Post Empire

by Scott MacLeod

Post Empire is a meditation/incantation on the graspings and whitherings of the tentacles of empire. MacLeod appropriates and recomposes computer virus code, internet search results, film stills, EBay listings, stolen poetry, newspaper reports, academic theses and much more to create a marching band playing the death rattle in the throat of Western civilization. Prose, poetry and visual art follow a dusty trail leading from Alphaville through Ground Zero though Abu Ghraib to - where? To appropriate & paraphrase German artist Franz John's description of his own [MacLeod's] interest is not in the [word]-chain itself but rather in the tectonic forces and energies of a matrix which is visibly and continually updating and renewing itself.

288 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2005

Reviews

[Marzi Margo · Rating 4 out of 5]

To put it simply, this collective of experimental works ranging from disparate fiction to minimalistic prose-poetry seemingly intends to accomplish one central goal: the presentation of western culture and the downfall of its increasingly amoral empire. Therefore, MacLeod's writings within "Post Empire" come off as strangely dystopian, all the while exemplifying a very real and non-fictitious modern world. The book was published in 2005, and although some of its pieces branch toward broader themes such as conspiracy/paranoia ("White Powder"), entropy ("DTH TXT"), nihilism ("Steel Torsos"), and language ("Falling, We Will Be Electrocuted"), several of the other works carry this insistent hammering of anti-Bush, anti-Rumsfeld, anti-war, anti-etc. idealism that, regardless of one's own political views, is simply stale when read at this point--not necessarily unimportant but certainly old-hat in the realm of literary symbolism. Still, this anthology does indeed contain some wonderful experimentation and abstraction coming from an author who understands the craft of exploring words and meanings.

My personal favorite piece in particular happens to be "The Love Letter of Rem Barok," an utterly brilliant and inventive homage to T.S. Eliot's uncertainty about the future of mankind. Imagine "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" if the lonesome protagonist were a computer virus rather than a man. The story well displays that MacLeod possesses a great talent which can be quite moving when it is not too busy being preachy.