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A review by rootytootyrissa
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis
2.0
Walter Tevis... WHAT THE HECK, MAN?
Mockingbird is a story involving a future society that has a whole host of troubles. Not only has population stagnated, but the remaining peoples are only interested in themselves, are "taught" nothing but the ability to zone out in front of the telly (leaving them unable to read and write, much less be interested in the prospect), and smoke dope and pop pills all day long to chase any remaining thoughts and feelings well away. They are ruled by classes of robots meant to look after them--however, even they have begun to fall into disrepair.
Sound interesting? Well, it is--at least to start--hence my very generous two star rating. (I mean, at least I finished it!) I'm absolutely bewildered by how many raving 4 and 5-star reviews there are... did everyone else read the same story I did?!
What I quickly realised was that while I thought the ideas within Mockingbird were interesting and could have held some real appeal to my geeky little mind, the writing style of Walter Tevis left SO MUCH to be desired. I found myself midway through the book guffawing or wishing I had a ticker to count how many times a really boring phrase or word was implemented. My main pet peeve was, "He looked at her. He looked at her for a long time." I SWEAR TO GOD I've never heard of so many people LOOKING in my life. I get sometimes the use of flowery wordage is frowned upon, but c'mon--gazed, squinted, peered. ANYTHING BUT LOOK!
Same goes for "said." Yelled, shouted, whispered, moaned, hissed--none of these made an appearance in the book. For all intents and purposes, our characters were just about as flat and lifeless as the robots they shared a world with. I don't think Walter Nevis has ever encountered any form of descriptive language is his life. Maybe this is my fault for listening to the audiobook version where it was glaringly apparent, but--nah, bro.
I could go on and on picking apart things I didn't like about this book (warning, rant and semi-lucid spoilers ahead):
1) Robocop being unable to work up enough robo brain cells to work out an idea for why he was doing horrible things or maybe even how to solve minor issues despite having lived for centuries blah de blah;
2) Our heroine just sort of going "meh" on how she truly felt about our hero and thinking maybe she wasn't even really in love with him but then by the end within 2 minutes of their reunion declaring her love once more after he makes her an omelette (and they say romance is dead);
3) That weird, Southern religious cult experienced at the end of the book (what the fuck was that about? I actually cringed;
4) Robocop finding the statistics regarding our heroine and yeah she is literally one in a freakin' million, can you try to make it a little more believable? Ughhhhhhhh.
I think this review has honestly got me a little worked up! In the end, this had some ideas that perhaps when placed in the hands of someone with the skills to thread it all together would have made for an incredible story. For me though, it felt sloppy and a bit underbaked... surprising considering apparently Tevis himself was an educator from Ohio who bemoaned the lack of youthful reading abilities--hence the story. (Now that seems ironic!) Ah well--still pleased I made it through. Seriously.
Mockingbird is a story involving a future society that has a whole host of troubles. Not only has population stagnated, but the remaining peoples are only interested in themselves, are "taught" nothing but the ability to zone out in front of the telly (leaving them unable to read and write, much less be interested in the prospect), and smoke dope and pop pills all day long to chase any remaining thoughts and feelings well away. They are ruled by classes of robots meant to look after them--however, even they have begun to fall into disrepair.
Sound interesting? Well, it is--at least to start--hence my very generous two star rating. (I mean, at least I finished it!) I'm absolutely bewildered by how many raving 4 and 5-star reviews there are... did everyone else read the same story I did?!
What I quickly realised was that while I thought the ideas within Mockingbird were interesting and could have held some real appeal to my geeky little mind, the writing style of Walter Tevis left SO MUCH to be desired. I found myself midway through the book guffawing or wishing I had a ticker to count how many times a really boring phrase or word was implemented. My main pet peeve was, "He looked at her. He looked at her for a long time." I SWEAR TO GOD I've never heard of so many people LOOKING in my life. I get sometimes the use of flowery wordage is frowned upon, but c'mon--gazed, squinted, peered. ANYTHING BUT LOOK!
Same goes for "said." Yelled, shouted, whispered, moaned, hissed--none of these made an appearance in the book. For all intents and purposes, our characters were just about as flat and lifeless as the robots they shared a world with. I don't think Walter Nevis has ever encountered any form of descriptive language is his life. Maybe this is my fault for listening to the audiobook version where it was glaringly apparent, but--nah, bro.
I could go on and on picking apart things I didn't like about this book (warning, rant and semi-lucid spoilers ahead):
1) Robocop being unable to work up enough robo brain cells to work out an idea for why he was doing horrible things or maybe even how to solve minor issues despite having lived for centuries blah de blah;
2) Our heroine just sort of going "meh" on how she truly felt about our hero and thinking maybe she wasn't even really in love with him but then by the end within 2 minutes of their reunion declaring her love once more after he makes her an omelette (and they say romance is dead);
3) That weird, Southern religious cult experienced at the end of the book (what the fuck was that about? I actually cringed;
4) Robocop finding the statistics regarding our heroine and yeah she is literally one in a freakin' million, can you try to make it a little more believable? Ughhhhhhhh.
I think this review has honestly got me a little worked up! In the end, this had some ideas that perhaps when placed in the hands of someone with the skills to thread it all together would have made for an incredible story. For me though, it felt sloppy and a bit underbaked... surprising considering apparently Tevis himself was an educator from Ohio who bemoaned the lack of youthful reading abilities--hence the story. (Now that seems ironic!) Ah well--still pleased I made it through. Seriously.