{"id":455,"date":"2012-07-02T08:24:01","date_gmt":"2012-07-02T16:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=455"},"modified":"2012-07-02T08:24:01","modified_gmt":"2012-07-02T16:24:01","slug":"machine-man-review-on-goodreads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/02\/machine-man-review-on-goodreads\/","title":{"rendered":"Machine Man– review on Goodreads"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Machine<\/a>Machine Man<\/a> by Max Barry<\/a><\/p>\n

My rating: 4 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

In my reviews of Barry\u2019s Jennifer Government<\/em> and Company<\/em>, I called his style \u201ca bit stark, a bit plain, matter-of-fact.\u201d Here in Machine Man<\/em>, the narration is in first person, so this same style comes across as slightly autistic (or as if the narrator has Asperger\u2019s, for those who insist on term for the popular understanding of socially functional autism). Perhaps a bit of a stereotype for lab engineer, but then Barry doesn\u2019t seem interested in bogging down his novel in superfluous details, so why should his narrator. And that\u2019s not just a quip on my part\u2014at one point, his character stops even going home, choosing to live at work instead. This doesn\u2019t have much to do with the story; it\u2019s as much a convenience for the author and the reader as it is for the character.<\/p>\n

What we have here is Flowers for Algernon<\/em> by way of Frankenstein<\/em> by way of Robocop<\/em>. And while my personal critical point of view has never been of the historical variety, I can\u2019t help but think how Barry\u2019s novel changes how I see each of those other texts. Or even a story like that laughable movie Limitless<\/em> (which I just found out was based on a book, so maybe I\u2019ll add it my to-read list, if only for yet another perspective on this type of tale). Combine the basic Greek tragedy, with its heroes and hubris and falls from grace, but attach a good-old-fashioned self-made man story at the beginning. That the main character in Machine Man<\/em> is literally self-made is even more compelling.<\/p>\n

Again, I\u2019m drawn to a more historical analysis than anything else. The self-made-man story is very much an American ideal, and thus it begs the question if Machine Man<\/em> (or Flowers<\/em> or Frank<\/em> or Robo<\/em>) is a cautionary tale about where the United States is heading. Certainly in these times of economic struggle, it\u2019s looking more and more like \u201cThe Great Experiment\u201d has run its course and we\u2019re all doomed to become Canadians. But then I can\u2019t think of a time when we didn\u2019t say we were struggling with a difficult economy, so this is, like those Greek tragedies, a timeless story.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s reading way<\/em> too much into it, of course, and this is supposed to be a review, not a sophomore essay. Fine. I thought Jennifer Government<\/em> was clever and Company<\/em> exploited a sense of irony, but here in Machine Man<\/em> Barry trades in those forces to instead write something a little more human, which itself is ironic given what the main character goes through, not mention clever. And he achieves it, as I said above, within a very matter-of-fact style of narration, holding us emotionally at arm\u2019s length which nevertheless makes us feel even more for the main character. His flaws are our own.<\/p>\n

A magnum opus, then? Not quite. I think Barry\u2019s got chops, and I think his greatest work is still to come. And if nothing else, reading Machine Man<\/em> will lend that much more perspective to his other work. Max Barry is still building himself, and I\u2019m looking forward to the results.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Machine Man by Max Barry My rating: 4 of 5 stars In my reviews of Barry\u2019s Jennifer Government and Company, I called his style \u201ca bit stark, a bit plain, matter-of-fact.\u201d Here in Machine Man, the narration is in first person, so this same style comes across as slightly autistic (or as if the narrator … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Machine Man– review on Goodreads”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-7l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}