Near the end of The Flame Alphabet Ben
Marcus's rhapsodic apocalyptic novel of a world where language has become
toxic, Sam, the narrator, commenting on a fable of a young bird blindfolded as
a rite of passage, says: "I am no fan of stories, perhaps because they
seem more like problems that will never be solved. . . ." And although in
many respects, The Flame Alphabet may be the most accessible
of Marcus's books, he will find few fans among readers who like Sam prefer
problems with solutions. Certainly there is a story here. Certainly that story
seems to be saying something about language, communication and human
socialization, but just as certainly, exactly what that story is saying may
indeed seem like a problem that will never be solved.
Set in an America where adults are becoming mysteriously
sickened by the speech of children, the story chronicles one man's attempt to
find an antidote and save his family from the growing menace. Sam and his wife
Claire seem a normal family with a young teen age daughter. Or at least they
would be, if it wasn't that every time the girl speaks, indeed every time they
hear any child speak they are sickened. Claire is wasting away, drying up,
calcifying. And it isn't only them, all the adults all over the country are having the same
problem. Sam, an amateur, is doing his bumbling best to find a cure.
They are members of a sect of reconstructionist Jews who
worship secretly in huts in the forest, where they listen to sermons piped in
electronically from holes in the ground. It is suggested that at least some
people think that the sickness originated with these Jews and that somehow
there are answers to be found in these hidden "Jew holes." Whether
this is an anti-Semitic society looking for scapegoats is never really clear.
Much of what is done to deal with the problem is at least a metaphoric allusion
to Nazi solutions, final and otherwise. Children are carted away to unknown
destinations on buses. People are forced out of their homes. People are used in
medical experiments. These measures however are not particularly aimed at the
Jews.
If at first the sickness is caused by the speech of
children, gradually all language—written or spoken, indeed any form of human
communication from any source becomes poisonous. While this would seem to
suggest that Marcus is saying something about the existential betrayal of
language, it would also suggest that using language to make a point about the
failure of language is doomed to fail. It goes beyond language: "This was not a
disease of language anymore, it was a disease of insight, understanding,
knowing." The book in a sense becomes the ultimate example of itself. Of
course it provides no definitive answers; no answer is the answer. Like the
blindfolded bird in the story which learns to live with the blindness, we must
learn to live without the noise of language. Yet when it comes right down to
it, Sam like Marcus turns to language. This is the ultimate paradox for the
writer. Language is as likely to confuse as not. Words don't work, but what
else does he have?
On the other hand, if in fact, Marcus is maintaining the
inadequacy of language it is as likely as not that everything I have just said
is inadequate. In the end, what can one say about The Flame
Alphabet with any definitiveness. Certainly nothing definitive about
what it all means. Any reader looking for definitive would do well to look
elsewhere. On the other hand the reader happily willing to be teased out of
thought by the venom of language will find The Flame
Alphabet one of the most interesting of books of recent years.
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