Book Thoughts: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
All the blurbs and reviews I saw about Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom talked about its neat imaginary technology and the fascinating “Bitchun Society” resulting from it. Hardly anyone mentioned the characters. This ought to signal alert readers that even most people who liked the book didn’t care about the characters much. Or the plot, though that was mentioned a little more than the characters.
I’m only halfway through the book, and I’m already wondering why Doctorow couldn’t just have written a short story to feature all the gosh-wow tech. Or an essay. Unless-and I won’t know this until I get to the end-giving us a detailed look at the inside of a narcissist’s head is part of the novel’s project.
What else can you call a character who flat-out admits that he doesn’t seem most people as individuals, but as a mass of sheeple who aren’t as smart or interesting as he is? That he doesn’t even bother to try for all but the extremely tiny handful he likes or who are such effective enemies that he can’t ignore them? Jules dimly recognizes that snapping at people instead of listening to their concerns and trying to explain why his brilliant plan will work for them is counterproductive, but he doesn’t care enough to try to do better. Because he’s right and they’re in his way.
And oh, the irony of a guy complaining that kids these days are so inauthentic and lacking in passion that they, like, restrain their emotions in group settings and try to work together and build consensus and maybe even give up on a lost cause occasionally… while wanting to recapture the “authentic” memories he has of the classic Disney World. Yes, Disney World, that bastion of spontaneity and authenticity!
Not that he’s happy when anyone does display authentic emotions. When his girlfriend Lil stops suppressing her irritation at his volatile asshole behavior, for instance, he doesn’t like it one bit. Nor when anyone else gets annoyed at his high-handedness. The fangirl he invites to help with Big Idea is portrayed as beyond irritating (and foolish) in her enthusiasm. She even dares to be enthusiastic about things he doesn’t approve of as well as things he does, despite knowing absolutely no good reason she shouldn’t like both. Dammit, she isn’t expressing the right kind of passion for Jules!
Okay, this isn’t entirely fair. His friend Dan also betrays him with inappropriate emotion by having an affair with Lil, and Jules forgives him after about five minutes, because Dan is his Best Bud. He admits to being a lot more torn up about the idea of losing his friend than losing his girlfriend.
(About the women. Jules knows about four with names: Lil, who carefully manages her public image and starts out acting like his dream sweet/sassy, competent but non-threatening girlfriend; Debra, who is competent and confident enough to be able to compete with Jules and is therefore so evil that she’ll arrange to have him assassinated; Kim, the airheaded fangirl who probably isn’t as airheaded and naïve as Jules judges her; and Zed, his socially unusual ex-wife whom he drove “crazy” (his description). So, either you’re a hot supportive girlfriend or you’re annoying, evil, or so weird that you’re outside normal social categories. Or one of the faceless mass of sheeple. And he thinks the supportive girlfriend isn’t independent or passionate enough, but anything more is too much. You cannot win with this guy.)
So. Basically, this is a guy who judges people (and places with staff) as “good” and “authentic” depending on whether they’re presenting him with a version of reality he likes. Classic Disney World? He liked it, thanks to careful stage management by hundreds of people, therefore it offered real human connection. (Yes, this means he thinks of classic Disney World as somehow authentic despite deploring the inauthentic public personas of the staff.) Lil? Has a warm, authentic side when she’s attracted to him or working on the animatronics he also loves, and is too fake and stage managed when she isn’t expressing the emotion he feels (usually when she’s not showing enough anger at people who disagree with him because she’s trying to negotiate to get them to change their minds). So far, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that her “girlfriend” side might be as carefully managed as her “consensus-building team member” side. Because that’s the part he wants to see. Dan? Wants to be his friend for some reason despite being super popular at the beginning, therefore his whole rugged cowboy evangelist thing is totally down-to-earth and authentic and in no way just as much a persona as Lil’s Cheerful Team Player.
It also doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that not blaring every passing emotion out at the world unfiltered isn’t the same as being fake. That maybe some people actually care about listening to other people and value finding a solution that satisfies everyone, and so biting their tongues instead of biting people’s heads off is part of their authentic selves.
Or that tamping down one’s anger, putting on a happy face, and trying to negotiate isn’t a newfangled thing that only Bitchun Society-era kids raised in the Disney service industry do. It’s how a huge percentage of the world population has always gotten along, because the social consequences (and often economic, legal, and personal safety consequences) of not doing so are too high. “Talk less, smile more” (to borrow from another fandom) is advice that only sounds shockingly inauthentic and cowardly if you’re used to being able to say whatever you want to whomever you want, and you can’t understand why someone else with the same privilege wouldn’t take full advantage of that. Or that not everyone has that privilege. Or that sometimes you just plain can’t force everyone to agree that your opinion is self-evidently correct through sheer will.
Like I said, maybe Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is an intentional critique of this mindset. On the other hand, it feels so tedious and faintly skeevy to have to inhabit it, even for a short 200 pages, that I’m not sure I care to finish it to find out.
