ManBookering discussion

Discussing Hystopia by David Means.

If you become members of the Faber and Faber Club you get the book at a significantly cheaper price around 20 euros, considering that it's selling for 27 euros at Bookdepository, that's a good deal.

Just started this one, it's a bit of a rough start so far but hopefully it gets into the story soon!

I am about half way through and I am starting to 'skim-read'. The story is just not doing it for me, and neither are the characters.

30% of the way in, it looks like the story might be picking up in terms of intrigue at least. It's certainly an interesting concept, but it's not a time period I have any interest in.

I've just finished it and the book grew on me in the 2nd half.
But I am wondering what other people think about the novel-in-the-novel-approach. Was that really necessary?

20% through so far and waiting to see how it hangs together - holding judgement for now as I'm intriged at this stage

I ended up giving up on this book hallway through.

My one star review:

"Fuck plot and fuck story and fuck the way one thing fits to another and fuck cause and effect, because there wasn't none and if there was we didn't see much of it." p. 159

Kind of Means to provide his own review within the pages of his novel. I am not so much shocked at this being nominated for a Booker as I am flabbergasted that the damn thing ever got published in the first place! I mean, just WHO is the intended audience for this? Drug-addled illiterate Nam-era vets, which comprises the majority of the characters, don't read. It isn't weird enough for fans of alternative/speculative fiction (e.g., China Mieville). It's TOO weird for psychologists and government wonks, who are the other main characters. Means apparently has a small rabid coterie of fans for his short fiction, but even they will be turned off by the extended length of this tome. I can only speculate someone at FS&G thought there was a market for ersatz Robert Stone - but even the REAL Stone isn't getting read much these days!!!

To call the characters one-dimensional is to afford them a depth and complexity they don't deserve. And I hate it when an author is just plain sloppy - for instance: within the last 50 pages, Singleton informs Hank there are only 4 blue pills left, and Hank says that leaves one for each of them (including Meg and Wendy). A few pages later, Singleton and Wendy each take two of the pills, so there AREN'T any more. And a few pages later (p. 306) we get: "Then they'd stay a few days together, take the final four pills, see what transpired...." Who the fuck edited this mess?

I can only hope this is the worst of the Booker longlist, because if there is anything less worthy, I may not make it through all thirteen.

Almost half way. Can't say I'm enjoying this or it's getting any clearer.

I will join Doug with a 1-star review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Britta wrote: "I've just finished it and the book grew on me in the 2nd half.
But I am wondering what other people think about the novel-in-the-novel-approach. Was that really necessary?"

Britta, I can't see how the novel-in-the-novel approach helps at all. I don't think it adds anything to the book.

I also don't see how the "alternative history" helped with the book.

Overall, I thought it was a confused mess. As you can see from my previous post, I gave it just 1 star. A book actually has to work quite hard to get a 1-star rating from me!

**Spoiler: I have given a brief overview of the book along with my review so please don’t read if you don’t like to know about the plot before you read. Happy reading.

Hystopia by David Means
Hystopia is an alternate historical fiction much like Stephen Kings 11-22-63 where he arranges history to create his story. It is actually a book within a book as the author David Means tell the story of an ex-Vietnam vet, Eugene Allen, who is the author of Hystopia and Means protaganist. Historia is the main text of the book and explores the idea of therapeutic amnesia in a very complex, layered and yet enticing you to read on. Set during the Vietnam War, and John F. Kennedy was still alive after serving three consecutive terms as president (alternative historical fiction) sets up a government agency to help Vietnam vets and others with mental illness recover from the trauma of war and life. By reenacting the traumatizing events along with the ingestion of a drug called Tripizoid it caused memories to disappear resulting a relief from their PTSD. When a vet went through this process he was called an “enfold”. Unfortunately, there were those whose treatment goes array and the trauma is only amplified to the degree that they were considered psychopathic killers. . . they are the “unfolds”. Agents from the Psych Corp are after the unfolds as they go on a killing spree. Mean’s storytelling through Eugene Allen, demonstrates the importance of sharing trauma with others. Heartbreaking, realistic, violent but riveting but not an easy book to read. I think Hystopia is a book you will either love or hate. It worked for me. 5 stars

Hi Kathe - I think I am stalking you round Goodreads. Having just completely agreed with you on Do Not Say We Have Nothing (we both gave it 5 stars), I now find myself at the opposite end of the scale to you on this one!

I love Man-Booker and have read all of 2015 and now starting the 2016 list. So far:
Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Hystopia
The Sellout
His Bloody Project
The North Water
Eileen (now reading)
Seven more to go and my plan is to read before the short list comes out next month.

