This book is not about a plucky, witty and creative protagonist surviving a dungeon in a post-apocalyptic world. That’s just the pretext. This book is really about the world as it exists today. In my view, the only difference between the protagonist and his allies and the monsters they battle, is that the latter have had their humanity stripped away and the former are not only given power and prestige, but are actively encouraged to commit atrocities. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when the “hero” killed his first “boss”. I was speechless with horror, not only at the graphic brutality that the author (and apparently the majority of his readers) obviously relish, but the callousness with which Carl moves on, marching ever deeper into the depths of depravity.
This book reminds me far too much of headlines that I’ve read in recent months – mass shootings at daycare centers, terrorist bombings that kills hundreds of civilians – it’s all here. The author uses only the flimsiest pretext to justify this gory exposé, by substituting words like “monster” and “goblin” for “people” in order to dehumanize the victims of the protagonist. It’s as if the author drew inspiration from the Holocaust, Rwandan and Cambodian genocides, and 9/11 – and then decided to write a book about them from the point of view of the perpetrators.
It turns out that good people can do really, really horrible things to other people when they feel that:
1. We don’t have a choice, so we are not responsible for our actions,
2. It’s “us” versus “them”, and
3. “They” are no longer humans because they are our enemies
This book is so tragic because it is so true. The justifications that Carl offers is the underlying philosophy of every war crime, in my view, including those that are being committed as I write this review. Rape, murder, nothing is off limits to those who truly convince themselves that their victims are no longer human and that they no longer bear responsibility because their agency has been taken away from them.
Carl sees himself as a victim of circumstances beyond his control, and he is right. He did not choose to become part of the dungeon, but once he abandons his moral responsibility for his own behaviors in the dungeon in favor of “winning”, in my view he becomes more of a monster than those he kills.
Of course, others might see this differently and I make no pretense of being objective. I am very biased, because the characters are so relatable. This is a hard book to listen to for anyone who has been traumatized by a society that treats people of a particular race, sex, religion or sexual orientation as somehow being less human. What made this especially hard to digest was that the author would often take the time to demonstrate that Carl’s “enemies” had dreams and hopes just like anyone else, and then he would trivialize their lives by killing them in the most dehumanizing way possible.
The scenarios that Carl is presented are deliberately exaggerated to be so extreme that they become absurd – and perhaps it is what so many readers have found so amusing – but the underlying truths are impossible to ignore. For me, this is a book about privilege and power; more specifically, the abuse of power when certain conditions are met.
For those who grew in a society where their basic humanity has never been questioned, this might be an amusing book. I imagine that this might be how the world looks from a privileged point of view – i.e. that of a modern, white, “red-blooded” American man. I would like to think that, despite the obvious social inequalities in America, there is a basic shared understanding that we are all in this together, members of the same human family. This book – along with the thousands of five star reviews it has received, and the several subsequent novels – has shattered that illusion.
There are no monsters in this book, only people who have lost their humanity. They are all victims whose suffering is entirely for the pleasure and profits of others. And when I realized that those “others” were the people who laughed along at the wild antics of the protagonists, the book ceased to be funny. All of these horrible things were being described for MY entertainment, and for the profit of the author and his publishers, thereby making me complicit.
Up to that point, despite my increasing discomfort, I was genuinely intrigued by the narrative. It was like watching a bird’s eye view of current events, but told through a perspective I couldn’t understand but wanted to. I kept wondering “can people really think like this?” But once I realized that, by listening I was becoming part of the story, I could not justify listening any further. Because the only thing worse than committing atrocities, is watching them happen and saying nothing…or leaving a five star review