The Men Who Take Eyes: Review

I just finished reading The Men Who Take Eyes, by the new author Justin Little; he is also known as Vernaculis, a former Youtuber who would commentate on politics. He is one of the first political channels I followed when I first came onto Youtube, and he was also among my favorites, as well. He was the one who inspired me to make my own channel. Years have passed since, and our views have diverged a fair amount from one another; he would probably dismiss me as a cynic now due to my pragmatic outlook on life and politics, but so it goes, I suppose. Regardless, once I learned he was writing a novel, I preordered it the moment I could and even got a signed copy. Little has always been a George Orwell fanboy, and so I expected as much from this book.

The book is a satirical novel about a "bitter revolutionary" caught in the middle of an endless civil war between two factions known as the Vigil and the Insurrection. This revolutionary, Oliver, is firmly planted in the latter camp, defining his entire life around the conflict, which started when critics of the Vigil were brazenly cut down by the former faction. At the start of the book, Oliver is called out to fight for the first time, and his experiences change him forever.

Overall (No Spoilers)

Overall, I liked the book. The catch is that I don't think the book was all that consistent. By this I mean that the first half was of much lower quality than the second half. Due to my schedule, I was only able to read this book in two bouts, over the course of two weeks, and so I was able to sit on and ruminate over the first half. I was convinced the book was subpar, as it seemed to show the signs of being an author's first book. The prose was clunky in places and the paragraphs seemed haphazardly stitched together. I was prepared to give the book a 4/10.

My attitude changed when I finished the book. I noticed none of the problems that stuck out to me in the first half. It strikes me that as Little continued forward with his book, his prose became cleaner and more readable. Because of this, my rating of the book is now more positive than negative, if only that I can see that Little is getting better at his craft. I know the difficulties of going back and cleaning up the prose in some of your early work. I put my entire first novel on the shelf after realizing that on a line-by-line level, my novel had to be completely reworked. For me, I figured I might as well move on to the next project.

The themes of the story revolve around truth, especially as it is understood and utilized in a political context. Much like 1984, the book is a satire of real-world phenomena, where those characteristics are taken and exaggerated to make a point about the absurdity of it all. In the case of this book, tribalism and its inevitable assault upon truth are center stage. The absurdity of the ideologies and the behaviors of the people are both hilarious and disturbing, though I think it is mostly the latter; knowing that the roots of this absurdity are a direct rip from typical behavioral patterns always manages to undercut the hilarity. Naturally, I thought the way in which he communicated these themes to be brilliant. In the beginning, there are hints, but as the story progresses, the ideas become louder and louder until they are overbearing (in a good way). 

The execution of the story varied for me. The prose, which I discussed previously, is part of it. Other than that, I thought a pivotal scene involving violence in the first part was not dwelled upon long enough for the moment to truly sink in. Now, my bias is towards graphic displays of violence and cruelty. I don't expect Little to be Stephen King, and that is obviously not the point of the novel, but I think the scene could have had a bit more detail. In contrast, I liked the final pivotal scene for Oliver in the story. I thought Little did an excellent job communicating the event in horrific fashion.

I thought the ending was great. I won't get into the specifics until the spoiler section, but I thought all the elements came together nicely. 

Overall, I liked the book. I will give it a 6/10.

Strides (Spoilers)

So, let's talk about the ending first, since I touched on that just before.

First, I liked how Oliver was fixed on proving what actually happened in order to settle the matter and hopefully end the war. I knew from the outset that it was a futile gesture. When the graves were dug up and the destructive truth called the Insurrection's worldview into question, the motivated tampering of the evidence was the only course of action.

Oliver's death by the end of the penultimate chapter was also great because it was a surprise. At the same time, it was the only outcome possible for the character. These are always the best plot twists. The shocking brutality coupled with the inevitability helped land the story in expert fashion. Oliver's death is the final pivotal scene I was talking about above.

Now, going back to my point about the themes, I loved how Little had the Insurrection articulate an explicit philosophy that they used to justify their tribalism. That philosophy is called the Philosophy of Advantage, which is a theory of truth which states that what is true is what gives the Insurrection an advantage over the Vigil. One of the key examples of this is the central historical event that justified the entire war: Ten men criticizing the Vigil were gunned down in cold blood. What actually happened does not matter. What is true is what helps defeat the Vigil, and so this story is true because it demonizes the Vigil. I especially loved how they "resolved" the problem of hypocrisy in explicit terms, as well, claiming that they are allowed to lie if it benefits the Insurrection, but simultaneously condemn the Vigil for lying; it all goes back to the Philosophy of Advantage. In real life, people usually ignore, or minimize their cognitive energy spent thinking about, contradictions in their worldview, and they are blissfully ignorant of what it is they are doing. This book shows what it would be like if people were more honest (read: explicit) about their dishonesty.

I think my favorite part of the story, however, was seeing Oliver's disillusionment as he realized he would not be able to prove what actually happened when those ten men were claimed to have been gunned down. This feel was disturbingly familiar with three phases of my own life. When I first gave up on the religion I was born into, I had a similar realization that everything I believed was a lie and that I needed to step back and find a new grounding. This effect was reignited when I came across the skeptic community on Youtube several years later, where I finally threw off the last remnants of Christian philosophy. Finally, the most profound was during the 2016 election and then the presidency of Donald Trump, where I truly came to question everything, especially from the media. Yet, I wasn't one of the people who railed against the media, either. Instead, I recognized that I had to trust the media in order to engage in politics; I saw people on all sides believe things when they were convenient and dismiss other things when that was convenient. And so, I instead became incredibly nihilistic. This book captured that feeling excellently. This book is a true centrist's nightmare.

Missteps (Spoilers)

I also have a few issues with the story.

The first is what happened at the end of the first part of the story. Presumably, Reece knocked out Oliver and handed him over to the Vigil for capture, but I don't really understand what the purpose of this was. I figured it would be explained later on, but I don't remember it ever being touched upon. 

The second is the pivotal scene from the first part that I mentioned in my non-spoiler section. The scene, of course, is when Oliver kills Alex. As I mentioned before, I don't expect Stephen King levels of violence (like when King described how a kid's eyeballs burst out of his skull as a bullet struck him in the forehead), but I do think Little could have put more emphasis on the scene. In the course of one line, the boy was shot, and Oliver was out of the room. I get what Little was trying to get across, but I remember stopping and rereading that part because it happened so fast.

The third is more trivial. Thomas is a character in the second part of the book. I don't really understand the in-world explanation for why he was there. Little suggested that he was there because the Vigil was waiting for evidence to show that he truly was a traitor. I don't really understand why they would have waited. They caught him simply painting his symbol on his hand, rather than getting an actual tattoo, and I don't understand why this would not be sufficient for the Vigil to simply kill him outright. I just got the impression that the only reason this did not happen was so the plot could happen, and Oliver could have someone to talk to. Little could have tweaked things a bit to make this authorial motivation less obvious. 

Finally, there were a number of grammatical errors, like misplaced question marks and doubled up periods and more. This is also trivial, but books seem more amateur when you notice a number of these mistakes throughout.

Conclusion

As stated before, I liked this book. I will give it a 6/10.