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The Flame Alphabet

by Ben Marcus (Goodreads Author)

2.87 of 5 stars 2.87 · rating details · 2,220 ratings · 609 reviews

In The Flame Alphabet, the most maniacally gifted writer of our generation delivers a work of heartbreak and horror, a novel about how far we will go, and the sorrows we will endure, in order to protect our families.

A terrible epidemic has struck the country and the sound of children’s speech has become lethal. Radio transmissions from strange sources indicate that peopl...more

Hardcover, 289 pages

Published January 17th 2012 by Knopf (first published January 5th 2012)

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10th out of 284 books — 321 voters

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1st out of 31 books — 31 voters

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Feb 07, 2012 Joshua Nomen-Mutatio rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, dystopic

This is undoubtedly the magnum opus of the three books Ben Marcus has released through the porous borders between the self and the world. The Age of Wire and String (1995) left me baffled and pretty impressed by its unique indexical acrobatics and budding vision of where to take the avant garde programme. Notable American Women (2002) detonated in my brain and dazzled me senseless with its maturing grip on how to show and not tell, and transfigured the form of the metafictional autobiography wit...more

46 likes · like · see review

Jul 19, 2012 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature

Wow. So, I tend to not read reviews for at least a moderate span of time before I dive into a book in order to avoid the accidental epiphytic absorption and potential regurgitation of other people's views/phrases/biases in my own review, and to keep myself away from being a naysayer or overly emphatic fan of something solely or largely for the sake of being a brat or a bully-defense-shield. In the case of this novel, however, I wasn't concerned with post-read review-skimming because I really did...more Wow. So, I tend to not read reviews for at least a moderate span of time before I dive into a book in order to avoid the accidental epiphytic absorption and potential regurgitation of other people's views/phrases/biases in my own review, and to keep myself away from being a naysayer or overly emphatic fan of something solely or largely for the sake of being a brat or a bully-defense-shield. In the case of this novel, however, I wasn't concerned with post-read review-skimming because I really didn't think I was even going to review it. Actually, I sorta decided that a long time ago, because I feel odd about screaming my thoughts in a crowded room (as in the goodreads world, not literally; I'm a total yeller/interrupter/babbler in real life, so I would probably kill a LOT of people very quickly were I a character in this novel or a person in this scenario), and this book had been all kindsa talked up on this site way before I read it. You know what, though? The excessive praise? Totally deserved. However, if you want to read about how great this book is, read the dozen or so fantastic reviews which have already pinned those pretty lil' butterflies down, shadowboxed them, and hung them on the wall with a leveler.

Rather than properly review, I'm only commenting right now in order to complain: how does this novel have such a low GR rating? Further, why do my fellow GR friends like it so much, while the rest of GR seems to a) not get it, b) think it's boring, or c) just mindlessly shit on it? Discuss. Also, to the naysayers: did you pick this up because the cover is so goddamned sexy? I admit she's purdy, but how did you even find yourself checking her out in the first place if your review is essentially "Uh, wut?" How did this land in your lap to begin with? I am actually curious, as it's not like this book is an Oprah selection, or even has a proper wikipedia page. I mean, I have my petty gripes (mostly just that the daughter is a bit too sage and intricately cynical for her age, and I say this as a woman with definite résumé-worthy experience as a teenage cynic), but 2.89 out of 5? C'mon! 50 Shades of Who Gives a Fuck? is currently rated 3.8 or something. Having never read it, I assure you that book is not better than this one. Anyway, I only know about The Flame Alphabet because my GR friends praised it all up and down the block. Thanks for that, folks! However, I also only know that the above-mentioned S&M book exists because of GR, so...

I guess my point is that rating averages are pointless? Actually, I may not have a point. Maybe for once I will shut up early, and stop making people sick with my toxic verbosity. As Marcus points out, it's an epidemic.(less)

42 likes · like · see review

Jun 13, 2012 Jenn(ifer) rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: you and you and you (not you)

Recommended to Jenn(ifer) by: J N-M

Shelves: dark, gave-me-chills, read-in-2012, you-should-read-this, gr-friends-recommend, own, my-reviews-that-dont-suck

I’m not sure how to write this review sans spoilers, so here’s the spoiler-free version:

This book is one of the most original, intriguing novels I’ve ever read and if one more person gives it 1 lousy star I will find them, pin them to the ground and scream in their face until they keel over convulsing from the crushing!! Of course I'm over 18, so that means I would probably die too, but it would be worth it!!

Okay.
So.
The Flame Alphabet.

