The House Of The Scorpion By Nancy Farmer
Jun 14th, 2009 by Best Deals
The House Of The Scorpion By Nancy Farmer
Fields of white opium poppies stretch away over the hills, and uniformed workers bend over the rows, harvesting the juice. This is the empire of Matteo Alacran, a feudal drug lord in the country of Opium, which lies between the United States and Aztlan, formerly Mexico. Field work, or any menial tasks, are done by eejits, humans in whose brains computer chips have been installed to insure docility. Alacran, or El Patron, has lived 140 years with the help of transplants from a series of clones, a common practice among rich men in this world. The intelligence of clones is usually destroyed at birth, but Matt, the latest of Alacrans doubles, has been spared because he belongs to El Patron. He grows up in the familys mansion, alternately caged and despised as an animal and pampered and educated as El Patrons favorite. Gradually he realizes the fate that is in store for him, and with the help of Tam Lin, his bluff and kind Scottish bodyguard, he escapes to Aztlan. There he and other lost children are trapped in a more subtle kind of slavery before Matt can return to Opium to take his rightful place and transform his country.
Nancy Farmer, a two-time Newbery honoree, surpasses even her marvelous novel, The Ear, The Eye and the Arm in the breathless action and fascinating characters of The House of the Scorpion. Readers will be reminded of Orson Scott Cards Ender in Matts persistence and courage in the face of a world that intends to use him for its own purposes, and of Louis Sachars Holes in the camaraderie of imprisoned boys and the layers of meaning embedded in this irresistibly compelling story. (Ages 12 and older) –Patty Campbell
Customer Reviews & Opinions
The House of The Scorpion by Nancy Farmer Science Fiction
_ In Opium a land of poppy fields between America and modern day Mexico Matt Alacran is a normal young boy; at least that’s what he thinks. When he met El Patron, a 140-year-old man, everything changed. His mansion was decorated exquisitely so you could tell that he is a very rich and powerful man. There are scorpions, the symbol of his family, around the house. What El Patron actually did that made him so wealthy, Matt did not know. He has a very intense intimidating and suspicious manner. Matt was now told that he was not human. That he was El Patrons clone.
_ Everyone had to act nice to him when El Patron is around, however when El Patron isn’t around his family and the servants still avoided or ignored Matt because clones in the society were thought as inhuman beasts and were treated like livestock. He had no company until a girl named Maria visited, who was about his age. She becomes one of Matt’s only friends, and maybe more. Tom, one of El Patron’s great grandkids sets his eyes on Maria, which Matt does not like one bit. Tom is truly a heartless little devil, always getting into trouble. The “filthy little pustule” according to Tam Lin, is always trying to hurt or tease Matt. Tam Lin is one of El Patrons bodyguards that he leaves to watch out for Matt when he is gone. Tam Lin teaches Matt about survival and many other things about the Alacran family. He tells him many secrets and things that he had not known.
_ This book opens secret passageways and many questions about what will happen next. It will take you to a future setting where people can be turned into zombie like slaves called eijits. This is a great story that I enjoyed greatly to read. It is an epic story of betrayal, friendship, and survival. I could find myself not being able to stop turning the pages, always wondering what was going to be the next one. If you haven’t read this great novel do and find out how Matt fights to survive from being butchered, make a quick escape over rocky and sweltering terrain, and find his way back to his Maria. This book will keep you interested till you read the very last word.
Recommended for middle schoolers through adults (a review of the audiobook)
Limiting this book to a young adult audience is a disservice to the book and to the themes it brings up. This would be a fantastic book for an adult discussion group - there are so many themes and controversial topics that a group could discuss for hours and hours.That being said, I nearly quit listening to this audiobook after the first hour. It was sooooo slow to get started. On top of that, it was often dark and opressive. However, after the character Tam Lin comes in to the story the whole book changes and you would have had to fight me to get me to give the book up. By the time the end came around I felt like I had lived a life with Mateo and was thoroughly satisfied.
So, what kind of themes are there? Well, this book, in my opinion, points out the dangers that many of the more Conservative thinkers warn us about with our current policies towards bio-technology and, to a lesser extent, immigration.
The future, as portrayed in “The House of the Scorpion” is often a dark place with clones created solely to provide body parts for their originals and “eejits” - people with computer chips inserted into their brains to make them completely docile and the perfect slaves who will literally do the task they’re assigned to do until they are told to stop (or die). The United States is no longer the world’s only superpower and there is a new country between Mexico (now called Aztlan) and the USA. It is called “Opium”. Opium serves as a buffer between Aztlan and the U.S. that is run by a cartel of drug lords with drug plantations worked by eejits, most of whom are illegal aliens from the U.S. or Mexico who were captured and enslaved (the parallels with the American underground labor force comprised of illegal immigrants can be easily made).
Aztlan has become a country obsessed by economic success and the duty to the larger society as a whole. The goal there seems to be the bee hive - all workers know their place and sacrifice for the good of the society. The mantra is the “5 principles of Good Citizenship” and the “4 Attitudes Leading to Right-Mindfulness.” The success of the state is paramount over the interests of any individual.
Grand themes run throughout the book such as:
-What does it mean to be human?
-Who is accorded human rights?
-What are the limits of cloning? Do we clone people just to use them for parts? Do we clone fetuses just to use their parts (as happens in the book)?
-The rights of the individual vs. the demands of the state? Where are the boundaries or should there be any? Is the individual entirely free? Can the state demand everything of the individual? Is there a difference between an eejit and an Aztlanian worker bee?The audiobook lasts 12.5 hours and is read brilliantly by Robert Ramirez. I’m glad I stuck through the initial slow parts - I was thoroughly rewarded.
A Sopisticated and Frightening Possible Future
Nancy Farmer is a wonderful writer; her splendidly genre-blending funny and futuristic adventure story The Ear, the Eye and the Arm is a perennial favorite of mine and my children, and I have gone out of my way to read all the other books she has written, with no disappointments. But she has grown enormously! In addition to being a compulsive page-turner, “The House of the Scorpion” is sophisticated prose. It is a wonderfully complex, rich and believable tale, with such real characters that they seem to step off the pages and tell their own separate stories, and a scarily possible future. It is as much beyond The Ear, the Eye and the Arm as that is in turn beyond her first book, The Warm Place.This book should not be billed as a YA story. Yes, it is about a boy and his journey from youth into adulthood. Yes, it has many action adventures. But this is the story of a dark and disturbing possible future; it is speculative fiction that holds its own with the best. It has a touch of science fiction, but deals more with a world that has gone through some ugly and frighteningly possible social changes. At the same time, it is a wonderful human drama.
This is a piece of literature that should be read by any apocalypse fiction reader, or any science fiction readers that are interested in social developments enabled by science. I would put in on a level with David Brin’s “The Postman”, or Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Red Mars” trilogy. I cannot recommend it highly enough. But it is not really for kids.