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abbywdan's review
3.0
I thought I was past the part of my life where books were academic slogs, but along came The Flame Alphabet. The first half of this novel made me feel like a high school freshman sitting through a college seminar I thought I was prepared for. It felt like reading Great Expectations in third grade and NOT GETTING IT. It felt like reading The Awakening in eighth grade and NOT GETTING IT. It felt like reading Seven Gothic Tales in college and NOT GETTING IT. But I'm thirty years old and I'm smart, so instead of deciding that I wasn't getting it, I just kept reading.
The first half of the novel begins with the middle of the story, backtracks to the beginning, and then catches you up. That catchup, where you know it's all leading, takes forever, and the timeline loops all over the place, and there's a wonderful aside about having people over to your house whose children destroy your things and whose shits destroy your toilet, but mostly, it's a tangle of backstory that doesn't shed enough light on the situation at hand but does introduce you to important ideas and vignettes that are important later on. They're there, so they must be important, it's just hard to remember to see that when you feel like you're at sea.
Then, halfway through, you get sucked toward the falls. The plot catches up, the theory and the metaphor and the themes start to make more sense, and it all become oddly satisfying. I'm still not going to claim to get it all, but I do get parts of it. I thought the tie-in to Judaism (not real Judaism, I think, but a metaphorical, future underground religion based on it) was really interesting. I thought the effects of speech and understanding and of humans on humans were well chosen and well written. In short, I'm glad I stuck with it, and I have a lot to think about.
The first half of the novel begins with the middle of the story, backtracks to the beginning, and then catches you up. That catchup, where you know it's all leading, takes forever, and the timeline loops all over the place, and there's a wonderful aside about having people over to your house whose children destroy your things and whose shits destroy your toilet, but mostly, it's a tangle of backstory that doesn't shed enough light on the situation at hand but does introduce you to important ideas and vignettes that are important later on. They're there, so they must be important, it's just hard to remember to see that when you feel like you're at sea.
Then, halfway through, you get sucked toward the falls. The plot catches up, the theory and the metaphor and the themes start to make more sense, and it all become oddly satisfying. I'm still not going to claim to get it all, but I do get parts of it. I thought the tie-in to Judaism (not real Judaism, I think, but a metaphorical, future underground religion based on it) was really interesting. I thought the effects of speech and understanding and of humans on humans were well chosen and well written. In short, I'm glad I stuck with it, and I have a lot to think about.
delsim's review
2.0
Interesting premise, I just found it very depressing. I guess I need a little hope in my post-apocalyptic reads.
pussinbooks's review
1.0
Flame Alphabet has all the elements it needs to be a thrilling narrative that could go in new and exciting directions. Instead, it never really goes anywhere except in a circle. This book suffers from a confused narrator with delusions that everything will be okay once his family is back together.
The big let down of this book is it doesn't deliver on its promises. The exciting premise of Flame Alphabet is that the voices of children act as toxin to adults. Not long into the story we find out the toxin is only coming from Jewish children. BUT THEN. The voices of adults are infecting adults, and not only Jewish people are the carriers of the toxin. But maybe folklore will cure everyone? They need to find a new way to communicate, a new form of language but...(yeah, all of the plot points fade away like that). Ben Marcus starts a lot of paths he never has his characters follow.
What grates me the most is Marcus' audacity to name a character Esther only to have her mope around, infect her parents by speaking to them, and do nothing to forward the plot. The only people who move the plot forward are two incredibly boring men. Sam, the narrator, seems to be sleepwalking through his life and never makes the right decisions because he is too busy thinking bad things can't happen to him. Even when he finally gets a clue as to how he has been manipulated, his long-winded narrative never results in any changes (except one big one that benefits him and only him).
I hoped The Flame Alphabet would be a profound comment on communication and religion, but it turned out to be unrefined.
The big let down of this book is it doesn't deliver on its promises. The exciting premise of Flame Alphabet is that the voices of children act as toxin to adults. Not long into the story we find out the toxin is only coming from Jewish children. BUT THEN. The voices of adults are infecting adults, and not only Jewish people are the carriers of the toxin. But maybe folklore will cure everyone? They need to find a new way to communicate, a new form of language but...(yeah, all of the plot points fade away like that). Ben Marcus starts a lot of paths he never has his characters follow.