Man, what a great concept! Read on for the actual review (w...more

33 likes · like · see review

Mar 02, 2013 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

WARNING: The following has spoilers almost from word one

Ben Marcus wrote an outstandingly cerebral, uncomfortable, and moving novel with The Flame Alphabet—factor in that chromatically angular cover, of whose fiery upthrust I simply cannot tire of beholding, and it approaches that rare point of fictive perfection. So when I survey its remarkably low average rating, the legion of single and double stars ranged against it, I'm left at a loss for an explanation. GR friend Knig calls it Jewish Sci-F...more

23 likes · like · see review

May 17, 2012 Manny rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: If you think Kafka's scared to tackle the tough issues

Recommended to Manny by: Joshua Nomen-Mutatio

Shelves: linguistics-and-philosophy, science-fiction, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, transcendent-experiences, parody-homage

The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus

by J.G. Ballard

They had now reached an area where the desert gave way to salt dunes and then to a substantial expanse of water that Travis tentatively identified as the Dead Sea. His wife at first disagreed, but the Jeep contained no maps, and her knowledge of the local geography was even less certain than his; given a lack of alternate hypotheses, she accepted the label he had given it. The bitter, salty, undrinkable quality of the water was at least consistent w...more The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus

by J.G. Ballard

They had now reached an area where the desert gave way to salt dunes and then to a substantial expanse of water that Travis tentatively identified as the Dead Sea. His wife at first disagreed, but the Jeep contained no maps, and her knowledge of the local geography was even less certain than his; given a lack of alternate hypotheses, she accepted the label he had given it. The bitter, salty, undrinkable quality of the water was at least consistent with the fragments of knowledge they did possess. The roads had decayed with startling rapidity since the Event, and Travis negotiated his way, at a crawl, around frequent pot-holes. Towards the end of the afternoon, they came to a motel which seemed relatively undamaged. Travis stopped, neatly parking inside a space whose boundary lines were not quite obscured by the drifting salt. The water was still visible, perhaps half a mile away, though the light made it hard to judge distances.

Inside, they followed their new routine: Travis searched for tools, jerry-cans and an unlocked room, while Marta located the kitchen's store of canned food and bottled water. They met at the reception desk to compare their respective hauls. In addition to the usual material, Travis had found an old mechanical typewriter and a ream of paper. Marta looked at them expressionlessly.

"I thought I would write a novel," Travis said. She shrugged, and began preparing a basic dinner which they ate in silence. Since the Event, there was less to discuss; Travis tried to remember what they had once talked about during meals. When they could no longer force themselves to eat any more of the tasteless kosher meat, he pushed aside their half-empty plates to make room for the typewriter, then fed in a sheet of paper. His hands apparently still found this a familiar routine, and began to type without further prompting. As he began the fourth page, Marta picked up the ones he had already completed.

"The Flame Alphabet, by Ben Marcus," she read slowly, peering at the smudged letters. "Why?"

"Why not?" replied Travis; he gave the impression of having stored up this reply, savoring a little conversational victory before he went back to typing.

After the sun set, they moved by common accord to the bedroom he had picked out for them, and undressed. Marta attempted once again to coax some kind of sexual response from his body, alternately using hands and mouth; Travis waited patiently until she tired of her unsuccessful ministrations, accepting the empirical fact of his unchanging flaccidity. He noted with satisfaction that she no longer felt her failure as a personal one, but appeared to consider it simply as part of the day's schedule. Perhaps, in a month or two, they could consider reducing the length of the sessions. Without any formal leave-taking, they each rolled over to their respective sides of the bed. Marta's breathing soon became shallow and regular, but Travis remained awake. As soon as he was convinced that his wife was asleep, he extracted the candle he had found from its hiding place in his rucksack, then went back to the typewriter. The pile of paper on the right grew steadily.

[I was originally planning to write more, but it's depressing the shit out of me. Don't take that as a criticism of the novel though! Marcus really knows his stuff.]
(less)

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Feb 20, 2012 Greg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

"I received 500,000 discrete bits of information today, of which maybe 25 are important." -- David Foster Wallace

Words kill.

John 1:1 might be a mythological fabrication, but in the end there will be the word, some word and then the end. Lights out humanity. Some hateful word, or rhetoric, or bottom line on a profit report, or words about imaginary superiority, (mis)perceived threats, words from fictional gods passed down through books filled with words, words that poison and kill. People die ev...more

37 likes · like · see review

Feb 23, 2012 Nicole rated it 1 of 5 stars

70 pages in and this is the most boring "thriller" I've ever read. The premise is amazing, language that kills!, and apparently it's a true story because reading this is a slow painful death. I'm not usually a quitter when it comes to books, but I don't think I'm going to make it. I keep skipping whole, useless paragraphs. Ben Marcus is clearly trying too hard. There's a point where flowery prose must end and make way for an actual plot, but apparently Marcus doesn't agree.

