Customer Reviews

Lives Less Valuable: A Novel (Flashpoint Press)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With this novel, Derrick Jensen has again proven himself to be a skillful storyteller. His second novel after nearly a dozen expositions on the destructiveness of industrial culture and the necessity of stopping it, Jensen drives his challenge home with this masterfully crafted novel. His characters are fresh and he builds into them each a complexity that keeps even his trio of street-hardened thugs from becoming cliché. As those familiar with his writing well know, Jensen has a special gift for exploring the depths of the human psyche and the social and psychological dynamics involved with the struggle against the pervasive oppression of the dominant paradigm. This is what separates him from most other writers who tackle this formidable task. With this novel, Jensen again delivers in spades.

As the story unfolds, Jensen uses his key characters, Malia and Dujuan, to illustrate the impact a greedy industry tied to a corrupt political system can have on the poor, seemingly weak, and disenfranchised. As his other works reveal, Jensen knows all too well the subtle ways the system works to send violence down the hierarchical order to those who have fewer "pieces of green paper", keeping them in control and attempting to limit the ways they can fight back. But even the antagonist in this story, Larry Gordon, the CEO of Vexcorp Chemicals - an insidious producer of toxic waste in the heart of the ghetto that is poisoning the river and bringing sickness and death to those living in the shadow of its stacks - is portrayed in a uniquely human way that only Jensen can pull off. And although we may never completely sanction the path he chooses in life, we find ourselves almost willing to buy into the rationalizations Gordon uses and how the factors which shaped his life effect his decisions. Almost.

The dialogue is crisp and engaging making this book an irresistible page turner, and it is salted with the well honed discourses that Jensen has expertly worked out over the decade and a half he has been writing. You will find the plot intricately woven, flashing back and forward, and splicing bits and pieces into the narrative that Jensen adeptly ties together in the end. It's a magnificent read; one that will keep you pinned to your seat until the final page.

But Derrick Jensen is more than writer, he is a thinker and philosopher who not only winnows away the chaff to expose kernels of truth, but challenges us to dig down deep for the raw, righteous indignation needed to transform revolutionary thinking into revolutionary action. Jensen has often pointed out that for every Sinn Fein there needs to be an IRA behind it willing to take the battle to the streets. This novel propels us into a circumstance where we are forced to confront the inner battle necessary to move our convictions from thought into action. What will we do when we are faced, like Malia, with the frustrating knowledge that stopping the expansion of Vexcorp is all but impossible with the tactics legally available to her? Add the pure, primal outrage that Dujuan brings to the story from the loss of his sister and the trap of living poor and black in a rich, white mans' world and we are are forced to ask ourselves at what point in this continuum of despair and agency we will be jarred from our fear of reprisal and act with the kind of passion necessary to look down the barrel of a gun at the culprit who is ultimately responsible. In this book, Jensen again reminds us that corporations don't make decisions - individual people do. And as with any corrupt regime, when people who suffer under it have had enough, they will be faced with a decision of when and how to act. Every CEO and board member of corporations that are knowingly destroying the environment should read this book and take note. There may likely be a day of reckoning for them; and just as likely, desperate but empowered people like Jensen's characters could one day hold their fate in their hands. As the novel eludes, ask Adolf Eichmann how such moments in history generally play out. Better yet, ask Mussolini. As Jensen has said elsewhere: "We have been too kind to those who are destroying the planet. We have been inexcusably, unforgivably, insanely kind." However, this book isn't as much a call for action is it is a call for us to look deep within ourselves to discover and recalibrate our own personal tipping points. This book puts us on a collision course with our own moral fiber. It reminds us what is at stake in this war: the health of our rivers and the landbases that feed us; the lives of those - both human and non-human - whom we love; and perhaps more importantly, our own sense of purpose and self-respect.

With this work, Jensen sets himself apart as a multifaceted writer who works with a singularity of purpose - to inspire us to pick up the torch and touch it to the gasoline he splashes with every page he writes.

Fellow anti-civilization (or pro-life, to put it another way) author Derrick Jensen once again proves his marvelous ability to pump out entertaining and important books with his juicy new offering, Lives Less Valuable. In typical fashion, Jensen succeeds in pushing the boundaries, and hopefully in forcing our discourse in an even more radical direction. Indeed, this may very well be his most militant book. And that is saying something remarkable--arguably the work he is best known for, the seminal two-volume Endgame, features his musings on toppling cell phone towers and an interview with a military man on crippling infrastructure. Yet LLV manages to take it even further.

This is his second published novel, following last year's Songs of the Dead. While Songs is also a great read, LLV is far superior in my less-than-humble opinion. In it, mainstream (though philosophically radical) environmental activist Malia dedicates her life to "saving kids from cancer," from stopping the hideously destructive practices of a giant local chemical-refining company, Vexcorp. She writes letter after letter, files and challenges Environmental Impact Statements, and aides her associate and former love interest Dennis with his impending appearance on 60 Minutes. Yet none of it seems to matter. Malia wallows, as any sane person caught in this industrial nightmare who hasn't completely deluded themselves must, in the daily despair of ineffectiveness. The toxic river running through the heart of the city is becoming ever more polluted; cancer and respiratory illnesses continue to run rampant; and now Vexcorp is about to get the obligatory green light for expansion!

The plot heats up when Malia is mugged one evening after work by a young man named Dujuan and his friends. Dujuan is a tortured soul who lost his little sister to the ravages of cancer, a man who, like so many of us, focuses his anger entirely in the wrong direction. But something snaps inside him when Malia insists that he, a street thug, is no better than Vexcorp CEO Larry Gordon, a corporate thug (is there any other kind of CEO?)

Dujuan and his pals proceed to kidnap Gordon and take him to Malia's office, where they will hold trial for his life. LLV ends with a riveting double-climax, both of which brilliantly affirm the absolute necessity of solidarity and security culture.

One of the most surprising and fascinating aspects of the novel is that it gives us an in-depth view into the life and mind of Vexcorp's CEO. Larry Gordon is not merely the identity-less symbol of civilization's murderous evils. He is a fully fleshed-out character, with dreams and hobbies and children. This is a brilliant storytelling technique by Jensen, because we see just how sociopathological Gordon's (and those in power in general) mindset is. He truly does not see the harm he is greatly responsible for. He has no clue about the suffering and trauma that his decisions result in--in fact, he considers himself a model citizen and member of the community.

This is crucial for we who care about life on Earth, and Earth herself. Those in power will not--and most of the time CANNOT--stop voluntarily. They must be stopped by force; by any means necessary. Jensen, and publisher PM Press, set a courageous example, both with the message of the book and with the publication thereof. There is no doubt about the crises we all face, and no doubt we must think outside the neat little box provided to us by those we seek to stop. We must "step outside the lines." The time is ripe--let us all, every single one of us, ensure the opportunities do not rot.