What a timely book release – Lionel Shriver’s new novel, Mania being published the week of the Cass Report and the Tickle v. Giggle (yes) trial down in Australia – events that might serve to moving the crazy dial just a bit back on the trans social mania.
(And it’s weird how I got my copy. The book wasn’t published until this past Tuesday, but I was at the library on Saturday, and there it was on the “new book” shelf. Wasn’t even looking for it, but there it was.)
I’ve read a few Shriver novels before – and written about one of them here. She is not a deft stylist, but her novels tends to be interesting, nonetheless – talky narratives about whatever issue is engaging Shriver at the moment – the fitness craze, aging – and here, the phenomenon of manias taking over a society, coming to dominate every area of life and brooking no dissent.
Of course, Shriver could have taken any real-life examples as a specific subject, but instead she wisely poses a counterfactual history. We begin in an alternative 2011 when American life has been taken over by the cause – the “last great civil rights fight” – of “Mental Parity” – that is, it is an unacceptable act of bigotry and exclusion to suggest, not simply that differences in intelligence or ability may be discussed or noticed, but that they exist at all.
Language that could be understood to either demean the less intelligent or honor the gifted and talented (in any way) is verboten. Schools cannot give grades or imply judgment. Hiring for merit is a thing of the past, and in fact the less-talented are privileged in hiring.
There are no levels of intelligence, no more or less – there is only “alternative processing.”
At the center of the story is Pearson Converse, a professor of English, married with three children, two of whom were conceived before her current partner situation using sperm intentionally selected from a high-IQ man. Pearson rebelled against her Jehovah’s Witness upbringing and is in generally innately suspicious of groupthink. Mania is the story of Pearson’s struggle within and eventually against this social and culture authoritarianism.
Using Pearson as her protagonist, Shriver is able to satirize and explore not only the ecology of social mania, but the tensions felt by those who live within it.
What do you do when you know the world is nuts? How do you fight back when assigning The Idiot in your literature class is probably going to get you fired?
It’s an entertaining and sharp read, but it does have that Shriver-ish brain dump feel to it. As in: This is what really irritates me right now and I’m going to have these characters talk about it.
I have to say, though, it’s pretty funny when Shriver’s somewhat alternative recent history in which the less-intelligent are elevated out of anxiety to compensate for their past mistreatment reaches a peak of sorts in which….Joe Biden is elected president.
Okay, that made me laugh out loud.
Much of what Shriver writes about – and the implications of what she’s really writing about – wink-wink – are controversial, and while I have not read a lot of reviews of the novel, I am surprised that her major plot twist has not received more attention, for it actually is pretty controversial.
By the end of the novel (spoiler alert), the situation has turned on its head. Mental Parity has been thoroughly reject and a new, apposite mania has taken hold – the valorization of intelligence to the point at which everyone has their IQ tattooed on their wrists. How did this happen?
Because (ahem) of a vaccine. A vaccine for Covid that was developed by the less-than-capable, because all the actually intelligent people had been fired by pharmaceutical companies, so those left didn’t know what they were doing and developed a “vaccine” that ended up killing millions.
She went there. Forget the suggestions about racial anxieties and gender issues – that’s the sharpest statement in the book.
One more thing:
In exploring the mechanics of social mania, of course Shriver must put human motivation at the center, for this is something we create, perform and enforce. The rebellious Pearson has a reflection in her lifelong friend Emory. Emory is a rising media personality – eventually star – who had laughed with Pearson at the ridiculousness of Mental Parity, but who, over the course of the novel, sells out – and even sells Pearson out.
It’s a tight way of looking at the different reactions to social mania – why some fight back and others capitulate and cooperate. But it seems to me there’s something else. I’ve read a couple of interviews with Shriver on the book, and I’ve not seen her address this, so I don’t know if it’s intentional and she’s just leaving it up to the reader to figure it out or if I’m imagining things.
For we can answer the question of why be silent in the face of what you know is crazy or wrong from a number of different angles – social, cultural, financial interest, stupidity, laziness, fear – but in the end, no matter how much we are manipulated or how unthinking we are, the most fundamental answer is going to come back to the human heart.
(Again, spoiler)
Pearson has spent years resisting Mental Parity, and Owen has capitulated. Further, by the end, Owen’s actions have been responsible for the destruction of Pearson’s life. And when they meet again, Owen is largely unrepentant. She did what she had to do, right?
For years, Pearson has seen Owen as her enemy, knowing quite well what Owen’s cravenness had done to her. But by the end, she moves back into friendship mode. Why?
Since they were girls, Pearson’s friendship with Owen had been based on, I suppose, a sort of mimetic desire. Owen was the classier, sharper, smoother, more attractive one, and Pearson’s attachment to her was an expression of her own flawed sense of self – by attaching herself to Pearson, she would be what she couldn’t be on her own.
The truth was I still liked her. And I wanted her to like me.
And isn’t that at the heart of so much of our own adhesion to ideas, movements and yes, manias? The desire to be liked, and in a more general sense, be absorbed into the cool, acceptable cohort at any – or all – costs?
I had skimmed Althouse’s post Sunday but without much interest (have never read any LS); thanks for this. I’ve reserved the novel at the public library, where it is still ‘on order’.
I read “The Motion of Body Through Space” based on your review of the book. I liked it very much and found I could relate to the subject matter – particularly, aging woman (check) and triathlete subculture (check) which in my own social circles I’ve watched consume then destroy what appeared to be solid marriages.
Looking forward to this book. Now that we are looking back on the past four years, many people are trying to answer the question you pose at the end: why, after being either excommunicated or even outright vilified, do those of us skeptics who resisted Covid propaganda totally or in part, find ourselves accepting the new terms of engagement (i.e. “friendship mode” or those in the wrong simply acting as if nothing has happened, while those of us who were harmed acquiesce and move on). Certainly part of it is battle fatigue. Part of it is also not wanting to be “that person” – the one who won’t let something go. I’m still processing it all and trying to navigate these new waters. All I know is that relationships have been altered and that, for the most part, it has fallen on me to be the gracious one. No one has asked for forgiveness (including the Church – apart from a half-hearted introspection by Cardinal Dolan) or acknowledged the harm done on every level of human interaction. It is frustrating, to say the least.