Been thinking lately about metaphor. You know, that thing the Garden of Eden is? Stories we tell as cautionary tales or reminders, even when they\u2019re not explicitly cautionary tales or reminders. Things we say that aren\u2019t true\u2014this place is a prison<\/a><\/em> after we\u2019ve been grounded by mean step-parents, for instance\u2014but we say them as a warning. This is how this feels. Wait. You still don\u2019t understand? Let me explain it this way<\/em>. Metaphor has a deeper place in our lives than we think. It\u2019s worth digging into what\u2019s behind people\u2019s need to use metaphor. If a riot is the language of the unheard, what\u2019s a dystopian novel? <\/p> What I\u2019ve Been Reading Lately: <\/strong><\/p> When I called Indra Das\u2019s The Devourers<\/a> <\/em>\u201cone of the most gorgeous books ever written<\/a>,\u201d I meant that a deep, inescapable sensuousness ran like an ocean current through each sentence. With that lens in mind, this week\u2019s novel might be the same, but substitute brutality for beauty. The harsh, unsentimental, start-with-failure-of-the-imagination-end-with-perversion-of-the-imagination nature of the carceral state covers this book the way you might try to keep steam in a sizzling pan. Mainstream comparisons would be The Hunger Games<\/em> (without the Lifetime<\/em>-style fetishization of country-vs.-city struggle) or The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em> (but, like, Season 1, when it felt like there was a direction). Add a bit of that Vonnegut-Pynchon-Saunders-style of exaggerated satire, and you get, of course, Chain-Gang All-Stars<\/em> by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.<\/p> This is a remarkable novel. Quick scene-setting: we are following prisoners who are participating in \u201caction sports,\u201d a euphemism for \u201cpeople locked away in the prison system can earn their freedom by spending three years doing gladiator-style fights to the death,\u201d and these fights (and the prisoners\u2019 lives) are broadcast in a kind of ESPN-meets-24-hour-livestreams to an adoring public. <\/p> Nana is incredible on the sentence level\u2014it was hard to settle on one epigraph (maybe I didn\u2019t, read til the end). The characters are interesting and hard-nosed and full of pathos and complex because they\u2019re all murderers and rapists and domestic abusers but under inhumane conditions of severe torture and excess fame they\u2019ve maybe discovered love and tenderness and community? But not 100%. Not unlike Beloved<\/a><\/em>, some people are (metaphorically) forever dipping their hands in butter and putting it on their faces. Only unlike Beloved<\/a><\/em>, these people have lethal weapons. We also see how action sports affects the public. One storyline follows a white couple\u2014the husband a huge action sports fan, the wife initially queasy but quickly addicted to watching. Their hilariously cringe scenes of the husband explaining things to the wife made me want to never tell Mallory so much as a Bulls player\u2019s name ever again. We also see activists protesting the very existence of action sports. It\u2019s fiction, but I won\u2019t pretend I didn\u2019t find their courageousness exhilarating. These disparate parts build to a climax the same way sweeping, maximalist books like White Teeth<\/em> or The Tin Drum<\/em> do, which is always exciting to watch come together. It\u2019s an expertly crafted book. <\/p> All that said, this novel also made me realize I\u2019m kind of over dystopias for a while. Blame Hollywood over-saturation, blame the way so many books are marketed now as \u201ca world eerily similar to our own, Hunger Games<\/em> meets Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em> meets the prison industrial complex,\u201d or whatever, blame revolution-curious and Coen-Bros-style-skewering-loving me for seeking so much of this stuff out for so long. CivilWarLand In Bad Decline<\/em> and Pastoralia<\/em> changed my life in college, and Nana\u2019s reaching heights every bit as high (and higher? Ranking too finely is silly) than his mentor. Still, there was something more grounded about Friday Black<\/a><\/em> (or even I Keep My Exoskeletons To Myself<\/a><\/em>, which is a parenting novel more than a dystopian novel) that I think appeals to my current taste right now<\/em>\u2014emphasis because I want to be careful to say I don\u2019t necessarily think one of these two books is better than the other. I just know which style <\/em>I\u2019m more into right now. Hey, I don\u2019t really read sci-fi, either, and this exact thing is usually my barrier for entry. <\/p> If that\u2019s not a hangup for you? Well, here\u2019s one ranking I\u2019ll say with confidence: Chain-Gang All-Stars<\/em> runs absolute circles around The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em> (the show, anyway, I haven\u2019t read the book yet) and The Hunger Games<\/em> six times a week and twice on Sundays. <\/p> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Something to listen to while you browse? Why not check out the music video for the homie , who is here on Substack as BUT ALSO makes music as Infinite Runner. His EP, Piece of Cake<\/em>, just came out on Tuesday. It\u2019s real good. Real clear notes despite heavy distortion, real tasteful bass lines, real-ass drums. <\/p>![\"'Chain-Gang](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/1fb5245f-90e7-49ff-b582-7f8ce178f6a6.heic\")
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