Here’s a review of the dystopian tale, Utopia 58 by Daniel Arenson. A decent, interesting read with a lot to keep up with that you really don’t have to.
KB409, the protagonist, is a teacher in this hellhole called City58O1. His name, and the names of all unfortunate souls in the book also remind me of stormtroopers. (TK421! Why aren’t you at your post?) He lives on the 58th floor on 58th street, just like everyone else. He’s 58 years old, and is 5′ – 8″ tall, after they sawed sections of his shins out. He’s probably been working for 58 years, and will retire in 58 days, just like everyone else. You get the picture. When he teaches from his books, every day he has each of his 58 students turn to page – you guessed it – 58. There were 57 failed utopias before this one. Utopia 58 succeeded, apparently.
My first thoughts before reading the book was that the titular character was going to be crazy madly insanely obsessed with the number 58, kind of like that Jim Carrey movie The Number 23. That, quite frankly, would have been awesome. My first thoughts after having read the book was – thank the maker for variety and diversity! Because almost everyone in this book has a god-awful past, present, and future.
Almost.
Of course I won’t spoil it. But I will say the reveals in the final act are better than the big reveal at the end. There was a lot of action, and murder-death-kill. I found myself struggling with connecting to the main character. There really was no ‘bad guy.’ Sure he’s up against monotony and sameness and a dystopian utopia, but that hardly proves to be a reason to cheer the guy on. A bad guy does exist, but not really. Halfway through the book, I began to think the protagonist’s ambitions would be the main antagonist. And as for the rest of the folks the protagonist runs into, the story pushed by so fast, I didn’t get a chance to care about them.
What brought me to my knees and gave me frown wrinkles, especially in the beginning, was the use of mux and xe and xer, instead of pronouns like him, her, he, and she. I think mux replaced Mr. or Mrs. No sexes. I get it. Still, that was an annoying trick I assume was meant for immersion that I had to get used to. At first I tried to figure out the he and she, because that’s what we’re used to doing. I assigned gender based on what the character said or did. Sometimes it was just that obvious. Later I just gave up, because honestly it didn’t matter.
And then there was the whole idea of millions of people succumbing to this sameness curse. There is much more effort to create sameness than would be necessary. Not that I’ve dabbled in utopia creation or anything, but I’m just saying that if a person is born into a world such as this, and knows no other existence, then how could xe (see what I did there?) want for something else? The survival instinct should be there, but doesn’t seem like it exists for most, if not all, people in the book. Fear seems to drive everything, which has its own logic issues as well. However, fear can also create community and society, right? I can’t help but think of that North Korean defector who ratted out his mom and brother. Born in that North Korean concentration camp, all he knew was starvation, mistrust, burns, beatings, and snitching. It wasn’t until he was in a new environment with new societal norms that he realized what his life was like in the camps.
A new environment with new societal norms is just what our protagonist and the millions of other sheep need right about now. Good luck to them.
Overall, it was an interesting book, like I said before. It was difficult for me to read because the concept of the book itself was such an unfamiliar and unique viewpoint, I couldn’t enjoy the book for the sake of just reading it. I ended up thinking too much. At any rate, it’s still worth a read.
Final thought: Where’s Brutus and the gang when you need them?