Customer Reviews

Mockingbird

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Mockingbird" is one of my favorite books of all time. Set in 25th-century America, Tevis paints a picture of an eerie yet believable world, made all the more spooky by the fact that the twenty-five years since the book's publication has brought us ever closer to Tevis' imagined world: of a humankind drugged with chemicals, TV, and ignorance; where robots have broken down and can't repair things or each other; where there are no families and no more children being born; and where people are taught that "privacy is supreme," "quick sex is best," and "don't ask; relax." No one knows how to read; nor do any books, or even signs, exist. Human history is dead.

The main characters are Paul, who manages to teach himself to read and in so doing becomes an outlaw on the run; Mary Lou, who drops out of the system and finds herself the only pregnant woman in the world; and Spofforth, the last of the last line of robots to be built, sick of life but programmed to be incapable of suicide. The way the lives of these characters intertwine weaves a complex and surprising story of human relationship and what it really means. The two humans - and even the robot - gradually emerge from the nightmare of state-provided pleasure and into the real world of pain, loss, and love.

The book has a tight and nicely-paced plot, as well, and the ending does not disappoint. It is also punctuated with rich ideas, poignant vignettes, and such tenderness that you want to cry. One such vignette - I don't want to give anything away - but it involves a toaster factory inefficiently run by robots that Paul comes upon in his travels; what Paul discovers at the toaster factory is such a metaphor for our 21st-century world, it left me awed.

Tevis died in 1984, at the age of 56. What an incredible loss. I would love to have seen what would have come from his fertile imagination, and what cautionary tales he would be telling us today. An interesting factoid: the book was written in 1980, while the Twin Towers were standing, but in Tevis' 25th-century New York, the Empire State Building is the tallest building in the world. Hm... what did Tevis know?

In a post-meaning world, where humans have had all emotion and spiritual longings educated out of them, Paul finds a copy of the Bible. He says: "In reading the New Testament..., I developed a strong admiration for Jesus, as a sad and terribly knowing prophet - a man who had grasped something about life of the greatest importance and had attempted, and largely failed, to tell what it was. I can feel, in myself, a kind of love for him and for his attempt, in saying things like, `The Kingdom of Heaven is within you,' for I think I glimpse his meaning, here, looking out of the thought-bus window toward the still and gray expanse of the Atlantic Ocean with the sun about to rise on it."

This book is now out of print, which is ironic, since it is about a world without human literacy, where books only exist in dusty forgotten warehouses. Find a used copy, buy it, and cherish it.

This book is one of my all time favorite books. I have read it many times (in fact I feel like reading it now) I look out for second hand copies of it so I can loan it to other people without fear of losing my original copy or, as my original copy is starting to fall apart, to keep as a spare.

It is a remarkable book. I have never come across another book that so succinctly explains the learning to read process. And of course, I look forward to a day when "Thought Buses" are cruising the streets. The ending is fantastic, one of the best! I urge anyone with a yen for unusual literature to read it if they can find one of those rare copies out there.

This is a great book. I'm currently a high school senior (as of Spring 2004). Most likely, I haven't completely read 7 novels since I was concieved; but this book has sparked a new interest in literature within me. It brings up a lot of issues that were and are relevant in society. Anyone who likes Sci-Fi must read this book! I highly recommend this read!

I began using Mockingbird in my college classes when it first came out; and, even though it went out of print, I still used it, when I could find copies. Thank god it's available again! The exciting story of two people teaching themselves to read, then reading, thinking, writing, and regaining their humanity while falling in love is the strong medicine needed for education today. Also, Walter Tevis is one of the finest writers of any age--so reading Mockingbird is also a lesson in how to write clearly, concisely, and correctly. Would that every teacher and student read it--more than once!

Since the earliest science fiction novels, the novel of a future gone bad, or "dystopian" novel, has become a staple of the genre.
One thing I like about science fiction is the use of present trends to extrapolate the shortcomings of our current directions.
In this way, science fiction "about the future" has never been really "about the future", but instead about the time we currently live in, enlivened by scientific or social speculation.
The key issue, though, is how to keep the ideas fresh and relevant, because so many of these novels have been written.

Mockingbird avoids the "oft told tale" pitfalls that can too easily beset this genre. Tevis accomplishes the task by
creating believable characters, biting satire, and a pacing that is both leisurely and consistently interesting.

We are in a time when humankind's pursuit of happiness has
been reduced to the pursuit of pleasure. Mechanical inventions have eliminated the need to read, to write or to work.
The zero hour work week is imminent.

Who happens to the soul when it is freed from the mind?
Tevis answers the question brilliantly. This book is
a solid, strong read--it's a linear text, with little
time wasted on metaphysical author's voice. It uses quiet (if piercing) satire liberally, but not to the distraction of the plot. Tevis shows us a future all too much like our present,
only the trains have stopped running on time. My only criticism is that we are shown all the "no exit" spots in this dysfunctional world, but too few of the ways of escape.

