World in Chaos - fiction or reality?

A fascinating dystopia. A science fiction that could even be real, if you think about the political context that is so latent in this story! World in Chaos, by Patrick Ness, took me out of my comfort zone and into a completely unknown place. I finished the book breathless, anguished and shaken.

Let's get to the story: World in Chaos is a book for young adults by British novelist Patrick Ness. The first thing that caught my eye, apart, of course, from the beautiful Intrinseca edition, was the title. In fact, World in Chaos is the name of one of a series, the names of the books - which have already been published - are: The Knife of Never letting go - with the translation more or less "The knife of never letting go" or releasing - well, that would be a very literal and even crude translation, but it says a lot about the book. The knife is very important in this story. The second would be The ask and the answer - which would be translated into The Question and the Answer - and the third book is Monsters of Men - that the translation would be more or less Monsters of Men.

This trilogy has already been released here in Brazil under other names: The Reason (2008), The Mission (2009) and The War (2010). The edition I read is the most recent, from Intrínseca. In this translation, the name of the series was transformed into the name of the first book. I confess that, when I read this book, I preferred the original name, I think it has a lot to do with the story and really affects the characters. Anyway, let's get to the story that fascinated me.

Like any dystopia, the book aims to convey messages that we need to take into our lives. Many of them come metaphors for life, even though it seems like a completely unrealistic setting and narrative. narrative. There is a very latent political issue in this story which, in many situations, reminds us of our reality and makes us ask ourselves: would we get to this point? to this point? I even think we could go even further.

The story we learn at the beginning is about a New World affected by a germ spread by the "colonization" war, which simply exterminated the women of that society and also the silence - as well as, of course, the "savage and murderous, animal-like" natives. It reminded me of our colonization, which also exterminated the owners of our land, under the same arguments.

In this new world, the thoughts of all living beings are audible, in a kind of chaotic flow of noise, which is referred to in the book as noise. These men's privacy was completely extinguished, as well as their right to come and go, since everyone's noise gave away where they were. However, like everything else in life, people learn to deal with noise and try to hide, camouflage or confuse people in relation to the sound itself. Over time, we realize that there are strategies for this.

Todd Hewitt, the main character in this story, is still a 12-year-old boy about to become a man at the age of 13. Yes, in this New World, boys become men at the age of 13. Very suddenly, his adoptive parents - I won't say too much about them here, as the story will tell us - order him to run away with his dog Manchee. He didn't understand anything, was a little reluctant, but followed the order. His parents gave him a backpack with supplies, a diary left by his mother, as well as a knife (the knife in the title), which will play a key role in the plot.

Todd then runs away. But he doesn't know what he's running away from - he has a vague notion that the mayor of this village is looking for him - and he doesn't know where, because he always thought there was only this village. And he was always very afraid of the alien population that lived there, before people arrived on this new planet, because what they said was that they were scary and cruel.   

At the very beginning of the plot, during his perilous escape, he meets a silent girl on his way. Even Viola surprises him because she is a woman and also because she makes no noise. He soon becomes anxious about the possibility of contaminating her with the germ that he has in his system and that could kill her, just as it did the other women in the village.

Well, a lot happens desperate escape and many lessons are learned. I won't go into to make sure I don't give away any crucial information from the book. But I wanted share a few thoughts with you:

To what extent are the stories Todd knows are true or lies?

Why is he practically illiterate? Right at the start, the book features a conversation between him and his parents and it becomes clear that all the books had to be burned. Why is knowledge dangerous to some rulers?

Why is it necessary to you lose your purity and innocence?

The natives are considered murderers and savages. How, then, did the settlers 'win' this war, which allowed them to settle on this new planet?

Why are there so many secrets between the population and the government (in the book's case, the Mayor)?

Well, some of the questions will lead you to make connections with our reality. reality. At least, I did. The great thing about dystopias is precisely understand these connections. Nothing is by chance. One of the functions of dystopias is one of the functions of dystopias is precisely to make us think from the following point of view: what if our reality turned into this? Are we making mistakes that this situation?

Happy reading!

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