The Jewish subplot, if...more

41 likes · like · see review

Jul 17, 2012 Nate D rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: well-tuned listeners

Recommended to Nate D by: orange tubing, running underground

Shelves: dystopiary, favorites

Here, again, the dangers of language, of verbalizing meaning. Here, halfway between infectious zombie-ism of Pontypool and the destruction of memory through words in The Great Fire of London. As in all of these, Marcus' "language toxicity" is totally fascinating, both as horror storytelling, and as conceptual framework for strange and perfect riffs of thought.

Spreading messages dilutes them. Even understanding them is a compromise. The language kills itself, expires inside its host. Language act

...more Here, again, the dangers of language, of verbalizing meaning. Here, halfway between infectious zombie-ism of Pontypool and the destruction of memory through words in The Great Fire of London. As in all of these, Marcus' "language toxicity" is totally fascinating, both as horror storytelling, and as conceptual framework for strange and perfect riffs of thought.

Spreading messages dilutes them. Even understanding them is a compromise. The language kills itself, expires inside its host. Language acts as an acid over its message. If you no longer care about an idea or feeling, then put it into language. That will certainly be the last of it, a fitting end. Language is another name for coffin.

Incidentally, Marcus' style, his sense that the significances and cadence of every single word received due consideration, seems very well-suited to a book in which a careless word can kill. In this way, beyond being something of a philosophical thriller novel complete with all the pre-verbal gasps the genre must elicit, the book is a winking commentary on its own process. Neatly, this works in both the usual meta-sense we've seen before, but also within the book's own narative reality, if we consider that the narrator had to compose the thing at risk of his own life (and of how many others!) in order to get it to us. (And now, at what cost our implied reading?!)

In any event, all of Marcus' writing is about language, and his use of it is fantastic and uniquely his own. The addition of the stronger narrative drive only adds new means of being about language.

Some seem not to like the ordinariness of the semi-page-turner format, but I actually like seeing genre devices used to frame original ideas, new life breathed into old workings. This is a good example. The actual excitingness of the plot breaks down at a few points, or the needed motive-identification with the protagonist frays a bit, but on the whole it's a very successful repurposing.

On the other hand, the early breakdown of language is used to model how parents and teens just can't communicate, possibly the least interesting possible direction in which to take this. Especially since in cases like this, I still invariably side with the teens.

Oh, and did I mention that this is totally Jewish sci-fi? It won't actually satisfy anyone still waiting for Mel Brooks' Jews in Space, but it's got to be one of the stranger repurposings of the experience of Judaisism.(less)

11 likes · like · see review

Mar 25, 2012 brian rated it 4 of 5 stars

one of the threads in this ball-of-yarn of a novel involves a group of jews who visit secret holes dug deep in the forest from which sermons pour forth -- the holy cavities referred to as 'jew holes', a phrase which repeatedly pops up throughout the flame alphabet.

amongst my group of friends this phrase also reoccurs, albeit, in a slightly different context: working out latent homosexuality married to not-as-latent self-loathing jeweyness, we frequently urge the other to 'pound my jew-hole' 'ra...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Krok Zero rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: winter-11-to-12

Hey Goodreads, I hate to unmask myself and be the villainous revealer of my own secret identity, but I'm now a contributing writer over at an arts website called Spectrum Culture, and my latest piece there is a full review of The Flame Alphabet, here: http://spectrumculture.com/2012/03/th...

I can't promise that you'll be able to detect my usual Krok Zero style, if I even have such a thing, but I'd like to think it's in there. Check it out!

10 likes · like · see review

Jan 05, 2012 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is an extremely dark and ultimately enervating dystopian novel full of disturbing contrasts and ontological concepts. It's the ripest prose I've read this side of China Mieville, but Marcus's story drags on with an all-encompassing dread and relentless anguish. Numerous and grotesque images, made of organic, gelatinous substances, squirm and squall through the narrative like a howling of the soul. There is no doubt that this author has an uncommon talent and imagination. He was so effective...more This is an extremely dark and ultimately enervating dystopian novel full of disturbing contrasts and ontological concepts. It's the ripest prose I've read this side of China Mieville, but Marcus's story drags on with an all-encompassing dread and relentless anguish. Numerous and grotesque images, made of organic, gelatinous substances, squirm and squall through the narrative like a howling of the soul. There is no doubt that this author has an uncommon talent and imagination. He was so effective in engulfing me in his gnomish, visceral landscape that I felt swallowed and forced into an intestinal vacuum.

In this futuristic story, the sounds of children's voices make adults ill. Etiology unknown, but it is blamed on the Jews, at least initially. I don't have the aptitude to distill this story into its many-faceted parts/themes/concepts. However, it is apparent that Marcus's esoteric reach goes back to ancient Jewish mysticism. Even some of the words he often uses--shard, shatter, fracture, etc. brings to mind the breaking of the vessels and other Kabbalistic teachings.

