The Flame Alphabet (Vintage Contemporaries)

I thoroughly disliked this book. For starters, the premise is incredibly interesting, and it's what drew me to the book, but the book doesn't seem to realize that. Every blurb I read about it mentioned the core premise: the voices of children make their parents ill. However, the book and its characters seem to stubbornly deny this fact as long as possible. It treats it as a mystery when the readers likely already know and the characters have been given more than enough information to come to that conclusion themselves. It's painful.Then, it goes completely off the rails. I wasn't expecting hard science, but shortly after it begins, it seems to make no sense whatsoever. There's no logic to anything that happens. This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't seem to be the focal point of the book. Large portions of the story are about the main character and the people around him trying to figure out what is going on, which they never seem to do. There is no moment where what's happening with the illness and its various cures makes sense.What's worse though is the main character. At no point did he ever seem to know what he wanted or why he was doing what he was doing.*This may get into spoilers. Though who cares? You shouldn't waste your time reading this anyway.*He spends all his time talking about restoring his family and saving his wife and kid, but he starts by experimenting on his wife (hurting her in the process) and neglecting his kid. Then, he leaves his kid and his wife. Then, a long time passes where he does nothing to find them. Then, they just fall in his lap again, and AGAIN he leaves his wife to die or worse. His motivations never make any sense, and his actions never match his supposed motivations.And it isn't even entertaining. Much of the book, he describes how he's trying to fix the problem, and it's an obvious waste of time. Even the character acknowledges that it's a waste of time, and yet, we're treated to chapters of intricate descriptions of how the character is wasting his time.This book is a waste of time.

This was a good idea that was terribly painful to get through. It was so bad that I almost preferred walking on the treadmill with nothing to read rather than keep reading this, but I forced my way through anyway, just to be done with it.The story takes place in the near future, at a time when the sound of children speaking has become toxic. Eventually, all language, even printed text, follows, and Sam and Claire find themselves with no alternative but to abandon their teenage daughter, Esther. Even though they have to leave her, Sam refuses to give up on somehow keeping their family together, even though Esther's vocal teenage rebellion is slowly killing her parents. The rest of the book meanders through Sam's fruitless struggle to find a cure and to continue practicing a form of Judaism where he goes to a solitary hut in the woods and uses an organic device called a Listener to hear sermons from an underground orange cable that apparently spans the entire world, even though earing the sermons is also killing him.There are a lot of problems with this book, but the basic ones are that there's never a reason why language became toxic, so the main plot is never resolved. Since it's not a plot driven novel, it then has to depend on the characters, but Sam is the only character given any kind of development, and he's just not that interesting. This book was a waste of my time.

I purchased this book to read over winter break, and after reading mixed reviews I was hesitant that it would be a flop and hard to get through. While the wording and flow of the book is a bit labored, I think that this adds to the concept of the story! The whole point of the book is that speech is toxic, and understanding leads to decay. Why should a gem like this book have the message so easily accessible? This is a wonderful piece of literary fiction, not a quick read in which one can skim over pages. This book is something to immerse yourself in, and almost become the character and feel how hard language has become to tolerate. A society where a child's speech is toxic is just an outstanding and original concept. I highly appreciated the irony of reading this book while surrounded by screaming children on an airplane. I could almost see the words spewing out of their mouths and felt as if every fiber in my body was being attacked by the children's words.Again, this is a wonderful book and while it is hard to read, it is worth it. I would compare it to the likes of Margret Atwood's "The Handmaids Tale."

Ok, we get it, the speech of children is toxic to adults in this dystopian story. Nothing else happens besides humans abandon language and the reader falls asleep half way through, too bored out of her mind to finish. This book was about 20 chapters too long. It supposedly won some awards I've never heard of, but, really, it's a failed experiment. Don't waste your time. At least I didn't pay money for this.

This book started out so great, specifically in Part One. I read the first third of the book in one sitting. However Marcus set up such an interesting world and later copped out by not answering anything and just skipping over entire periods of time. Esther was never a character I could like or sympathize with and nearly all of Part Two is just the same thing happening over and over. The language was great, but I feel like Marcus missed some big opportunities here.(Posted from my GoodReads account)

I heard this author interviewed on PBS and was intrigued with this premise. The voices of the children have come to make the adults physically ill. Who has not had the experience of being torn by the anguish of the changing of an adolescent and the basis of deep love for that child. I did not enjoy the character of the mysterious man who has come to enlist the father of the family, and I tired of the world's reactions to the crisis. Perhaps this story would have been more effective as a short story or novella?

Well it wasn't what I was expecting.I thought it was going to be an easy, pulpy sci-fi, dystopian, post apocalyptic novel. Perhaps with a peppering of philosophy about the use of language.Oh, boy. This is not that.I was constantly amazed by Marcus's inventive cleverness. I have never read anything like this, and I'm not sure if I've ever been quite as affected by a book as much as this.Normally, if a book gets its hooks into me, I end up constantly thinking about the characters. Or, to a lesser extent, the world or the central theme. This was like plugging a raw emotion into my mind. Unfortunately, the emotion was akin to disgust or perhaps despair, so this will never be my favourite book.But as a work of fiction, it is incredible.

unexpected, gutsy, clever, original and darkly wry. Really like his style.

great book

great read, thanks

Yes they will! In this dystopic future words spoken by children (and later, it seems, by everyone, even written ones...) induce devastating illness in those who hear or see them, although the children are immune up until a certain age. This is the main thread of this (very strange, but interesting) novel, but there are others too. One is that of "forest Jews", of whom the narrator is one, who worship in tiny home made synagogues, using a Cronenbergesque living device as a conduit for the words of distant rabbis. Strange idea, or what? Marcus doesn't lack them, as his "Age of Wire and String" novel (?) illustrates. The present book is much more conventional, and even has a plot, as adults struggle to find some way of avoiding language-based extinction, which they do partly by carrying out gruesome Mengele-like experiments. You've got the idea that this isn't a feelgood book, but it's consistently interesting, and full of very odd notions, most extremely creepy. The book makes most of the recent "new weird" look like Enid Blyton, so if you're interested in new and strange things, read it. Marcus is obviously a strange talent who ploughs his own furrow remorselessly.