Impressions

Jon - George Saunders

With a style that is instantly reminiscent of Anthony Burgess's "A Clockwork Orange", in "Jon", Saunders introduces us to an indeterminate future that is at once repugnant and fascinating. Like laboratory mice, some of the more "fortunate" humans have chips ("gargadisks") embedded in their live flesh and live in sterilie (in more than one sense), protected and benevolent communities, completely shielded from what they perceive is the wretchedness of the "Out", where the less fortunate masses continue to live in whatever is their miserable present. These young adults are "employed" by a gigantic corporation, and their entire sustenance is by way of advertisements, in some form or another. The clothes they wear, the food they eat -- is all "donated" by corporations, so that these young people have become nothing more than walking, talking - and thinking - adverts. They are even divided into the demographic and geographic groups that they are meant to target.

The curious part is that these characters, the characters of their own living, growing, virtual reality, are aware of their unnatural, abnormal existence, but for the most part, are accepting of and even appreciative of it, because it brings them security and stability and even a sense of achievement. We gradually find out that some of their memories have been slightly modified, to perpetuate these tendencies, but for the most part, "big-brother" is benevolent, and the reader doesn't feel too sorry for them. Inevitably, of course, one or two of these young lab-mice, including the protagonist Jon, get a taste of what the "Out" is about -- that every blade of grass is actually different and not just an "exact copy" of every other blade, that a flower is a beautiful, complicated thing -- that freedom is something else. Freedom can be asked for, but doesn't come for free. The chip has to be removed, and that leaves a large gaping hole in the neck, and there is even a "risk of significantly reduced postoperative brain function".

Though written in the first person, the piece is more intimate, because of the use of language. The author has invented a modified grammar that is also terribly slangy, and to me, this gives the perception of a second-person narrative, because the reader is forced to participate, by understanding the new grammar, and thus becoming more involved in the story. Though in the reading of the piece, it is the language that first strikes the reader as new and different, the world that the characters inhabit -- or the one that their minds inhabit -- is also startlingly new. The characters can only think in terms of advertisements, their every metaphor borrows from an advertisement, and their reality has been reduced to a world of advertisements alone.