Highly recommended. Anyone who thought Tevis' Man Who Fell to Earth was a bit difficult to follow will find this one
a breeze and yet a very thought-provoking book.

When I was younger, I read a lot of books, not the ones other kids would read, because I knew the super ones when I spotted them, and my friends were not reading super books. I eventually read less and less, and besides required reading for English classes, I didn't read much, because I couldn't seem to find a book that caught my interest. I'd read the first couple chapters of books that were just altogether uninteresting, and would shelve them. I bought Mockingbird on a whim, having liked Nicolas Roeg and David Bowie, two of my biggest idols, that were, incidentally, pitted together for "The Man Who Fell to Earth," a movie I like a lot, which was based off of Walter Tevis' book, The Man Who Fell to Earth. So I got Mockingbird in the mail, hoping it would be the book to set me back in reading gear, opening it from it's package with delight, and with a ready feeling to read. "In the far future, love is the only hope," read the inset, and this was a great love story. It was the book that I finally got stuck with and I couldn't stop reading it. I'd read it in the hallway during my Photo class when I didn't have any thing to do. I'd read it after a test. I'd read it on the couch while my family watched TV. It reminded me of Farenheit 451, but I found Mockingbird to be a far more picturesque dystopia, and it got me from the start because it didn't have to blossom the way F451 did. Comparing this to F451 also creates a chain, since Nicolas Roeg did photography for the movie version of F451, and as previously stated, directed the Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis, who wrote Mockingbird. The characters still get the Guy Montag effect, while the rest of the world is drugged and oblivious to every thing, keeping privacy. This book is full of adventure, and in an illiterate future where it's illegal to live among other people, the joy Paul feels from learning to read, and the knowledge he gets of a past of families and seeing silent films with people interacting has made me feel an importance to reading. The love story that unfolds through Paul's teaching Mary Lou to read, and their shared liking to books while sharing a living space makes for a great feeling to want to make my own real life love story. There couldn't have been a better scenario than this though; coming from characters that didn't even know what love was, finding out together, or separated.

If you ever know of anyone that has given up on reading, give them this one last book to read.

Another Tevis masterpiece. Written simply and exactly from the point of view of two of the three main characters and narratively from the third.

The adventure is terrific, the plot is solid and the twist, although it doesn't exactly come as a surprise, it puts the reader in the perspective of the drugged population for a moment who would not dare to imagine. Tevis accomplishes this easily by making everything else so perfect that the reader, while marvelling at what he is reading, is distracted from the direction it is taking him in.
There are many books you do not need to turn the page to know what is going to happen next, their plots loosely following a formula. Loosely enough that the content feels new, but enough that you don't feel that the author had anything of importance to say. This not one of those books. Tevis is not one of those authors. I was constantly surprised by the direction the story went in and barely anything that I was expecting to happen- happened.

But the best part of the book for me, was the way Tevis managed to describe the world through the words of Bentley. Bentley was a simple, lonely man struggling to understand a whole new world that had opened up to him. He writes like a child, yet not childishly. He is a man who is experiencing everything for the first time, teaching himself and expanding his horizons while he reads; his loneliness, breifly muted with his almost spiritual connection with dead authors and poets instigating feelings which he previously had no words to describe.

I get the feeling that the larger part of Bentley's character closely resembles Tevis' own, just as Bryce's did in Man Who Fell. Somehow they are always teachers.

All in all, Tevis creates an all too believable image of the future:- Mankind paying a price for not thinking far ahead enough and their children paying the price for their mistakes.

Incase you're wondering about the Empire State building relevance, it is addressed in a wonderful statement near the end of the book that sums up Mankind perfectly.

If I had a classroom of students before me, no matter what the subject I was suppposed to be teaching, I would give them Mockingbird. I would count myself lucky to have just one of these students understand or appreciate this profoundly humbling work. Understated, plain-spoken yet intensly personal, this is the kind of writing that many writers spend a lifetime trying to perfect. In "Mockingbird", Tevis gives us notice that the failure to read is the failure to dream. That he manages to convey this deeply disturbing message in such sparse and spare language is nothing short of a miracle. Any words I can say about this monumental achievement are obviously destined for failure, and rightfully so. Plainly said, if you never read a book again, this is the one you should start, and end with.

I read this excellent work when I myself had arrived at a crossroads in my life. I had just switched from a Military career to a Civilian one and was bewildered by the huge changes that this switch forced to have me go through. I found the story an excellent possible extrapolation from what I observed after leaving the somewhat protective and admittedly rigid army-life into the sometimes non-sensical and befuddling world at large. Not that it helped me a lot, but it is a good story with something in it for everyone who cares to open his/her mind for it. It has an implicitely positive message, a well worked out plot and a (relatively) happy ending. Good Book: Nuf said

... so I could buy him a drink and thank him personally for this amazing book. As a writer, and as a lifelong lover of speculative fiction, it immediately made my Top Five List -- and I've read a lot of Sci-Fi. I'd rank this book right up there with The Little Prince and The Alchemist in terms of its deceptive simplicity and stunning impact. Thanks, Tevis. Wherever you are.