The Unbearable Heaviness of Being; Or, Life Reviled: Book Review

The following is a quickie review I wrote on Goodreads a while back.

Overall, I thought the book was good. It doesn't really function as a narrative, so much as it does a philosophical treatise for the author's variant on anti-natalism. The plot is bare-bones, adopting an adventure story structure (traveling from one place to the next). But instead of fantastical locations, the story indulges in varied philosophical debates about the morality of life itself. As a narrative, I thought it was fairly lacking. As a treatise, it was good, though I have disagreements.

Let's start with the positives:

I enjoyed the prose. It was competently written, and even simply written, taken alongside the occasional esoteric terminology that I had to look up. My kindle often failed to find the definitions of the words in its own dictionary. It was reminiscent of R. Scott Bakker's later works, which did the same thing, though Bakker was much more complex in every respect. All the same, like Bakker, Wainwright managed to use the word 'forsooth" in place of "true," both without making it seem out of place in the larger story. Thumbs up for that alone!

The themes of the story, and the basic worldbuilding used to explore them, was also well done. The whole question of what should be done to save the human race is something rather fascinating; no doubt, I plan on visiting the idea in my own fiction. Wainwright's askew perspective gives it a rather unique twist.

I also liked the obnoxious portrayal of the bad guys in the story. In the author's own words, they act "retarded," and it shows. It is made better by Wainwright's willingness to use modern gangsta speak in their portrayal: "We finna breed this bitch." Lol.

The narrative aspect of the book also had some things I would have tweaked:

The dark humor of the story was heavier in the beginning and the end. Indeed, as I passed through the middle section, I kind of forgot that there was supposed to be humor in the story. It came back, which made the story better, but I still would have filled out the middle a bit more.

The various times where the main character encounters people sympathetic to her view ought to have been cut down to one character, perhaps none at all. The fact that her lover, the woman in the woods, and one of her parents all seemed to jump into her philosophical boat was kind of forced and it seemed that the authorial voice was coming on a bit too strong. Though, that is basically this whole book.

Which leads me to the next criticism: I thought the story could have benefited from character change, as opposed to making the main character static. She should had run from home because of simple fear, only to fall into wallowing over the moral uncertainty of her actions, only to come around to her anti-natalist perspective in the climax—ending with similar brutality. Instead of her DESTROYING every character she debates Ben Shapiro-style, we could see her consider and reject different ideas and watch them change, until she settles on the final one.

The final comment is on the play that Wainwright wrote for the scene with the Flagellant. The scene worked well for its own sake. I just don't understand why it's there. All of the debate scenes could have been written like this, as they all have exchanges through dialogue. I guess plays tend to have extended monologues even in the context of a larger dialogue; the speaker is allowed to speak at length, where they would have been interrupted otherwise. This makes the MC's arguments more longwinded. But this only made the whole chapter feel out of place. Why was it written that way? A random stylistic flourish?

The treatise aspect was good, though I did not appreciate some of the Continental aspects of his delivery. For the story, it is fine. But it even showed up in the apparent afterword of the book. Either way, I think he made some interesting points in the story as a whole that I think are worth considering. At the same time, I thought that the last chapter or so seemed to contradict the story's core philosophy. But it's not in a blatant way, and I would say that this is actually a fundamental flaw with the philosophy itself, rather than the delivery of the story. I will wait to comment on that.

As you can imagine, I did not really agree with the philosophy.

Wainwright has a very pessimistic view. And, so do I. Even so, I am perhaps his opposite.

As such, I have written and posted a Blog/Video rebuttal to his philosophy.

Check it:

Essay: https://leehuntswriting.blogspot.com/2024/01/lee-hunts-destroys-carroll-wainwright.html

Video: https://youtu.be/jcs8WTDHt5U

7/10