What grates me the most is Marcus' audacity to name a character Esther only to have her mope around, infect her parents by speaking to them, and do nothing to forward the plot. The only people who move the plot forward are two incredibly boring men. Sam, the narrator, seems to be sleepwalking through his life and never makes the right decisions because he is too busy thinking bad things can't happen to him. Even when he finally gets a clue as to how he has been manipulated, his long-winded narrative never results in any changes (except one big one that benefits him and only him).
I hoped The Flame Alphabet would be a profound comment on communication and religion, but it turned out to be unrefined.
blackoxford's review
2.0
The Un-Disclosing God of Language
Overall an interesting premise but a very weak and amateurish development. There are just too many issues/themes/styles swirling around randomly - Judaism, language, generational gaps, sociology, parenthood, pointless sex, science fiction and magical (sur)realism, among others - none of which are resolved satisfactorily. By the end, the author runs out of steam and seems to simply give up on the whole enterprise. Disappointing. Here’s one interpretation of a chaotic book:
What does a Jewish family do in adversity? It talks of course. Among its members. Then with other congregants at the synagogue. With the rabbi. They analyse the situation. They figure things out. They may even write to The Times or circulate a plan.
But when the adversity in question is language itself, what happens? If language causes mass illness, terminal illness, what can be done? And if it appears that one’s children, although immune from the illness, become the willing vectors for spreading it, what hope is there for the family itself?
Under such circumstances society cannot exist, at least not a society built on the premise of language - in law, in commercial activity, or as the basis of obligation of any sort. Memory and feeling tend to dissipate and eventually disappear. Such a society would require not just silence but the strict self-censoring of all thought so that it never reaches the level of speech or writing. In other words all of us would have to commit to a radical unknowing. As in the biblical prescriptions, the word would literally be “buried in the heart” so deeply that it could not be found much less expressed.
Recovery from the disease of language would, of course, be no mean accomplishment. Like any detoxification, it is a lonely, confusing, and painful process. Even more so since there is no possibility of communicating the experience to anyone else. Language is poison no matter what it might be used for. Even sign language can be lethal if not handled(!) properly. Authorities are obliged to act in such circumstances, procedures established, experiments run.
Sight of one written letter at a time - and even then only in fragments - might be permissible, for a sort of Cabalistic analysis of a script - potentially lethal as soon as it was whole enough to suggest comprehensibility. This technique allows writing/reading without the introduction of meaning by the writer/reader - an environment of controlled ignorance, as it were. A real composition/exegesis, therefore, without the danger of interpretive pollution either in the text or the writer/reader. This allows the search for an alternative alphabet without an inherent toxicity to proceed without unacceptable casualty levels.
Then again the business of script, not just the alphabet, is a tricky matter: “If we hid the text too much, it could not be seen. If we revealed it so it could be seen, it burned out the mind. No matter what. To see writing was to suffer.” Large numbers of test subjects did indeed suffer. Sometimes this led to “acoustical expiration. Suicide by language.” Unfortunate but merciful in the circumstances.
It turns out the the Book of Genesis had correctly diagnosed the human condition: “This was not a disease of language anymore, it was a disease of insight, understanding, knowing.” And to this there is a solution. Unfortunately it’s pharmacological not linguistic. Even more unfortunately it involves the bodily fluids of immune children. Bad news for one’s progeny.
And bad news even for the adult forebears. “We make the language in our own image and the language repulses us… We thought the world we lived in could be hacked into pleasing shapes simply by what we said.” says the protagonist, Samuel. His rabbi is even more critical:
That’s a good summary of my appreciation of the book.
Postscript 30Dec21: Although the protagonist in Flame Alphabet has no luck in finding differences in the way people respond to different sorts of writing, this is very clearly a ‘thing.’ See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4390977626
Overall an interesting premise but a very weak and amateurish development. There are just too many issues/themes/styles swirling around randomly - Judaism, language, generational gaps, sociology, parenthood, pointless sex, science fiction and magical (sur)realism, among others - none of which are resolved satisfactorily. By the end, the author runs out of steam and seems to simply give up on the whole enterprise. Disappointing. Here’s one interpretation of a chaotic book:
What does a Jewish family do in adversity? It talks of course. Among its members. Then with other congregants at the synagogue. With the rabbi. They analyse the situation. They figure things out. They may even write to The Times or circulate a plan.
