My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In my reviews of Barry’s Jennifer Government and Company, I called his style “a bit stark, a bit plain, matter-of-fact.” Here in Machine Man, the narration is in first person, so this same style comes across as slightly autistic (or as if the narrator has Asperger’s, for those who insist on term for the popular understanding of socially functional autism). Perhaps a bit of a stereotype for lab engineer, but then Barry doesn’t seem interested in bogging down his novel in superfluous details, so why should his narrator. And that’s not just a quip on my part—at one point, his character stops even going home, choosing to live at work instead. This doesn’t have much to do with the story; it’s as much a convenience for the author and the reader as it is for the character.
What we have here is Flowers for Algernon by way of Frankenstein by way of Robocop. And while my personal critical point of view has never been of the historical variety, I can’t help but think how Barry’s novel changes how I see each of those other texts. Or even a story like that laughable movie Limitless (which I just found out was based on a book, so maybe I’ll add it my to-read list, if only for yet another perspective on this type of tale). Combine the basic Greek tragedy, with its heroes and hubris and falls from grace, but attach a good-old-fashioned self-made man story at the beginning. That the main character in Machine Man is literally self-made is even more compelling.
Again, I’m drawn to a more historical analysis than anything else. The self-made-man story is very much an American ideal, and thus it begs the question if Machine Man (or Flowers or Frank or Robo) is a cautionary tale about where the United States is heading. Certainly in these times of economic struggle, it’s looking more and more like “The Great Experiment” has run its course and we’re all doomed to become Canadians. But then I can’t think of a time when we didn’t say we were struggling with a difficult economy, so this is, like those Greek tragedies, a timeless story.
That’s reading way too much into it, of course, and this is supposed to be a review, not a sophomore essay. Fine. I thought Jennifer Government was clever and Company exploited a sense of irony, but here in Machine Man Barry trades in those forces to instead write something a little more human, which itself is ironic given what the main character goes through, not mention clever. And he achieves it, as I said above, within a very matter-of-fact style of narration, holding us emotionally at arm’s length which nevertheless makes us feel even more for the main character. His flaws are our own.
A magnum opus, then? Not quite. I think Barry’s got chops, and I think his greatest work is still to come. And if nothing else, reading Machine Man will lend that much more perspective to his other work. Max Barry is still building himself, and I’m looking forward to the results.