Astonoshing Effort Required "Octavian Nothing"

!@#$%^&&*() SPOLIER ALERT)(*&^%$#@! (Not really a spoiler but Kind of )

"The Astonoshing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party," by M.T. Anderson first of all has a very long title. I really love titles and I was drawn in simply by the title. The book takes place in the 18th century in Boston and follows the life of Octavian Nothing, the only son of an African Princess who is very young. Octavian lives in a home with scientists that are measuring his every move and comparing it to that of equally educated "European Princes." The men are not really mean to Octavian just simply indifferent, he is an experiment. Cassiopea, Octavian's mother still feels like a princess. She makes a member of royalty mad and thus takes state funding away from the experiment and then Mr. Sharpe, a slave trader type of guy, comes in and takes over the experiment. He is really a business man and desires only to prove that Africans are of an inferior race and he wants to enslave Octavian even though he is quite clearly a brilliant child. Since it is somewhat historical, the slave revolt of the approaching revolutionary war has potential to reach the house. They move all the slaves into a "diseased" house to weaken them and Cassiopea dies. Octavian is angered at his mothers death and their continued experiments on her so he runs away and joins the army. This is no longer Octavians Narration but the colonels. Octavian finally gets back and they continue to hold him like a prisoner until he escapes again at the end of the book.


This book is clearly a difficult read and has what some may consider a great deal of literary merit. However, I would say that it is possible that this book was never written in the tone of 18th century, and Anderson proclaimed Gothic tone. I say this only because it seems akward that a 21st century author attempt to write in such a tone because the difference in the "old English" and today is almost un transferrable to our modern tongue today. It is difficult to understand, and almost gives a sense of falsity from the narrator. Octavian was hard to understand or agree with at times becuase first of all he was from this time and secondly he was very smart and well articulated. I heard someone in our class suggest that it is written in a futuristic tone and I think that is a fabulous idea for several reasons.::

As far as teaching methods this book could be projected to the future and comparatively analyzed. Look at minority status today and then, although the obvious positive changes have been made I do not feel as if it is, in an experimental manner, all that much different. I do not know for which class this would be good for however, the children could do an experiment of probability. Take two babies and project their lives in a game in a sort of "experiment" like they did on Octavian. Take a poor minority and a rich white kid and play out the chances and probabilities of where each of their lives would lead. This could be a class for "cultural diversity" or just an effort to understand societal influence.

Other than that I would say that just breaking the book up for the students maybe 40 or 50 pages at a time and really spending alot of time discussing it would do the students some good. This could be a great read along book for sometime during the revolutionary war in a history class to get a narrative and fictional tone of what it may have been like under extreme and potentially real circumstances for African Americans.