Anderson, M. T. (2006). The
astonishing life of Octavian Nothing, traitor to the nation. Cambridge, Mass.:
Candlewick Press.
Reading Level: 1090L
Interest Level: Grades 9 - 12
This is YA historical fiction at its best: the settings are so lushly detailed, and the characters are so bizarrely drawn that everything feels believable, fantastical, and somewhat foreign. Since the Library of Congress classified this book as science fiction, I read this for my sci fi genre project. This strongly colored my expectations, and as I result I spent the first several chapters waiting for some twist – like, maybe this is some future that’s all past-ish but everyone’s a robot. This gave the text an extra aura of mystery for me, which I think worked in the book’s favor. Written in epistolary style, Octavian records his observations about the house of science in which he lives with his African "princess" mother. Octavian soon discovers he's an experiment meant to confirm or disprove the abilities of his race. At first, he's given everything he needs to succeed, but when the experiment's wealthy benefactor dies, the new patron shows far more interest in driving the results to a negative conclusion. A commenter at Good Reads sarcastically mimicked the style of the text, which is very formal, but the language feels very authentic to me, especially when the voice shifts from character to character, as the novel is written in.Would make an excellent companion to a discussion about scientific ethics and how the prejudice of those conducting an experiment can greatly influence its results.
