Red Pill

 

Red Pill by Hari Kunzru (2020 Scribner hardcover 288pp)

 

In a word – disappointing. Billed and often reviewed as some sort of searing indictment of the alt-right and their online rabbit-holes this book turns out to be really nothing of the sort. Sure alt-right dude bros and their pathetic philosophies feature but this is really a portrait of the main character’s failing mental health.

The plot follows an unnamed writer, living in New York city along with his wife and young daughter as he succeeds in gaining a place at an exclusive writer’s retreat in the Wannsee region on the outskirts of Berlin, Germany. He’s there ostensibly to spend three months writing a book on Lyric Poetry but in reality, he’s after a bit of a break. He soon becomes dismayed by the retreat’s management’s insistence that he actually do some work and use the communal facilities. He’d rather stick to his room and avoid the other guests. He goes for long walks in the local area, discovers the grave of Kleist, a troubled soul from the late 18^th century who took his own life nearby and whose actions mirror that of our present-day ‘incels’. When he does meet with his fellow guests, things don’t go well and he soon retreats to his room where he’s become addicted to watching an ultra-violent cop show “Blue Lives”. He becomes paranoid and after his wi-fi is cut he starts living in his own mess and sleeping in the bathtub. He makes friends with a cleaner, Monika who then relates to him her story of being persecuted by the Stasi in the former East German when she refused to work as one of their informants. Possibly the best part of the entire book, Monika’s section ends with a suitable twist.

The main character continues his downward spiral. At a party he meets ‘Anton’ the man responsible for “Blue Lives” and an unashamed white supremacist who spouts all sorts of quasi-mystical bollocks to support his thinking. Our writer becomes obsessed with Anton, following him to a screening in Paris and on to an imagined confrontation on a small island off the coast of Scotland. Suffering severe paranoia, the writer muses on the bleak future of mankind and goes right off the deep-end. The third section ends with local Police converging on him

The final section sees him back home with his wary wife after a stint in a psychiatric facility and trying to act as if he’s recovered. He seems to lapse in and out of his mania, starting to believe the whole world is a simulation moments after leaving his therapist’s office and so on. Trump’s 2016 election ends the book and the future looks bleak.

For a book supposedly dealing with deep and heavy concepts it seemed so shallow and trite. For all the bally-hoo about alt-right stuff, you won’t learn anything you don’t already know about those people. What it is though is a fairly accurate description of mental illness from the inside looking out – the fractured thinking, paranoia and failed reasoning all ring true to me. I guess that angle doesn’t sell books. I found myself enjoying the first two sections of the book and growing impatient with the rest.