How far, deep, and wide does he take it? That is for the reader to determine. One theory that I have is that the reader's religious or secular beliefs take part in individual interpretation of the text, so that there is not just one meaning to ascribe to the deeper context of the story, (although knowledge of the Kabbalah would definitely be helpful). In other words, the story addresses the question of one's faith.

The title of the story refers to the 22-letter Hebrew alphabet, its unfurlment, and its nature. As in the novel, "The Hebrew letter is a form of nature." For example, the lamed (pronounced lah-med) letter's appearance is a flame being reflected right back into your eyes. Lamed means "into me" and is the flame of consciousness; it is the letter of learning. (This is knowledge outside of the book's source, but relevant to the narrative.) Reading this story will increase your knowledge of the mightiness and personification of the Hebrew alphabet and its affinity to the concepts of creation and destruction, of diaspora and absorption, and more.

The book reminded me of a David Lynch movie. If this actually were a movie, and not a book, I would watch it several times in order to get closer to the meaning's core. But in its current written form, I would have to commit to multiple readings. I am unwilling to submit to the time and effort required. Alas, the failure may be mine. There are other densely philosophical books, such as Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, by Nabokov, that I am willing to re-read, that engage me fully. This book is far too agitating and agonizing to repeat. (less)

18 likes · like · see review

Apr 15, 2012 Ruby Tombstone rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone with a soul

Shelves: favorites, an-ill-wind-blows-no-minds, apocalypse-please, language-is-a-virus, biologys-a-bitch-baby, littry-fikshun

THE SHORT VERSION
This is an absolute fucking masterpiece and I loved every single page of it.

THE LONG VERSION
This book is gloriously written and incredibly dark - think Saramago's Blindness without the endless sentences, or Pontypool Changes Everything with a more linear narrative. The apocalyptic story elements alone would have made for a fulfilling novel, but here Marcus also explores issues of religion and religious persecution, family relationships, self-image, personal inaction, guilt and h...more THE SHORT VERSION
This is an absolute fucking masterpiece and I loved every single page of it.

THE LONG VERSION
This book is gloriously written and incredibly dark - think Saramago's Blindness without the endless sentences, or Pontypool Changes Everything with a more linear narrative. The apocalyptic story elements alone would have made for a fulfilling novel, but here Marcus also explores issues of religion and religious persecution, family relationships, self-image, personal inaction, guilt and hope. And of course there's the theme of language, what it is and whether we can exist as people without it.

I found the character of Esther utterly compelling and believable - the sullen, self-absorbed, know-it-all daughter, driven to exercise her intellectual power and perceived moral superiority over others. I would love to have heard this story also told from Esther's perspective (oh please let there be some kind of follow-up project, oh please, oh please).

This is a story that stands up to lengthy and complex analysis, and I would like to think I will make the time to re-read this a few more times to really get my head around the issues. At the very least, I feel the need to talk it through with other people that have read it. It would make an ideal group read. As it is, knowing that I have yet to fully understand everything that I've read, I am still perfectly satisfied with the beautiful language and desolate imagery.

The following is an excerpt I've copied as a great example of what you can expect if you read this book. It's not a spoiler (it's from only a couple of pages in), but I'll use the spoiler feature to fold it up. I'm a sucker for good formatting.

(view spoiler)(less)

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Feb 11, 2013 Jeff rated it 1 of 5 stars

The villain of this book, I guess, is a man named Labov. He is a ruthless sadistic conspirator and a bit of a douchebag. I did not care for him. He was my favorite character.
The narrator had most of the same character defects. Maybe he enjoyed being a dick less, but he was a dick. He was also a crappy father, who was unable to discipline any sort of respect or awareness into his child even before the epidemic. And an adulterer who cheated on his wife even after he found out she was still alive....more

5 likes · like · see review

Jul 27, 2012 Em Elle rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: library, literary, read-in-2012, did-not-enjoy

Cool title, interesting concept and good writing - but it didn't do anything for me. I wanted to give it up after 70 pages, and I should have. The plot was weak, and the character development didn't make up for that - I didn't care about any of the characters. I had high hopes for this book because the idea sounded really original to me. But just...ugh. I can understand its merits, but it wasn't for me.

6 likes · like · see review

Feb 13, 2012 Carrie rated it 5 of 5 stars

The use of language in this book is just extraordinary. Also, I really appreciate that the plot doesn't bang you on the head to let you know what's going on. I read Michael Chabon's blurb on the back that he tore through this book. I can't say I feel the same. It's pretty heartbreaking, if beautiful. Probably not something I'd want a couple large doses of at a time or I wouldn't appreciate the intricate turns of phrases as much. Definitely recommend.

