentalist philosophy and her abhorrence of all things communist. And, like Rand, at times her inner charge is clearly so close to the surface that she cannot really restrain herself from breaking into simple polemic.
But the book succeeds, despite its weak opening chapters, because of Shriver’s immense wit and her grasp of how ordinary people behave in extreme situations.
Following a financial meltdown in the mid 2020s, and Putin’s creation of an alternative reserve currency (yes, that might be happening!), the comfortably-off Mandibles find themselves in ever-increasing hard times. By 2031, four generations of the same family are forced to live under one roof in East Flatbush, steal food to survive and purchase weapons to keep at bay any neighbours seeking to take their home from them.
Eventually, one neighbour succeeds and the entire Mandible family are forced to go live in a local park under a tarpaulin. Great Grandfather Mandible elects to shoot himself, and his mentally ill wife, such that the rest of the family can walk a few hundred miles to a farm where a relative has work for them.
The novel moves on to the mid 2040s. America has slowly managed to get itself at least partially back on its feet again. Though it is still but a shadow of its former self. The country is slowly turning into a budget communist technocracy. Many citizens are how “chipped,” albeit with a device that doesn’t actually fulfil many of the social control functions that wearers believe it does.
Following the lead of the two most headstrong of the Mandible clan, all remaining family members finally move to Nevada, which has seceded from the rest of the United States, and proceed to live happily ever after.
I think the thing that most struck me about the novel was a passage later on. Coming together one evening, family members reminisce about how great it was when they all had to cram together into a tiny home to survive and each day was a life or death struggle. It reminded me of the eight years I spent living at street level in London, squatting and earning money as a street musician.
Recently, there has been talk of a new depression coming, especially to the UK and the EU. I have to admit that there is a part of me that thinks this is exactly what Europe needs.
Living at street level, begging for money and having to fight off junkies and thieves, might not sound an alluring prospect. Especially to the millions of comfortably-off finance and tech workers of Frankfurt, London or Madrid. But I can guarantee one thing. When Europe got back on its feet, those that survived would come to look back on those times with fondness. They would recognise that this was the time when they felt the most alive.
There is an inherent truth in this that has been overlooked in the craving for comfort that modern-day city-dwellers experience. We need access to core, survival emotions in order to feel present and engaged with life.
I woke up this morning and listened to a review of Albert Camus and his philosophical approach to meaning . Yesterday I commented on someones post about George Orwells 1984 book , to remind themselves that 1984 was written in 1949 , and did not bear its formative fruit until 73 years later , 2022 . The book "My Antonia " about this very struggle you speak of , is a wondeful read , written by Willa Cather about immigrants from Hungary to the great plains , the juxtaposition of the violin inside of a sod hut will be a permanent picture in my minds eye . We are dreaming this all up -- supposedly the Amazon is collapsing , when I saw the news I thought it meant that my instant delivery was going to be delayed , then I realized that it was THE Amazon forest that the writer was talking about . I used to be all about balancing reality , now I am about creating the future - That said , I would love it if you Deveraj would talk a bit more about the need to engage in the struggle , to actually create memory and feel alive . / I came up with a theory via Bowlby where food sleep and caring guidance are necessary for creating memories in a child . I theorized that the biological system if confronted with an aggressor , will forego its personality and appropriate the personality of the aggressor , so as to better be able to deal with it . Like, fighting Mike Tyson in the ring , you are going to think like Tyson , to best deal with Tyson , but this will not be a memory because the biology is busy being Tyson -esque , acting so to speak , and so cannot structure images in the now . The ability to create a new , comes from being safe , and then moving into the new idea - think ballroom dancing , which allows memories to format and be built on . Living at the street level fighting off junkies does not sound like ballroom dancing , much , but actually it is a level where the body may not feel safe , but it feels necessary . Alive . Real . Creative . Thus , the actual personality ( spirit ) is engaged and memories are formed . Keeping it physical seems to be mandatory for a sense of journey . - Jen