What if calling someone stupid was illegal?

By Muncii

 

I was keen to see how Lionel Shriver,  one of my favourite authors, would tackle some familiar (that is, familiar to HP)  themes in her latest novel, ‘Mania’ :

 

• the suppression of free speech
• the abandonment of academic standards ( competition among children is bad, all must have prizes)
• dumbing down and the elevation of Stupid, rigorously enforced, into A Public Good (nobody must be demonstrably more clever than anyone else)
•  the dread of encountering awful hurty words.
• Errant people are ‘cancelled’ , publicly shamed, and lose their jobs.
• Snitching becomes a way of life, and people, including and especially children, are taught that self censorship is an essential ingredient of a kind , more humane, society.
• People must be monitored, and transgressors punished. Fear is in the air.

 

The novel explores the impact of these damaging and inhibiting forces when they are savagely imposed upon family and friendships, on everyday life, and employment in an imaginary dystopian world which looks eerily similar to our current one.

It could be argued that many of these forces are already in place. Perhaps that’s the point. The action takes place in the present : it isn’t necessary to conjure up an alternative, future, society.

 

In Mania, the ‘Mental Parity ‘ ideology is dominant across society.

 

We  see everything through the eyes of Pearson Converse, a college lecturer in her forties, married to handsome and  taciturn Wade, a tree surgeon.They have an 8-year-old child, Lucy, born by ‘natural means’. Before her marriage, Pearson bore two children conceived by way of an anonymous donor, and she had specified that the father should have exceptional intellectual ability. Darwin (m) and Zanzibar (f) are indeed very clever,  close to each other and  obviously different from Lucy. Pearson admires their cleverness, whilst being rather embarrassed by Lucy. Pearson subjects the resentful child to weekend tutoring, during which Lucy refuses to learn anything.

 

 

In the past, Darwin and Zanzibar excelled  at school , to Pearson’s delight (she is something of an intellectual snob, which doesn’t serve her well) – but since the Mental Parity Act, they have learned to hide their superior intellect. They have become dull, quiet,  self-censoring.  Lucy, however, has never known anything different, and sees no need to ‘know stuff’. Later in the novel, we learn that at the age of 18, she can’t read. Her brain has been bound, ‘much like women’s feet in China’.

 

Pearson’s students at Voltaire University know their ‘rights’ and know that they will never fail anything.  The hostile students sitting on the front row are keen to catch her out for using unacceptable words. But she is naturally anti-authoritarian (which she attributes to her unhappy childhood) and initially she gets a thrill from taking risks . For example, she chooses Dostoevsky’s ‘The Idiots’ as a set book. This doesn’t go down well and the students report her to  HR.  She is disciplined and put  on probation.

A key character in the story is Pearson’s glamorous best female friend, Emory Ruth.  Emory is a narcissist who curates her every appearance. The novel is as much about their relationship as it is about the increasingly repressive society.

Emory is a cultural commentator and influencer, who becomes increasingly famous across the MSM. Right-on yet shallow, she is fully signed up to the Mental Parity movement, using her verbal skills and easy charm to outwit and silence the rapidly decreasing number of adults who challenge it. Pearson senses that Emory’s parents are afraid of her, in the same way she herself is nervous around Lucy.

Pearson can’t work out whether Emory is being very clever on the surface, whilst internally she thinks differently, in the ‘old’ way. But evidence suggests that Pearson is wrong – her BFF really does believe it, arguing that the Mental Parity regulations are just about being kind and anti-discriminatory. What’s the problem?

 

Pearson doesn’t take things seriously until she is visited by a social worker threatening to remove her children. She tries to make a joke of it but quickly realises that the social worker has power. Fortunately, Emory joins the discussion and calms things down, assuring her that Pearson and Wade are model parents.

The complainant, or rather in today’s parlance, the victim, the one who dobbed Pearson to the authorities, is Lucy,  claiming child abuse. She once overheard her mother describe her as ‘dumb’.

So the social worker, like the college authorities, puts Pearson ‘on notice’ : she will be watched for any further transgressions.

 

Thereafter, things go from bad to worse .  At home, Lucy spies on Darwin and Zanzibar, who have devised their own language to communicate with each other. Pearson feels her daughter is constantly watching her. The country suffers a ‘brain drain’ . Planes crash, bridges collapse, and people who can afford it import foodstuffs because the quality of American produce is so bad. Nobody knows, or cares, how to make hummus properly.

 

Wade is ordered to hire an apprentice who is an idiot. Inevitably, Wade has an accident.  At the hospital, Pearson distrusts the young medic, Dr Sarsaparilla, and indeed Wade is given the wrong treatment.

It is only the last minute intervention of an ‘old’ doctor that saves him.

His injuries render him unable to continue his work.

 

Pearson can’t contain her stress and anger, and  rants in front of her students, which of course, they film on their mobiles. It quickly  goes viral, she’s all over the media and  is  subjected to a national ‘pile on’ which makes her feel ashamed, although Darwin and Zanzibar are proud of her. Emory, on the other hand, enthusiastically joins in the pile on, in a most vicious manner.

Pearson is sacked, accused of acting in opposition to the university’s ‘core values’.

 

Without regular income, Pearson and Wade can’t afford the mortgage. Social workers declare Pearson an unfit mother. Darwin and Zanzibar are sent to separate foster parents, and Lucy is allowed to stay living with her father, without Pearson, who becomes homeless. Her family life is ruined and she suspects, correctly, that Lucy will never grow to like her.

 

In time, the Mental Parity movement runs out of steam. But there is an over-correction, which is imposed just as savagely as its predecessor : having a high IQ is not only  valued, but is essential for better jobs and for voting (anybody under 110 is barred). One’s IQ is tattooed on the inside of the wrist. Emory is enthusiastic about these developments, just as she was previously enthusiastic about exactly the opposite.

 

But Pearson, who is a survivor and manages to land a job in academia at last, still finds herself wanting a friendship with Emory.

 

 

 

I’m a  Shriver fan but I don’t think this is one of her better novels. It could do with editing and feels a bit too long. I found the relationship between Pearson and Emory, and Emory’s character, the most interesting part of the story.

 

Throughout the novel, the reader is treated to examples of Emory Ruth’s malevolent personality. There is a massive show down between the two women, during which Emory is the aggressor and the victor. In the process, she demolishes Pearson.

Subsequently, Pearson gets her revenge, but it doesn’t give her any pleasure.

 

At the end, the  two women come face to face at a TV panel discussion, during which Emory’s shallowness – in Pearson’s eyes – is laid bare.   But no-one challenges her. A shape-shifter, and media darling, Emory is an opportunist.  She enthusiastically and ruthlessly  promotes whatever is fashionable. Emory isn’t someone who, on the surface, professes to support views which deep down she disagrees with ( a position which Pearson would like to believe of her friend ) – no, she can change her priorities in an instant. It’s all about surface appearances. She has no hidden depths.

She may not have any depths at all.

 

Emory isn’t a hypocrite . She doesn’t pretend to be other than she is, and doesn’t create a public persona that is at odds with her real purpose or motivation. Her real purpose seems to be a desire to be fashionable , admired, earn good money, and outwit people who disagree with her.

 

Watching Emory’s behaviour, Pearson concludes :

‘It’s called having no real convictions to begin with, which conveniently precludes failing to live up to them.  It’s called having no soul’

 

Over time, Pearson learns  to value human attributes which have nothing to do with IQ , and which are foreign to people like Emory : honesty, generosity, loyalty, common sense, diligence, a sense of honour …

 

But still , she can’t hate Emory, and seems to find her horribly fascinating. The Emories of this world never lose.