4 likes · like · see review

Aug 09, 2012 Steven Felicelli rated it 5 of 5 stars

an almost conventional novel from the contemporary king of experimentation - Beckettian project of effacing language - Murphy character an homage to Beckett's Murphy?

just finished - this is a beautifully painful effort to not say what we want to say - could be summed up by a line from one of his earlier works:

Language is just a more sophisticated way to cry

a breathtaking failure

1 like · like · see review

Jan 23, 2012 Mindy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had high expectations for this book. At first, it seemed like it was headed for a thrilling apocalyptic plot. Religious allusions are heavy-handed and mixed in with anti-religious tones, I kept looking for where it all fit in with teen angst, domestic unrest, and the destruction of language. Marcus's writing is poetic, fun to read, at times, but it just kept going and going and going . . . nowhere. Disappointing to say the least.

6 likes · like · see review

May 13, 2013 Michelle Cristiani rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopia, straight-up-novels

There's no doubt that Ben Marcus is a force of nature. He's an artist with words. Which is a different thing, of course, than being a good storyteller.

My initial review of this book was: "this is such a great premise. Children's voices becoming toxic? It's brilliant. But I don't understand why Marcus bothers with the linguistic gymnastics. If he just told the story straight-up, it would be a lot more fulfilling."

Then I happened upon an essay of Marcus', defending what he calls experimental lit...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Jennifer Wilson-niskanen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sciencefiction-jen-books

Odd, is about the best I can say about it. The concept was original and intelligently executed. The emotional strain was well written. It was not, however, a comfortable or entirely enjoyable read. I don't know a lot about the author, but this made me feel like I was overhearing some things that I would rather not have known.

The narrative wallowed in what made the main character feel the most isolated and alone. It was very intimate, but also very ugly. There was a lot of dark feelings about ch...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Christopher rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Sometime in the near future, the speech of children starts making adults gradually sicken, shrivel, and die. It's a strange premise but one strikingly similar to Terrence Holt's short story "'O Logos," about a written word that first appears as a bruise on a child and that causes everyone who reads it to catch the same symptom and die. Anyway, in this story, the main characters are a family of "forest Jews" who practice their religion in secret in a muddy hut with a weird device that taps into a...more

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Jan 31, 2013 Alan rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Sufferers from a surfeit of satisfaction

Recommended to Alan by: Sources too numerous to count

Words to memorize
Words hypnotize
Words make my mouth exercise
Words all fail the magic prize...
—Violent Femmes, "Add It Up"

The Flame Alphabet is—at least on the surface—about the advent of a terrible disease borne by words, carried by children but afflicting adults, that sweeps the world, destroying civilization as we know it while making it impossible even to leave a record of the event for our successors. Words, words, words, the ones that flow so endlessly from our mouths and the ones we write...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Akiva rated it 4 of 5 stars

This has a nice science fiction premise: Children acquire a disease where speaking causes an actual illness in adults. It starts from there and gets weirder and freakin' weirder. The disease spreads. The very notion of communication is called into question. Society is deeply fucked.

The whole thing is suffused with an intense visceral anxiety that reflects the toxic language of the book. It's full of bodily fluids and uncomfortable feelings. Reading it wasn't painful or difficult per se, indeed,...more

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Jan 11, 2013 S rated it 3 of 5 stars

Original review at my blog, Writing by Numbers, here.

In this deeply chilling novel, Ben Marcus imagines a world in which children’s speech, and eventually, all spoken and written language, becomes toxic to adults. All of the prose filters through the narrator’s fog of illness, and the profound isolation of a speechless landscape. In grotesquely compelling detail, Marcus reduces people to shades. We feel alongside them as their organs fail and their skin shrinks.

The philosophical questions posed...more

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Jan 07, 2013 Valerie rated it 4 of 5 stars

The concept is really intriguing. It makes you think of the development and necessity of language. Why do we need and have language as it pertains to culture, history, and religion. There is also that problem that happens in all kinds of apocalypse genre stuff where one man's fight to save his family allows for that man to harm and kill all other manner of people (presumably with families of their own) with some sort of genre inflected impunity. That does not happen in the flame alphabet, no one...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Adman rated it 2 of 5 stars

how many different ways can one sharpen the edge of this notion of weaponized language? how many times can one stab the idea into a reader's orifices, taking fastidious care with each and every assault to describe sundry pathetic discharges and witherings? with how many syllable-crusted medical fictions and real or imagined aphorisms can one cripple a body that wonders not so much whether it will make it to the finish line as whether it wants to? read this novel and you just may find out.

