From Hogwarts to the Hobbit, humans have been experts at creating parallel universes that lets them escape the drudgery of their own. The more different these universes are from the one in which we live, the more their chances of success in the reader’s mind.
Roy Phoenix, too, has created an alternate reality in his book, Alphabetica. His is called Planet Typewriter, in which he gives life to each character in a typewriter—the alphabets, numbers, punctuations and signs. They have distinct personalities and quirks. For example, the muscular-armed Alpha (the alphabet A) lives with Miss Buxom Beth (B) and Miss Congeniality Camel (C), who is also the class valedictorian, in Bungalow #1.
Now, a blueprint of the planet. There is Alphabetica, a city-state suspended on its Westerloo Wall; Numerica on the east; the word factory called the Underwood, where the inhabitants come to work in their “designated cockpits”; and Italics, the pub or the ‘inking hole’ where you let down your metallic hair and have a merry time. Planet Typewriter exists for the “Poet” who is the benefactor of the planet. Its purpose is to bring to life his little ditties.
The story really starts when the alphabet Y, or the screechy, preachy Ypsi, comes to know of the word share rankings of the 26 characters in the Earthlings’ Succinct Oxonian Lexicon. She grows jealous of the Vowels when she realises that they had cornered a whopping 38 per cent of the word share, despite being a minority among the Consonant majority. Thus, there is trouble in the planet, egged on by a trigger-happy Ypsi who is christened ‘Madame Leader Ypsi’ after the ‘Great Dictator’ (a thinly-disguised reference to Adolf Hitler, whose tenets are Ypsi’s guide to the annihilation of the Vowels.)
“We Consonants are not only the majority, but we are also the direct descendants of the 22 Phoenician Consonants who gave birth to this land called Alphabetica,” says Ypsi to her hapless roommates, Xi and Zayin, indifferent back-benchers in class. “Don’t confuse us with minority Greek Vowels. Ours is a proud heritage and a rich culture that was in vogue during the early Iron Age, and we have been the guiding light of this land for over three thousand years.”
Sounds familiar? Alphabetica is Phoenix’s take on the futility and danger of majoritarianism—what happens when we let the major many dictate terms to the minor few. In short, what we see happening in different parts of the world, including our own. Usually, a fantasy’s primary business is not to make a point. It is more escapism than education. That way, Alphabetica seems to fit neither in the category of fantasy, nor fully in satire. Still, it is mostly able to stand on its own. The story is built on a sound foundation and does not need an underlying message or moral to uphold it.
Some of the descriptions are impressive. “With ballistic catapults hitting the Ink Ribbon through a turret of a cylindrical fortress and pulleys ferrying a gigantic piston triggering an alarm bell, the magnificent Underwood was a battleground of creativity,” writes Phoenix.
Despite this, one feels he has not exploited the potential of his own world. Sometimes, you wish he would slow down and pause from the story telling just so that you can take in the view of this novel planet, with its metallic forests and workstations, outlandish characters and intoxicating ‘ink’ drinks, hors d’oeuvre of grease mousse and hardened soot missiles.
Alphabetica: A Satire on Majoritarianism
By Roy Phoenix
Published by Notion Press
Price Rs549; pages 209