Official Review: The Agenda by Anthony W. Antolic

[the_gia0ur]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Agenda" by Anthony W. Antolic.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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Though the premise of Anthony W. Antolic’s novel The Agenda is interesting, the first two chapters are little more than a (problematic) political rant. Chapter 1, titled “Illiteracy,” follows the narrator as he makes a speech to the high school he once attended, and Chapter 2, titled “Breeding a Lack of Ambition,” details a conversation between the narrator and an administrator at the high school who is sympathetic with the narrator’s political views. Unfortunately, the political argument detailed in both the speech and this conversation has very little basis in the way of fact, or even coherence. Both are an endless list (or exchange) of inflammatory rhetoric, with little in the way of thoughtful critique, or any attempt on the part of the characters to grapple with the political issues at hand on a personal, or even social, level.

After reading the preface, it becomes very clear that the narrator is a loosely constructed stand-in for the author himself. This “novel” is really an artful way for the narrator to rage against the system, rather than a politically charged art piece with the intent to expose or explore the dangerous failings of the American education system. All of the characters read with the same voice, there is little to no character development from the first chapter to the last, and there are so many usage errors that it becomes ludicrously difficult to follow the simplest action.

After the first few chapters set up the novel’s political framework, the main characters are taken back in time to Nazi Germany, where Hitler and the Nazis are thinly disguised as contemporary American “liberals” brainwashing the unsuspecting German citizens. There is very little work done to adhere to (well documented) historical fact, or to grapple with the political climate of Nazi Germany in a thoughtful or interesting way. There is even less work done on the aesthetic level to create character, include sensory detail, or guide the reader through the present and past timelines. An example paragraph from Chapter 4, titled “Lost in the Tunnel,” reads:

My thoughts never left the tunnel through the length of the class. I went through the Katas w?th my students and even d?d some l?ght sparr?ng, but I kept go?ng back to that summer. My s?ster says that we were m?ss?ng for 3 days, yet to us ?t only seemed l?ke hours. I guess someth?ng about that fact st?ll really bothers me. So I recru?ted some help from my class the next day. I expla?ned to them that I needed to f?nd some answers that are h?dden ?n my past and the only way to f?nd them ?s to rev?s?t the past through med?tat?on.I asked Sarah to wr?te down whatever she saw me do?ng. I also asked Kev?n to ask me quest?ons and record my answers w?th a tape recorder. "Are you sure that you are only 13, th?s ?s rather advanced for even you?" Kev?n responded.

It was mentioned earlier in the chapter that “the class” is one the narrator is teaching, rather than participating in. Yet, at the end of this paragraph, Kevin (a character that first appears in this paragraph) asks the narrator “Are you sure that you are only 13?” Are we in the past or the present here? Is the narrator a teacher or student in the class? Is he teaching the class as a 13-year-old? Grammatically, the sentences waver from past to present tense, which muddles up the clarity of the action even further. Finally, the reader has not been given one sensory detail. There are no images to root the reader in any kind of scene, and so there is no way at all for the reader to follow the action of the story, or to become emotionally invested in these characters.

Unfortunately, I must rate this book 1 out of 4 stars, as it disappointed both aesthetically and conceptually. Though I support political art, this novel reads with the same artistic value as a Facebook post. It does not raise any important questions for the reader, nor does it engage the reader on an artistic level.

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The Agenda
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[HalcyonFlower]

I feel dumb asking this but did the book actually have question marks in place of 'i's? Bad grammar is such a pet peeve of mine, I'm amazed you persevered. It's really too bad things weren't developed as well as it could've been. Thanks for the lovely review.