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"You think that youve got forever to someday make your life mean something, but you dont This is your life, and its ending one minute at a times only after weve lost everything that we are free to do anything. " (Palahniuk, 76) The meaning of life, a question that has plagued humans since the beginning of time, no one really knows what the true answer is, however, people try to live their lives to find this "meaning, " to live their lives with no regrets. Throughout a persons quest to self discovery, there are many obstacles and paths that one encounters, and depending on which direction one decides to take, can change ones life forever. People live their lives trying to find answers, trying to grasp ideas about themselves. Sometimes these questions yield answers, other times, however, the more one learns, the less one seem to know. In Steve Aylett's novel, Slaughtermatic, the main character, Dante Cubrit, living in a dystopian world, like many, is trying to find his own answers. His battle, however, is not with those around him, it is the battle within himself and like the novel, is represented in three stages. "The Heist, " which represents his search for answers, "The Loose End, " which is the sorting of these answers, and "The Inferno, " which gives him the answers that he was searching for.
In a time where all forms of literature have been destroyed, Dante Cubrit, decides to rob the First National Bank, not for money, but in order to retrieve a book, locked away from society, to find answers about himself, and where his present-day humanity went wrong. Dante Cubrit lives in a dismal, bleak, futuristic city called Beerlight, " where to ill a man was less a murder than a mannerism and crime the new and only art form" (Aylett, ix). Dante, along with his sidekick, the Entropy Kid, decide to rob the First National Bank, for a book that will prove to be Dantes "Bible. " Dante lives in a world where all forms of literature have been outlawed and everyone around him are "controlled robots, " without freedom of thought, speech and consciousness. Dante knows this, he also knows that this book, written by Eddie Gamete and entitled The Impossible Plot Of Biff Barbanel, would hold some answers. "Under the gloss of violence he had a phobia he couldnt fight-the absence of ideas assaulted him, a gnawing torture. After a term for riffle abuse he was released into an unrepentant world where denial was the cardinal activity. Murder, theft, riot- they could not permit to be true.
He went around catching ideas about data contraband and information salvage- it was confusing to everyone who knew him. His justifications were banal and lame. He was banished to the back of the riots Dante had found his crime, like a long lost brother" (Aylett, 47) Even though Dante succeeded with the heist at the bank, really this "heist" was a symbol of what has happened to Dante. His ideas, his freedoms have been stolen from him. Dante must now decipher the ideas presented in the book and sort out, not only these ideas, but he must sort out his life. Dante begins reading Gametes book, not knowing what to expect, and as he reads on, he finds out that he has become more lost than ever. "The book read the reader and once attuned, told a tale which kicked of with the readers current circumstances.
The book contained a hemi sync oscillator which hypnotized the reader. Somewhere in the book was a doorway. The reader was through the door and lost before he knew it. Here was the ultimate role-playing scenario, a maze attuned precisely to the participants personality" (Aylett, 47). This allows Dante to pin point why his society "went sour" and how in his heart, he knows that he would not conform to what society saw as normal. Like the existential author Albert Camus character Mersault, in the novel The Stranger, Dante believes in living for the moment.
Like Mersault, Dante struggles to keep his identity, but his personality, actions, and moral beliefs come into conflict with what is accepted as the "norm" in society. Both Mersault and Dante are indifferent characters who will never conform. Dante does not conform in that he will not live in "the accepted way of seeing and cruise-controlling through life" (Erickson, 1). Dante begins to criticize the people around him and because of it becomes scrutinized and alienated. "What can anything mean in a world where life and death is decided by the gamblers throw of your piss poor shooting abilities? Im the skeleton you strain to conceal in your own body Im head clown among those condemned for what theyve inherited-this fools paradise of drab transgressions, cookie-cutter villains, ballistic incontinence and headshot trivia If a single one of you beef-armed midwives of meaningless demise grew your own mind youd end everything in a barn, but youre stopped by the self-importance of your petty mob dynastic's.
You and the whole crime-lit generation can go take a running jump at the school of your mediocrity" (Aylett, 99) Being the outcast, Dante holds strong to his beliefs and continues to read on. Even though at times he becomes confused, Dante pushes on and begins to tie-up the "Loose Ends" in his life. Eventually, Dante begins to piece together the "pieces of his existence" but nothing will be set straight until he meets the source, Eddie Gamete, himself. When Dante finally meets Eddie Gamete, he believes that all of his prayers have been answered and begs him to help free him from the chaos going on inside his head. "Gametes story was the expected fender bender, but had much implications for Dante, the younger man listened with acute attention" (Aylett, 115). As Dante becomes mesmerized by Gametes storytelling, he begins to realize that he is not alone and that he and Gamete share a mutual bond and understanding. "Since childhood, Id (Gamete) been suspected of imagination. My brain thirsted in my head.
And now that it was nourished into florid activity, I began writing it all down" (Aylett, 117). Gamete goes on to explain the way that literature has become part of the "black market. " How no matter what he would rebel against those who oppressed him, because in the end he knows that he is able to stick by his principles. "They were outlawed unofficially enough for no black market to exist as yet. And as I had mentioned, the honest living had been legislated to extinction, though many still pursued the wraith. Justice was starved to a vestigial irrelevance The powers were convinced the populace could live this way if they had to, and inhumanities accumulated like layers of volcanic ash. Peoples poverty, not their will, consented to this inarticulate nightmare. It was so intricately foolish I became convinced it was conscious-planned" (Aylett, 117).
Dante is finally beginning to realize when and where his civilization went wrong and he is beginning to understand himself. Still, Dante has many questions and has come to a point where the "Inferno" inside of him is burning out of control and his thirst for answers is not being quenched. Gamete tells Dante that he has lost the will to write because he is "weary of reasoning with people who couldnt think without screaming" (Aylett, 119). Gamete explains how has become an indirect criminal because "certain criminals had been making confessions in which my name figured prominently in as a creative influence The book was a sort of schematic lament, but it somehow got a reputation as the philosophers stone of transgression" (Aylett, 119 - 120). Dante, hearing this goes on the defensive and does not believe what Gamete is saying, because he still believes that the human race can be saved.
Gamete, with the wisdom that he has accuses Dante of being nave and proves to him that what he has told Dante is true. "You know there are whole states in which original thought is no longer possible-cerebral desserts, the FadlandsA virulent blandness is sterilizing even the underworld. Nothing has any flavour. Youre like one of the old stylists, Cubrit, which makes it all the more tragic Cubrit-you shouldnt mistake knowledge for information" (Aylett, 121). Dante leaves the "battle of wits" with a bitter taste in his mouth, and he finds that his world is crashing around him. All that he believes about humanity and how he wanted to help change it is not possible because Gamete teaches him that mankind could only save themselves. Dante, however, eventually realizes that "Everything hed read and all that Gamete said was true" (Aylett, 137).
In the end, Dante is able to find himself, and realize that even though his society, may be doomed, that he will stick by his convictions and hope for a brighter day. Dante begins his mission to self enlightenment not knowing what to expect. He knows, however, that he must find himself, and that a book may be all that he needs. Not being satisfied with the way the world around him appears, he goes through this journey looking for a resolution.
What he finds is a roller-coaster ride filled with confusion, that eventually, in the end, brings him some closure. He is able to celebrate the elements within himself and bring the person that he truly is into the light, while still maintaining his sanity, in the dystopian world that he calls home.
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