The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Traitor to the Nation

"...they told me of color, that it was an illusion of the eye, an event in the perceiver's mind, not in the object; they told me that color had no reality; indeed, they told me that color did not inhere in a physical body any more than pain was in a needle.

And then they imprisoned me in darkness; and though there was no color there; I still was black, and they still were white; and for that, they bound and gagged me." (316)

            The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Traitor to the Nation was an interesting and engaging tale that for me was overly drawn to a point. This could be a bit biased, as I was totally enthralled by The Book Thief. I am a fan of historical fiction and I enjoyed this insight into the period of the Revolutionary War and the beginnings of a dialogue of democracy and the issue of slavery along the duality of humanity and property rights.

            I really found the scientific, artistic, and rational philosophical adventures to be interesting. Philosophy and art have always been interests of mine, and to imagine this setting of experimental exploits is incredible. The issues of money and funding, or lack there of, and its effects on the education of Octavian really echoed with me. I found striking comparisons between the budget cuts that needed to be made, and the first to go being the non-utility aspects and arts, and the current climate of public education.

            Another theme that interested me was that of names and what goes into. Mr. Getney’s numerical system, the titles (Prince, Princess, Lord of the New Creation), and the slave’s names, all show the complexities and differences that are in a name.

            Critically, this book seems like it would be a very difficult text for adolescents. The vocabulary intense, and with scientific, Latin, and colonial English, I fear the difficulty could be too much.

            However, I find the varying formats of this text for inviting and engaging. The memoir aspect shows a very scientific insight to Octavian’s life. The varying letters of the soldiers story as well as the communication between investors and scientists, show the different subjectivity.  During the battle scenes, particularly p 276 has a choppy, flash-flow to it that echoes a war scene.

            As a piece of historical fiction, I feel that this text shows the Revolutionary War period in a novel perspective. The discussion of freedom mixed with slavery, is an interesting topic and given that the narrator is a slave and prince at the same time, gives it an interesting feel to it. However, I did not find this very engaging and was often dry and long.