Comment

Feb 20, 2012lisahiggs rated this title 2.5 out of 5 stars
Octavian’s life might be astonishing, but his story is not. Anderson tells us that Octavian has an astonishing life, but he doesn’t show us. Octavian himself doesn’t even know his life is any different than other people’s, other boys’, other blacks. Even when he figures it out – when he finds out that he’s actually a slave and not the beloved prince of a household, and suddenly made to act accordingly – nothing really changes in his demeanor, he seems quite unastonished actually. There is a barrier between us and what might be good about this novel. There could be something astonishing here, but it’s hidden under other people’s letters driving the plot instead of the main character’s actions, in breakneck plot changes that don’t seem to bother the characters too much, and behind mysterious forbidden doors that, once opened, just result in a dry lecture by a man who changed his name to a number for very little reason and later changed it back just the same. When you have to call your story “astonishing” in the title, it’s very likely not to be so.