years a...more how many different ways can one sharpen the edge of this notion of weaponized language? how many times can one stab the idea into a reader's orifices, taking fastidious care with each and every assault to describe sundry pathetic discharges and witherings? with how many syllable-crusted medical fictions and real or imagined aphorisms can one cripple a body that wonders not so much whether it will make it to the finish line as whether it wants to? read this novel and you just may find out.

years ago i read _notable american women_, because i was in grad school studying writing. no one forced me. i read it of my own eager, free will because i had heard that ben marcus was important and experimental. i vaguely recall how difficult that book was to read, and that upon completing it my prevailing sensation was one of exhaustion, though i also felt the sort of bittersweet victory one tastes upon pinching the fat, wet ripeness of a rotten funeral between one's tongue and foreteeth.

at least that's how i imagine ben marcus might put it. in other words, "guh?" no, i don't want to know. just "guh!"

_flame alphabet_ starts in with a conceit that kicks ass on multiple levels: language, on the tongues of children, becomes fatal for adults. what a fantastic way to explore the alienation that attends family relationships and generation gaps! unfortunately, marcus quickly eviscerates this premise, choosing instead to stuff 200 pages of some kind of avant garde, stylistic fingernail buffing into this turkey before remembering there was a story in here somewhere.

what's the plot of this first, cumbersome swath of "novel?" kids realize they have a terrible power. they use it. older people's faces shrink, they get tired and age quickly. some people work to repel the sickness. this seems simple enough, except that every conceivable direct or metaphoric expression of these basic facts is delivered, according to some inscrutable writerly calculus that puts me in mind of a tired, postmodern experiment that seeks to stylistically recreate suffering instead of describing it. a similar structural offense occurs in the presence of dozens of (real or imagined?) academic references. a little bit of faux verisimilitude in this vein can be grafitifying, but marcus unleashes a choking cloud of such clevernesses. A parade of metaphoric constructions that are so experimental they are often completely lost on me does *not* sweeten the deal.

perhaps marcus is a classroom writer, composing stories that make for good analytical discussions of craft. i'm not sure what ground he was breaking here even in this case, though, since the story does not significantly differentiate itself in my memory from _notable american women_. language as weapon, check. tubes and underground pits, check. prophet/pariahs, check. emotionally mutilated and mutilating protagonists, check. almost physically painful prose that could probably spawn hours of debate instead of reverie, check.

the last 50-100 pages for some reason really get moving in the plot department. this baffles but pleases me. maybe marcus exhuasted his own eagerness for experimentation or maybe he finally got over the language sickness. perhaps he caught another, more virulent disease - that of storytelling. if so, good on him. on the merit of the last 1/3 of this book alone, i felt satisfied enough to double my star rating.(less)

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Aug 14, 2012 Brian Sweany rated it 4 of 5 stars

By early December we huddled at home, speechless. If we spoke it was through faces gripped in early rigor mortis. Our neighborhood had gone blank, killed down by winter. It was too cold even for the remaining children to do much hunting.

I don’t know how else to refer to their work, but sometimes they swarmed the block, flooding houses with speech until the adults were repulsed to the woods.

You’d see a neighbor with a rifle and you’d hear that rifle go off. The trees stood bloodless, barely holdi

...more

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Aug 06, 2012 MJ Nicholls marked it as sampled · review of another edition

I managed twenty-five pages of this recent GR fave, but too many aspects of the style infuriated me to want to carry on. Compiling a mental dossier of things you dislike about the book as you’re reading it, in my experience, ends in messy disaster. Some of these points are personal niggles but some must (surely!) stand as legitimate annoyances.

First page:

sound abatement fabrics
anti-comprehension pills
Dräger Aerotest breathing kit
Lebov’s needle
copper powder for phonic salting
bootful of felt
noi...more

24 likes · like · see review

Jul 13, 2012 Benjamin added it

Shelves: ereader, bedside-reading

Does it seem like there's a flood of literary fiction using some speculation as the central conceit? Julavits's The Vanishers, Perrotta's The Leftovers, Walker's Age of Miracles, Whitehead's Zone One--psychic combat, a Rapture-like (or 4400-esque) disappearance, the slowing of the Earth's revolutions, zombies.

To that list, we could add Ben Marcus's The Flame Alphabet, which takes the Burroughsian language-as-virus idea and grounds it in a family relationship. In Marcus's world, children and teen...more Does it seem like there's a flood of literary fiction using some speculation as the central conceit? Julavits's The Vanishers, Perrotta's The Leftovers, Walker's Age of Miracles, Whitehead's Zone One--psychic combat, a Rapture-like (or 4400-esque) disappearance, the slowing of the Earth's revolutions, zombies.