But when the adversity in question is language itself, what happens? If language causes mass illness, terminal illness, what can be done? And if it appears that one’s children, although immune from the illness, become the willing vectors for spreading it, what hope is there for the family itself?
Under such circumstances society cannot exist, at least not a society built on the premise of language - in law, in commercial activity, or as the basis of obligation of any sort. Memory and feeling tend to dissipate and eventually disappear. Such a society would require not just silence but the strict self-censoring of all thought so that it never reaches the level of speech or writing. In other words all of us would have to commit to a radical unknowing. As in the biblical prescriptions, the word would literally be “buried in the heart” so deeply that it could not be found much less expressed.
Recovery from the disease of language would, of course, be no mean accomplishment. Like any detoxification, it is a lonely, confusing, and painful process. Even more so since there is no possibility of communicating the experience to anyone else. Language is poison no matter what it might be used for. Even sign language can be lethal if not handled(!) properly. Authorities are obliged to act in such circumstances, procedures established, experiments run.
Sight of one written letter at a time - and even then only in fragments - might be permissible, for a sort of Cabalistic analysis of a script - potentially lethal as soon as it was whole enough to suggest comprehensibility. This technique allows writing/reading without the introduction of meaning by the writer/reader - an environment of controlled ignorance, as it were. A real composition/exegesis, therefore, without the danger of interpretive pollution either in the text or the writer/reader. This allows the search for an alternative alphabet without an inherent toxicity to proceed without unacceptable casualty levels.
Then again the business of script, not just the alphabet, is a tricky matter: “If we hid the text too much, it could not be seen. If we revealed it so it could be seen, it burned out the mind. No matter what. To see writing was to suffer.” Large numbers of test subjects did indeed suffer. Sometimes this led to “acoustical expiration. Suicide by language.” Unfortunate but merciful in the circumstances.
It turns out the the Book of Genesis had correctly diagnosed the human condition: “This was not a disease of language anymore, it was a disease of insight, understanding, knowing.” And to this there is a solution. Unfortunately it’s pharmacological not linguistic. Even more unfortunately it involves the bodily fluids of immune children. Bad news for one’s progeny.
And bad news even for the adult forebears. “We make the language in our own image and the language repulses us… We thought the world we lived in could be hacked into pleasing shapes simply by what we said.” says the protagonist, Samuel. His rabbi is even more critical:
“… language kills itself, expires inside its host. Language acts as an acid over its message. If you no longer care about an idea or feeling, then put it into language. That will certainly be the last of it, a fitting end. Language is another name for coffin.”Ultimately, according Samuel, now a hermit, language leads to despair,: ”I found I could do without more things to misunderstand.”
That’s a good summary of my appreciation of the book.
Postscript 30Dec21: Although the protagonist in Flame Alphabet has no luck in finding differences in the way people respond to different sorts of writing, this is very clearly a ‘thing.’ See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4390977626
maireoverthere's review
1.0
DNF. I'm not really sure what is going on or what I'm supposed to be getting out of this story. Maybe I'll try picking it back up again some other time.
nilsjesper's review
3.0
I actually liked this more than a 3 star rating would lead you to believe. Alas it's 4 star qualities were undone in parts by its 2 star qualities. Still one of the better books I've read in a while.
bahoulie's review
2.0
I read at least 100 pages, and it was all just complain, complain, complain. I kept waiting for something to happen. Stop going back in time. Go forward and let me see what happens, but no. So, I gave up. Very willing to do that these days.
pearloz's review
2.0
When precisely did this book fall apart for me? Page 141. The beginning of part 2. For the previous several chapters I'd already begun to feel skepticism about the premise and how it would be sustained. I knew the idea could be sustained, but I was beginning to realize that this wasn't the author to do it. What the hell was going on in this book? The weird, secret, two-people synagogue in the woods (with piped-in service and joyless post-service coitus), the Narrator's unlikely homemade science experiments, the lab...continuing his "work" at the lab (what...he just had all these alphabets in his head??), the TV w/ the live broadcast of his front door??? What???
Look, I don't mind weird, I love weird. Even weird for the sake of weird. But this weird felt insincere and went nowhere and fell apart more times than I'd care to admit. I should have stopped reading it. Boo.
Look, I don't mind weird, I love weird. Even weird for the sake of weird. But this weird felt insincere and went nowhere and fell apart more times than I'd care to admit. I should have stopped reading it. Boo.