Sunday, January 13, 2013

Feed by M. T. Anderson

I gobbled M. T. Anderson's Feed in a day, enjoying the texture of the future world depicted where about 70% of the population has a connection to the Internet wired into their brains. Language from the feed blends pleasurably with the voice of the high-school-age first-person narrator, Titus, to provide a sense of life in this context, the constant bombardment of multiple mental voices, from advertisements to chats, that constitute the setting. 

The invasion of the feed into the character's consciousness is appropriately but gently creepy. When Titus admires Violet before they have met, he is trying to figure out why he admires her. "Maybe it was her spine," he thinks, but he can't come up with an adjective that captures what attracts him, so "The feed suggests 'supple'" (11). It's creepy that the feed registers even the most intimate thoughts. It's also creepy that the feed adjusts to offer anything the characters need, from clothing to words. Even creepier is what seems to be the impact on the characters: many can't come up with words to express their thoughts because their world, while it may seem to have expanded in the quantity of information, has narrowed to focus solely on products. School itself has become a registered product, emphasizing instruction in using the feed. 

Another aspect of the book I enjoyed is the depiction of class disparity. Titus and Violet meet during spring break on the moon. While Titus visits the moon accompanied by his friends, and there's no concern about cost, just about accessing alcohol, Violet's dad has had to save up for a year to afford the trip. While Titus lives in a comfortable suburban bubble with his own upcar, Violet lives down at the bottom of the development, layers below the surface where disused asphalt roads still exist, kind of like the class-based stacking of neighborhoods in other science fiction stories such as Chung Kuo. In connection with the emphasis on control by marketing, the class discrepancy is important. The lower classes can't access all of the technology, and many don't want to, which means they are more likely to think critically about the feed but not have the ability to do anything about it. Violet's father, a college-educated professor, seems particularly ineffectual, which suggests the devaluing and also irrelevancy of real school. 

I was a little disappointed with the plot after about the halfway point: Violet, who had the feed implanted at age seven rather than at birth, begins to deteriorate. As the interface between the feed and her body breaks down, she loses control over her limbs, her brain, and any kind of bodily function. Tragically, Titus is bored by Violet's slow death. When she sends him her memories, afraid that she will lose them, he deletes them. When she takes him away for the weekend, hoping to include sex in the experiences she acquires before death, he is horrified. He tells her, "'I keep picturing you dead already'" (211), which is horrifying to her, too. Violet continues to attempt to interact with Titus while he moves on to another girlfriend. In the end, Titus does seem affected by Violet's approaching death, emptying his credit to order pants and sitting by Violet's bedside telling her a hackneyed version of their romance where "'two crazy kids grow, have madcap escapades, and learn an important lesson about love'" (234), but these gestures are shaped and cheapened by the marketing culture in which the feed maintains him. 

I think the plot fails on a number of different levels, but first, I should probably note that it could be me. Maybe like Titus, I, too, am bored by Violet's death, which is a sad state of affairs, given that the I don't even have a Smart Phone and don't visit Facebook often. But, if I am bored by Violet's death, there may also be an artistic flaw. It's possible that Violet comes across more as whining than interesting, but given her situation, she has a right to whine. It's probable that Titus is a disappointment, but that seems to be the point: he can't respond like a human being because he has become a purchasing machine living in an unimaginative storyline. So, given that these two characters should work to make the argument the book seems to make, why don't they?

Most of all, I think I was hoping for a bigger story. Violet seems an anomaly in her own culture rather than a key feature, which means that her death doesn't have the power to speak to the situation. I wonder if the storyline could have been stronger in focusing on the decline of a young person who had been connected to the feed since birth? That situation might have enabled the story to speak more to the feed itself, instead of about someone in whom the feed was imperfectly implanted. 

The tragedy of Violet's death also seems small in connection with the increasing antagonism toward America that the novel alludes to in the backdrop of the story ("the Global Alliance had issued more warnings about the possibility of total war if their demands were not met" [233]). I wanted more of that intercultural scope in the foreground to put emphasis on the dangers associated with the feed. The story's not just about an error in implantation. 

In addition, the larger tragedy associated with the feed seems simplistically portrayed: having the feed is bad; not having the feed would be good, if the world were different. This bleak theme seems to lash out at everyone using the Internet today and particularly at young adults, the likely readership of the novel, for their interactions with technology. While I am concerned about the profit motive behind much of the information on the web, I don't think all users are passive consumers in the way the novel suggests through the feed. The oversimplification risks having readers walk away from the story without connecting it productively to their lives. It's easy to say, "It's not like that." 

Ultimately, Feed is a novel where all resistance is futile, as Violet's father realizes that the feed is necessary equipment for navigating this culture, and as Violet discovers when her attempt at resistance plays a part in the corporations' unwillingness to help her. Total dead end. Other SF novels end this way, such as 1984, and  they feel more tragic. Perhaps because Titus lacks real human capacity to feel, the tragedy of Violet's impending death is more of a dud. 

Work Cited

Anderson, M. T. Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick P, 2002. Print. 

Image Source

Feed Book Cover Image. amazon.com. 1996-2013. Web. 13 Jan. 2013. <http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=feed+anderson>.