To that list, we could add Ben Marcus's The Flame Alphabet, which takes the Burroughsian language-as-virus idea and grounds it in a family relationship. In Marcus's world, children and teenagers start to degrade the health of parents just by talking. We get this story through the suburban family of Sam and Claire and their aggressive, cynical daughter Esther. Now, I don't mean to say that Marcus here is unoriginal and therefore not worth reading. While it's interesting to ask "who did it first?" I often think the better question to ask is "who did it best?" Who took the idea of language-as-danger and made it entertaining, illuminating, enlightening?

The answer is "Not Marcus." The first part of this novel is an obsessive and boring story of how the world fell apart. In an interview, Marcus said that his technique with this book was not to reread as he wrote and it shows in the repetitious first section. In detailing husband/father Sam's medical ministrations, Marcus is fond of the catalog form; in demonstrating the unknowability of the world, Marcus is fond of cataloging opposing rumors.

What's particularly infuriating about this first part is that there are some finely observed moments of family disharmony; but this drama isn't particularly heightened by the speculative gimmickry of a generational war fought out in speech. This isn't a novel where the literary and the generic profitably rub up against each other--there's no spark here.

This lack of light continues in the second part, where we get more of a thriller, complete with villain who thinks he's saving the world. This part seems like it could be cut-and-pasted from any of several disaster stories: sure, the X out there is dangerous, but what's really dangerous is the human boss inside the compound. (See: The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, or, heck, just about any zombie fiction out there.) Ultimately, while this section is a little easier to read--thanks to shorter chapters--Marcus's form still tends towards cataloging. Any plot he gestures towards doesn't flow, but curdles.

The Flame Alphabet is such a failure in terms of plot and character, that it's almost overwhelmingly tempting to read it metaphorically, allegorically; and many of the positive reviews that I've looked at attempt just homiletic transformation: Marcus's book teaches us to watch our words or think about the uncommunicable love between family, or...

Feh. Those reviewers might see themselves as clarifying Marcus's metaphor, rescuing meaning from a book about the failure of meaning (har har har), but allegory fails here precisely because plot fails. If Marcus meant to show how a writer could inextricably weave literary and genre here, he's succeeded by failing at doing either.(less)

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Jun 12, 2012 Dora Mossanen rated it 5 of 5 stars

An epidemic that started among the forest-dwelling Jews — “genetic in nature … a problem only for certain people” — is spreading to other communities and threatening to impose an ominous silence upon the world. The culprit is the toxic language of children. This is the ingenious premise of “The Flame Alphabet,” a novel By Ben Marcus (Knopf. $25.95).

Marcus, the author of “The Age of Wire and String” and “The Father Costume,” is an inventive novelist, and “The Flame Alphabet” is no exception. Marc...more An epidemic that started among the forest-dwelling Jews — “genetic in nature … a problem only for certain people” — is spreading to other communities and threatening to impose an ominous silence upon the world. The culprit is the toxic language of children. This is the ingenious premise of “The Flame Alphabet,” a novel By Ben Marcus (Knopf. $25.95).

Marcus, the author of “The Age of Wire and String” and “The Father Costume,” is an inventive novelist, and “The Flame Alphabet” is no exception. Marcus brings to life, in startling details, an apocalyptic landscape (reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”), a devastated community plagued by the lethal virus of language. Children are immune to their own poisonous words that ravage the adults, shrink their faces, harden their tongues, and shrivel their skin until they wither away. What is a parent to do under such circumstances? Abandon an only child and flee to safety? Or stay put and feast “on the putrid material because our daughter made it. We gorged on it and inside us it steamed, rotted turned rank.”

The narrator is Sam, whose daughter, Esther, is an angry teenager who seems bent on destroying her father and mother, Claire. Their only partial relief occurs when Esther is away or asleep and silent. Why Ester would harbor such exaggerated rage is not explained, alas.

Forest Jews live in an anti-Semitic world. They worship in hiding. Their synagogues are small, private huts concealed under leaves and branches, in which a “Jewish hole” with all types of conductive wires broadcast sermons. Sometimes the “Jewish hole” works, often it doesn’t. There’s a listener, too, some type of a wet, slimy contraption that must be kept humid and manipulated, or it will shrivel and become inoperative—make what you may of this metaphor.

In the end, a decision is forced upon the adults. The authorities impose quarantine and an evacuation is ordered. “Health officials counsel seclusion, even from loved ones.” Children are rounded up—“captured”—Sam and Claire attempt to sneak away in order to avoid the sight of their daughter as she is being “Trapped in a net, twitching from a jolt they fired at her.”

