Mania

A Novel

De: Lionel Shriver

Narrado por: Abby Craden

Duración: 9 h y 22 m

Resumen del Editor

Set in a parallel yet all too familiar near past, a brilliant subversive novel about a lifelong friendship threatened by culture wars, from the New York Times bestselling author.

In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence. Because everyone is equally smart, discrimination against purportedly dumb people is "the last great civil rights fight." Tests, grades, and employment qualifications are all discarded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word (“stupid”) and encouraged to report parents who use it at home.

A college English instructor, the constitutionally rebellious Pearson Converse rejected her restrictive Jehovah’s Witness upbringing as a teenager, and so has an aversion to dogma of any kind. Made impotent in the university classroom, she’s also enraged by the crushing of her exceptionally bright children’s spirits in primary school. Fortunately, she enjoys the confidence of a best friend, a media commentator with whom she can speak frankly about her socially unacceptable contempt for the MP movement. Or at least she thinks she can . . . until one day the political chasm between the two women becomes uncrossable, and a lifelong relationship implodes.

With echoes of Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, told in Lionel Shriver’s inimitable and iconoclastic voice, Mania is a sharp, acerbic, and ruthlessly funny book about the road to a delusional, self-destructive egalitarianism that our society is already on.

©2024 Lionel Shriver (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

Thoroughly enjoyed this

Shriver envisions a world created by Ellsworth Monkton Toohey and it’s every bit as incompetent and frightening as one could imagine.

Lionel Shriver is back doing what she does best!

I highly recommend this refreshingly entertaining and thought-provoking listen...especially if you enjoyed Shriver’s earlier dystopian work, "The Mandibles.”

A must read

Mania is a fantastic book that is relevant to current events. Like academia, this book pushes ideas and theories to the extreme, but that’s what makes it so important in today’s world. It's also sharp and witty, with a huge dollop of humor.

Fiction for non-fiction lovers

Going back and forth between listening to this book and listening to news and podcasts about the real world, I often confused one for the other. I love her clear avoidance of politics because the message is louder for it. I’m just buzzing right now… and a bit frightened.

Are We There Yet?

Ms. Shriver piles nonsense upon nonsense to provide a terrifying yet mesmerizing mirror to the "real" world. This book is every bit as frightening as "1984" but a lot funnier. Funny, yes, but it is very nervous laughter.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

A parable of our times wherein the power hungry will advance any cause as long as it satisfies the authoritarian impulse and the masses will eagerly participate if it makes them feel good.

This is 2024

Loved this book, feels like we already live in it. Don’t agree with all of shriver’s assertions but very witty and extremely clever.

Great story if you are willing to be open to it

Not at all what I expected great stuff for regardless of what your political spectrum is. Even if some of the ideas don’t align with you is fictionalized version of America is something you need to listen to to know what we society of for good or bad.

a brilliant and timely novel

Cutting, insightful social commentary paralleling the manias of our day, And yet it manages to do more than just that; this is an insight into our best and worst traits though an exaggerating and absurdist lens.

a well narrated, gripping story

Boring

It was slow, unlikeable characters, no interesting twists or climax. I wouldn’t recommend. Maybe I’ll give one of her other books a try.