Wealhtheow's review of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
** spoiler alert **
Some atrocities are studied as school children with such a narrow focus that the idea that the atrocity could happen again, to anyone, seems impossible. The Holocaust is one--slavery in America is another. There is a glut of fiction written using each as its background, but few stories convey any immediacy or intimacy of the horror. Yolen's The Devil's Arithmatic is one that does; this is another.
The book begins as the reminiscence of a young prince. He is being raised by his mother, a foreign princess, and by a cadre of men known only by their numbers who have taken charge of his education. From a very young age he is taught music, the classics, scientific reasoning. And he is never allowed to go outside. An intriguingly gothic tale, and one that abruptly increases in horror upon the revelation that the prince and princess are African slaves. Their pampered lives are part of an experiment--an experimen...more
The book begins as the reminiscence of a young prince. He is being raised by his mother, a foreign princess, and by a cadre of men known only by their numbers who have taken charge of his education. From a very young age he is taught music, the classics, scientific reasoning. And he is never allowed to go outside. An intriguingly gothic tale, and one that abruptly increases in horror upon the revelation that the prince and princess are African slaves. Their pampered lives are part of an experiment--an experimen...more
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You described how I felt about this book but exactly—it is so obviously brilliant, and yet so painful I could barely make it to the end. I'm afraid to read the next one.
