Unorthodoxy

De: Joshua A.H Harris

Narrado por: Danny Holt

The surviving son of a germophobic mother, Cecil Reitmeister embraces all forms of bacteria and formulates an elaborate plan to lead humanity out of the Anthropocene and into a new era of interspecies harmony.

His idiosyncratic plan requires years of experimentation and precise manipulation of his microbiome, the totality of microorganisms present in or on the human body. His mad-scientist mission leads to extreme social isolation, with the memory of his dead mother becoming his most frequent visitor. Cecil’s quest to save the world comes to a screeching halt when his social worker and the police show up to condemn the only home he has ever known.

Thrown in jail for assaulting the police, Cecil soon finds himself homeless and struggles to adjust to life on the streets. When he meets a group of Freegans (people who reject consumerism and seek to reduce waste by collecting discarded food) led by a magnetic red-headed woman, Cecil is forced to confront demons from his past and to reassess his self-imposed alienation, the rigidity of his worldview, and, ultimately, his plan to save humanity.

©2019 Joshua A.H Harris (P)2024 Joshua A.H Harris

Disgusting scatalogical focus too distracting

Be warned- this book is full of disgusting scatological discussions.
I can’t imagine why an author would choose to write a book on this subject—it’s almost like they were writing on a dare to try to write a story about the most unsellable, unsettling subject possible.
I just finished eyes of Iris by the same Author, which was awesome. This looks like it was written at at least published six years earlier and I think I can see the progression in the writing quality, although the writing style was promising in this book, I don’t think there’s a writer on earth that could write something sellable or readable about this subject.
Especially in the audiobook format it’s extra unsettling because when something is piped into your ears, you can’t skip it as easily and it’s just that much more intense. But you also should not read this book in writing unless you have some kind of extreme attraction to filth and excrement.
Furthermore, I just don’t think it was the best subject matter to tell the real story. It really feels like the pot was developed for some kind of weird writing challenge prompt.
And that’s too bad because the story of a marginalized person, victim of abuse, mental health issues, all of that could’ve been an interesting one. There are moments where you can relate to the character and start to see how someone might spiral into delusions and insanity and homelessness, and how that person might be worth redeeming. It could’ve even been interesting to examine their obsession and try to get in their mind, but that would’ve been much better accomplished with say a hoarder of things, or drug addiction, or any other number of issues, other than the extreme obsession with filth. It really didn’t feel like it added anything to the story.
There were times I had to skip sections and I’m not particularly squeamish.
One criticism of the writing is the long dreams which most people would probably skip because you know they won’t affect the real world plot points and they just feel like strange ramblings, just like when someone tries to tell you about their dream it’s only interesting to the teller. Perhaps if they were very short, but even then I think they’re just kind of a weak device to show character progression/internal monologue.
Semi spoiler, the villain character at the end was so over the top and one dimensional as to be very unsatisfying.
Reid eyes of iris, look out for future work, unfortunately don’t read this.