Matched
Ally Condie
Razor Bill / Penguin 2010
This
book seems to be aimed at teenage readers more than an adult audience but it is
so good that even at my somewhat advanced years I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ally Condie has mixed elements of teenage love, science fiction
and rebellion into a slowly developed but fascinating story. With the entire
book to fit the story into she is able to produce truly three-dimensional
characters set against the not-too-futuristic background of an overbearing
bureaucracy.
As
the story opens we get a look at the future world. It is run by a faceless body
of Officers and Officials. They maintain a peaceful life for the citizens by
rigidly controlling EVERYTHING – food, nutrition, education, communications, housing. In the interests (so the citizens are told) of
improving efficiency to maintain their comfortable lifestyles everything has
been reduced to a minimum – the 100 poems, 100 paintings and so on, all
approved by the Officials. School students are not taught to write. All
communications go through a network of ports where they can be checked for what
we would call political correctness. The Officials ask the citizens to trust
them and for those who obey the reward is a stable, comfortable life. For the
others there are punishments available, even in this perfect society.
Cassia
has now reached one of the milestones of her life. She is to attend a banquet
where she will be Matched. The Society “sorts” a
partner for each young person, usually in another area. She is surprisingly
matched with Xander, a young man from her own school.
They have been close friends for years. This local matching is not unheard of
but is uncommon. The Sorters who decide the matches rarely make a mistake like
this. She is given a datacard with Xander’s details to study, and details of the next moves to
make in the official Courtship rituals. When she inserts the card into her port
at home she is astounded to see, not Xander, but
another schoolfriend, Ky.
Because of an Infraction committed by Ky’s
parents he is not supposed to be in the pool to be matched. The next day the datacard is taken from Cassia by an Official and replaced
with another one with Xander’s details. She and Xander follow the approved procedures, but she can’t get Ky out of her mind.
The
next milestone in her life is the death of her beloved grandfather. Elderly
people die at 80. This, say the Officials, is to reduce the onset of senility
and to allow them to die with dignity. Grandfather gives her an old pre-Society
compact and her brother gets Grandfather’s old watch. Such Artifacts
are not officially disapproved of but there is a limit of one Artifact per
person. This is so citizens do not become “confused” by being overly attached
to the past and its mistakes. There are many of these Artifacts
held by people in secrecy – is it possible that a little bit of rebellion
against the petty rules and pointless decisions is growing? Cassia’s father and
mother certainly indulge in a little bit of quiet rebellion when they can.
There are other signs that rebellion is growing, too, not least that Cassia is
now in love with both Xander and Ky.
They must hide this from the Officials. If she is found out by the ever-present
Officials it will mean an Infraction against her and reprisals against her
family. Gradually Cassia is leaving behind her model citizen role.
“But I don’t want to be defined by
their choices”
Her
next milestone is to be assigned a job. She is a good Sorter, seeing patterns
and trends in large groups of people. It can be an important job. Sorters have
in the past managed to prevent cancer by looking for the cancer gene in people
and breeding it out of the population. People may be assigned jobs on the basis
of Cassia’s sorting as well as their past history of obedience to Society’s
rules.
Cassia’s
rebellion is growing stronger. The constant little pinpricks of a blind Society
are now standing out more to her. Her neighbourhood’s leafy peacefulness is
ruined when workers chop down all the trees in her street – they are
“inefficient” because they drop leaves and are not an even height. Ky has failed a sort in his
workplace and is to be sent to fight in an unannounced war on one of the
province’s borders. The Officials who take him away in handcuffs are confronted
by the local people but the citizens’ disobedience is soon crushed. They are
required to take a red pill that will erase their memories of the last twenty
four hours of rebellion and leave them once again docile. Finally Cassia and
her family are reassigned to an Outer Province farming community as punishment
for their collective infractions. Cassia is now closer to Ky, who is fighting in the same area, and she is less
under the influence of the Society.
“Because it’s about making our own
choices ….That’s the point, isn’t it?”
As
a story about rebellion against a mindless society, this book is first class.
Even as a teenage love story it’s not too bad. Cassia is strongly drawn and her
change from compliant citizen to teenage rebel is built up in little pieces
that make the process quite credible. We must now wait for the sequel,
“Crossed”, due for release in November. Disney has
secured the book rights for a possible film.
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