I've finished now and after thinking about it for a few days here's my review. Book 2 from the Booker Prize nomination long list - a rather strange story about a fictional pharmaceutical rehabilitation program for returned Vietnam vets in the US, called enfolding, which allows recovery from post traumatic stress - only some of the early efforts go horribly wrong. Two agents from the so called psych corps, one of whom is successfully enfolded, go in search of an unsuccessful enfoldee who is killing his way across northern Michigan. Written as a story within a story, it's a very black book that explores how humans deal with trauma by creating their own internal narratives of their experience. I don't think it will make the short list. Three stars

I'm not sure if anyone has read or heard the following, but I wanted to share a brief interview with the judges (Amanda Foreman (Chair) and Abdulrazak Gurnah) on why books on the longlist made the longlist.

David Means (US) - Hystopia (Faber & Faber)
“a dazzling, muscular debut about conflict, trauma and the savage irony of the 20th century.”
Gurnah: In some ways, it’s quite a brutal novel, but its subject is not. It’s brutal in the way somebody like Cormac McCarthy is, because its describing the experiences of Vietnam veterans, but doing so in a way which is not realistic but looking ahead, as it were, to a dystopic universe, to a dystopic USA anyway. But also, there are many other inventions that he does. It’s not just dystopia in the way that No Country for Old Men is, that kind of thing. It’s a very inventive novel, full of clever moves and strategies, and generally speaking, it carries itself brilliantly.

I liked it overall and gave it 4 stars. I would have given it 5 but for me the epilogue didn't work as well as the rest of the book. I missed the first part of the book because my Kindle Fire jumped straight into the narrative It felt like a story asking to be a screen play.

Just...no. This book was dreadful from page one. I thought it had a lot of promise based on the description, but nothing in the book worked for me, especially the prologue/epilogue. The parts of the novel that worked the best were when the author wasn't trying so hard to create his dystopic world. I felt that his language was so much more fluid and natural when he wasn't focused on that. Overall, I thought it was a mess, and even the few passages I found pleasant were no where near enough to carry the novel. I also finished reading The Sympathizer right before reading this one, and I can say, without a doubt, that this book in no way compares to that one in reference to the judges' comment on a novel about "conflict, trauma and the savage irony of the 20th century." Completely different books, but one has so fantastically succeeded while, I believe, the other one has completely failed. If it were not for reading the books on the longlist, this one would have easily become only the 4th book I've left unfinished in my life. I cannot imagine that there is another book on the longlist that is worse than this one. I still have many to read. The North Water still at the top of my list so far.

Very clever. I hated the too-sweet ending until I read the comments at the end.

I quite like the idealised version of events in the novel compared to the real version of events. Hoping he could change reality by writing it differently. It reminded me a bit of the end of the TV show "Roseanne".

I really like what he did with Megs character - the idealised version in the novel vs the real version.

Just started this and was wondering if anyone else got a sense of Phillip K. Dick in this story; in particular I'm thinking of A Scanner Darkly- with the idea of agents and drugs controlling and framing memory/ trauma.

I'm 50 pages in - so far a bit Pynchon, a bit Vonnegut with Natural Born Killers chucked in for good measure. No qualms yet!

Robert wrote: "I'm 50 pages in - so far a bit Pynchon, a bit Vonnegut with Natural Born Killers chucked in for good measure. No qualms yet!"

For me it was Natural Born Killers meets Apocalypse Now :-)

True!!!!!

Britta wrote: "I've just finished it and the book grew on me in the 2nd half.
But I am wondering what other people think about the novel-in-the-novel-approach. Was that really necessary?"

I just finished this book and your question was on my mind as I finished.

My take on it is that all books are written as a sort of wish fulfillment. We get set-up in the beginning and end to see some of Eugene Allen's perspective as he navigates the alter-historical (for us, the reader) of his post Vietnam War, 1970s and the horribly, violent and too early deaths of his friend and sister.

I think Allen's book is an attempt to find a more positive story in the events that take place in the fictive world of Means (the actual author). I think layering these alternative stories is a way Means can show this wish fulfillment idea.

I can say more about this, but it's gets complicated, I would like to hear other reader's take on this.

Finished it, and furthermore I liked it. here's my review.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Britta wrote: "I've just finished it and the book grew on me in the 2nd half.
But I am wondering what other people think about the novel-in-the-novel-approach. Was that really necessary?"

I think that approach made it interesting, it adds another possible layer of interpretation: On the one hand you make sense of the story itself and then you see it as the product of specific circumstances. I can see people writing long dissertations on the one, but I was not too convinced. For me to have this approach work the ideas beyond the structure would have had to be way more interesting than what was put forward. (Full disclosure, I do write a PhD on literature, which deals with war, trauma and witnessing - may be I am just tired ;) .)