Sam finds himself at Forsythe, a concentration-camp-like place, where Murphy or LeBov, a frightful man, reminiscent of Hitler, is attempting to discover a vaccine for the language disease. Sam, having been assigned the task of inventing a different language to replace the toxic one, comes up with creative ways to accomplish this task without exposing himself to the virus, which has spread to the written word. Will he succeed and if so will it prove to be a cure?

A plethora of questions are raised. In particular, the importance of language in our lives, its necessity or lack of, its power to elevate or destroy: “There were only so many words you could stand before you were done.” A metaphor for life, perhaps, and a measure of our respective thresholds to bear pain, not any run of the mill pain, but the most damaging kind—pain inflicted by our own children.

The story is rich with metaphors, Biblical and otherwise: the Tower of

Babel and the breakdown of language, horrors of the holocaust—“Volunteer, test subject, language martyr.” Clair is hosed down at Forsythe as if in preparation to enter a gas chamber, children are required to carry name labels on their coats; Burk is involved in horrific Mengele-like experiments on children.

This is a brilliantly rendered story of heart-break and violence, an exploration of language, the costs and rewards of silence, societal and familial conflicts, the unconditional love of parents and, above all, whether it is possible to salvage a semblance of humanity when a community is accosted by an existential threat.
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Jun 04, 2012 Ben Peek rated it 3 of 5 stars

When I began Ben Marcus' new novel, the Flame Alphabet, I was quite excited by it. It was about a virus that emerged from the vocabulary of children and had a dark, satirical edge to it that I was completely behind.

The Flame Alphabet never lived beyond that opening premise, however. Suffering structurally from presenting a contagion narrative that never gave into it and, instead, presented a stationary, limited cast of what were metaphoric questions for the narrator, Marcus never moves beyond hi...more When I began Ben Marcus' new novel, the Flame Alphabet, I was quite excited by it. It was about a virus that emerged from the vocabulary of children and had a dark, satirical edge to it that I was completely behind.

The Flame Alphabet never lived beyond that opening premise, however. Suffering structurally from presenting a contagion narrative that never gave into it and, instead, presented a stationary, limited cast of what were metaphoric questions for the narrator, Marcus never moves beyond his initial statement comfortably, and never allows the novel to reach the heights of what could have been a hallucinatory vision. In truth, I think it's fair to say that, to a degree, my dissatisfaction with the book rose from what I thought it could be, rather than what it was, and from what I considered opportunities lost. It is entirely possible for someone else to read the book and be entirely satisfied with it for what it is.

The book opens with Sam and his wife, Claire, fleeing their home while their daughter is away, attempting to leave the plague that their child is part of. It's a strong opening, but neither Claire nor Esther, the daughter, have a voice in the book--a choice that Marcus appears to have made on purpose, since the 'silence' of the novel suits his vision well, but one that leaves you with a pair of characters who are flat and never fleshed out because they are never given voices, ironically in Esther's part. You never particularly care or sympathize with the narrator over his family, or indeed him, just as you never buy that Murphy is anything but a cheap villain. Murphy is perhaps worse than the family, however, because he represents Marcus' attempt to weld together the form of thriller, the the classic contagion narrative, into his large metaphorical piece, and the Flame Alphabet is not and will never be a thriller.

The question comes, then, to why would you read it?

Well, despite its narrative faults, Marcus' metaphor of language is actually quite fascinating in its own right. The deadly nature of the childs language is easily applied to the rise of childs literature for adults and the consequences of that in relation to the language of adults, arising to the point, later in the book, where Marcus' shows how the narrator begins to understand the world through fables. Then, again, there is the relationship that he forms later in the book that is free of language, and the nature of it, that's particularly interesting. In addition, the strange Jewish 'forest' cult serves as a metaphor for religion in general, and the set up of the huts, the communication, and so forth take on quite interesting fictional constructions that is, by the most part, skillfully done.

But in the end, the idea isn't a novel. It's a short story, a novella, something much smaller, more concise, without the repetition, the internal debates of the narrator that go nowhere, and after a while, the book labours with the effort to make it larger.

It's a real shame, too, because it could have been something special.(less)

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Chaos Reading: The Flame Alphabet, Ben Marcus (2012) SPOILERS	24	96	18 hours, 12 min ago
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About Ben Marcus

Seemingly the most conspicuous aspect of Ben Marcus' work, to date, is its expansion on one of the most primary concerns of the original Surrealist authors -- perhaps most typified by Benjamin Péret, husband of the acclaimed painter Remedios Varo -- this being a very deep interest in the psychological service and implication of symbols and the manners by which those symbols can be maneuvered and r...more

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The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories

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Quotes from The Flame Alphabet

“Without sound, celebration and grief look nearly the same.” — 13 people liked it

“Eventually you stop paying attention to your own feelings when there's nothing to be done about them.” — 5 people liked it

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