Which is a shame, because the tech and speculations about it are pretty neat.
I’m only halfway through the book, and I’m already wondering why Doctorow couldn’t just have written a short story to feature all the gosh-wow tech. Or an essay. Unless-and I won’t know this until I get to the end-giving us a detailed look at the inside of a narcissist’s head is part of the novel’s project.
What else can you call a character who flat-out admits that he doesn’t seem most people as individuals, but as a mass of sheeple who aren’t as smart or interesting as he is? That he doesn’t even bother to try for all but the extremely tiny handful he likes or who are such effective enemies that he can’t ignore them? Jules dimly recognizes that snapping at people instead of listening to their concerns and trying to explain why his brilliant plan will work for them is counterproductive, but he doesn’t care enough to try to do better. Because he’s right and they’re in his way.
And oh, the irony of a guy complaining that kids these days are so inauthentic and lacking in passion that they, like, restrain their emotions in group settings and try to work together and build consensus and maybe even give up on a lost cause occasionally… while wanting to recapture the “authentic” memories he has of the classic Disney World. Yes, Disney World, that bastion of spontaneity and authenticity!
Not that he’s happy when anyone does display authentic emotions. When his girlfriend Lil stops suppressing her irritation at his volatile asshole behavior, for instance, he doesn’t like it one bit. Nor when anyone else gets annoyed at his high-handedness. The fangirl he invites to help with Big Idea is portrayed as beyond irritating (and foolish) in her enthusiasm. She even dares to be enthusiastic about things he doesn’t approve of as well as things he does, despite knowing absolutely no good reason she shouldn’t like both. Dammit, she isn’t expressing the right kind of passion for Jules!
Okay, this isn’t entirely fair. His friend Dan also betrays him with inappropriate emotion by having an affair with Lil, and Jules forgives him after about five minutes, because Dan is his Best Bud. He admits to being a lot more torn up about the idea of losing his friend than losing his girlfriend.
(About the women. Jules knows about four with names: Lil, who carefully manages her public image and starts out acting like his dream sweet/sassy, competent but non-threatening girlfriend; Debra, who is competent and confident enough to be able to compete with Jules and is therefore so evil that she’ll arrange to have him assassinated; Kim, the airheaded fangirl who probably isn’t as airheaded and naïve as Jules judges her; and Zed, his socially unusual ex-wife whom he drove “crazy” (his description). So, either you’re a hot supportive girlfriend or you’re annoying, evil, or so weird that you’re outside normal social categories. Or one of the faceless mass of sheeple. And he thinks the supportive girlfriend isn’t independent or passionate enough, but anything more is too much. You cannot win with this guy.)
So. Basically, this is a guy who judges people (and places with staff) as “good” and “authentic” depending on whether they’re presenting him with a version of reality he likes. Classic Disney World? He liked it, thanks to careful stage management by hundreds of people, therefore it offered real human connection. (Yes, this means he thinks of classic Disney World as somehow authentic despite deploring the inauthentic public personas of the staff.) Lil? Has a warm, authentic side when she’s attracted to him or working on the animatronics he also loves, and is too fake and stage managed when she isn’t expressing the emotion he feels (usually when she’s not showing enough anger at people who disagree with him because she’s trying to negotiate to get them to change their minds). So far, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that her “girlfriend” side might be as carefully managed as her “consensus-building team member” side. Because that’s the part he wants to see. Dan? Wants to be his friend for some reason despite being super popular at the beginning, therefore his whole rugged cowboy evangelist thing is totally down-to-earth and authentic and in no way just as much a persona as Lil’s Cheerful Team Player.
It also doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that not blaring every passing emotion out at the world unfiltered isn’t the same as being fake. That maybe some people actually care about listening to other people and value finding a solution that satisfies everyone, and so biting their tongues instead of biting people’s heads off is part of their authentic selves.
Or that tamping down one’s anger, putting on a happy face, and trying to negotiate isn’t a newfangled thing that only Bitchun Society-era kids raised in the Disney service industry do. It’s how a huge percentage of the world population has always gotten along, because the social consequences (and often economic, legal, and personal safety consequences) of not doing so are too high. “Talk less, smile more” (to borrow from another fandom) is advice that only sounds shockingly inauthentic and cowardly if you’re used to being able to say whatever you want to whomever you want, and you can’t understand why someone else with the same privilege wouldn’t take full advantage of that. Or that not everyone has that privilege. Or that sometimes you just plain can’t force everyone to agree that your opinion is self-evidently correct through sheer will.
Like I said, maybe Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is an intentional critique of this mindset. On the other hand, it feels so tedious and faintly skeevy to have to inhabit it, even for a short 200 pages, that I’m not sure I care to finish it to find out.
Which is a shame, because the tech and speculations about it are pretty neat.