“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned
out to completely suck.”
Titus and his friends live on and for the Feed, a
computer in their brains that from birth feeds them information and connects
them to everyone, everything, and nothing. They can chat with their brains,
watch video, look up any fact or figure in an instant, malfunction their brains
for fun, and be fed ads tailored to their very thoughts. So why then are they
all so bored? Why does Titus feel so mal
when he should feel meg? Who is this Violet chick coming off like she’s all
brag and everyone else is so null? And
then when they all get hacked and Titus can’t access his feed for actual whole
DAYS, what will he do? When he actual has for real feelings for Violet what
will he do with them? What will he buy next?
This is a viscously dark satire of the extremes of
consumer culture and the vapidity of modern communication. It’s a dystopia as
chilling and relevant as anything by George Orwell or Aldous Huxley. And it isn’t
just a technophobic screed about “Those Darn Kids With Their Texting and the
Whatnot” either. Adult society is also skewered well and full. The world of
Feed is one where the planet is polluted beyond repair, war is ever-present and
completely ignored, and mass violence is just another software glitch. What makes this world so frightening is how
little any of the characters in it care about anything that isn’t Fun and on
the Feed. Things like peoples skin
falling off is just an everyday occurrence and they just buy more stuff to
ignore it. Anderson shows a lot of the dark sides of a consumer culture. There always has to be more stuff to buy to
keep the machines of industry going, and when what we buy becomes who we are
then a world like Feed becomes
possible.
However, the characters aren’t all mindless drones to
serve a big message for the author.
Anderson makes the major characters feel very real with believable
limitations and drives, this makes the world he creates more real and more
terrifying. I also love that the
character of Violet isn’t just there to Wake People Up and there isn’t a global
conspiracy to unmask and no one successfully fights the feed and starts a
global movement. Violet’s just a girl
that wants more out of life, but she has flaws and just wants to be happy like
anybody else. Honestly, I think everyone should give Feed a chance. It’s not always fun, but it’s always darned
interesting. It tackles so many big
ideas that it can be dizzying, but it never tells you what to think about it. I
honestly think that it’s way more relevant than Brave New World or 1984
to most young people today and should definitely be on more High School reading
lists. Check it out for yourself.
You can check our catalog for Feed here.
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