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First Published:
Sep 2017, 160 pages
Paperback:
Apr 2019, 160 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Norah Piehl
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National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson returns to future Earth in a sharply wrought satire of art and truth in the midst of colonization.
When the vuvv first landed, it came as a surprise to aspiring artist Adam and the rest of planet Earth - but not necessarily an unwelcome one. Can it really be called an invasion when the vuvv generously offered free advanced technology and cures for every illness imaginable? As it turns out, yes. With his parents' jobs replaced by alien tech and no money for food, clean water, or the vuvv's miraculous medicine, Adam and his girlfriend, Chloe, have to get creative to survive. And since the vuvv crave anything they deem "classic" Earth culture (doo-wop music, still-life paintings of fruit, true love), recording 1950s-style dates for the vuvv to watch in a pay-per-minute format seems like a brilliant idea. But it's hard for Adam and Chloe to sell true love when they hate each other more with every passing episode. Soon enough, Adam must decide how far he's willing to go - and what he's willing to sacrifice - to give the vuvv what they want.
A Small Town
Under the Stars
Under the stars, a small town prepares for night. It is almost eleven o'clock. Down in the boxy houses, people are settling in for bed. Car headlights crawl through the tiny streets. The bright streetlamps on the town's main drag illuminate empty parking. The businesses are closed for the day. The hills are dark.
All of this is seen by two teens up on some ledge, on a road called Lovers' Lane.
They're parked in a fifties fin car and "necking." She's in a tight sweater; he's in a Varsity jacket. The view over their town, the place they grew up, makes them sentimental, and they grind together over the gearshift. "Gee, Brenda," says the boy.
All of this is seen by the creature in the bushes.
Stems of some kind of terrestrial growth block his goggle-eyed vision. He sweeps the branches away with a claw. He observes the two hairy snacks writhing in their metal box and wonders what their mashing together could mean. His breath is loud. ...
Certainly Anderson’s novel is a work of speculative fiction, but that’s because it prompts readers to ask their own questions about economic disparities, enforced inequality, ethnocentrism, and (just maybe) art’s ability to shed a clearer light on all of these troubling issues, both in Adam’s world and in our own. Thanks in large part to its slender size, Landscape with Invisible Hand is a novel that lends itself to repeated readings, study, and discussion, as readers contemplate parallels between Adam’s near-future and our own present time, asking themselves what can be done differently and what should be preserved at all costs...continued
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(Reviewed by Norah Piehl).
The title of M.T. Anderson's Landscape With Invisible Hand, (and perhaps its protagonist's name), contains a reference to the theories of the Scottish economist Adam Smith, whose landmark 1776 work The Wealth of Nations laid the groundwork for modern free-market economic theory. To laypeople, Smith may be best known for his concepts of the division of labor and its concomitant increase in productivity, as well as his contention that self-interest and competition result in the greater good for society.
This last point is part of what's implied in Smith's famous usage of the term "invisible hand," a metaphor meant to suggest that, in the absence of regulation, human economic self-interest will lead people to act in ...
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