Forget's "In the City of Pigs" is one of those novels that I find difficult to get into, even if the premise sounds right up my alley.

Thank you NetGalley and Dundurn Books for the eARC.
Having lived many years in Toronto, I really wanted to read this book, but unfortunately had a difficult time getting into it. The lengthy descriptions featuring musical instruments and music itself (and I love music) were too intense for me, a fan of music who never studied it or played an instrument. The writing style was also difficult for me to get into, so I didn't even finish the book. Sorry!

This book will test a non-musical person's patience while it goes through all the irrelevant details of fine-tuning an instrument or the concept of playing an organ underwater. A story that could have been good if it wasn't written in such an abstract and chaotic way.

Dundurn Press’ imprint Rare Machines has produced some impressive left-field novels in its short life, and André Forget’s “In the City of Pigs” joins that list with inscrutable aplomb.
Forget has a succinct style that is a joy to read, and the novel has an air of clinical intellectualism. His descriptive writing is vivid and rich as he describes the sights and sounds of Toronto. A knowledge of Toronto would probably add another dimension to the story, as it is very much a love-letter to that city, it’s history and present, but non-residents can read the book and easily immerse themselves in a city so well described.
As to the story itself, the book deals largely with an underground avant-garde music collective, complete with modern agitprop Twitter posts and anonymous videos in abandoned warehouses; an exciting premise which evokes the rave culture of the ‘90s with a postmodern sheen. But Fera Civitatem’s plans are more far-reaching than that, demanding a kind of reimagining of society itself. Forget’s depiction of one of their secret concerts is visceral and brutal, the atonal lovechild of a philharmonic orchestra and the Jim Rose Circus.
Undoubtedly the book is pretentious in parts, and in many ways cold and lacking emotion, but not in a way that I could take seriously. In fact, the pretentiousness seemed almost to be played for laughs. Readers with a love of classical musical will find much to enjoy (and, no doubt, hate) in the book.
Characterisation is a little hit and miss, with only Alexander really standing out amongst a mostly indistinguishable supporting cast made up of unlikeable arty types. Chapters are generally short, maybe some a little too short, but it all seems just right, and the storytelling is brisk.
Part contemporary fiction, part exposé of economic divisions, part musicological thriller; I would call the book intellectually absurdist, and despite its pretension, has a strong thread of irreverence and imagination running through it. While not precisely unputdownable, I did find myself picking up the book often for just one more chapter. It is definitely not for everyone, but I am comfortable with novels that are unconventional, and I enjoyed this one very much.

4.25/5*

A review copy of this book was kindly made available by NetGalley.

<i>In The City of Pigs</i> is, in its most essential core, a love letter to the city of Toronto, layered out throughout a careful and diverse mapping of its urban areas, buildings, architecture, landmarks, and streets. A <i>Liebeslied</i> which also leaves plenty of room for a critical view of the socio-economic state it has reached, especially gone through in the discussions the main character has with his housemates, friends, lovers and acquaintances – all of them mesmerizing characters, even if I got under the impression that we could have seen some other sides of some of them.
The – sometimes subtle, sometimes blunt – ways the novel engages the upper class’s means and schemes, and their general lives, with vivid debates on music, philosophy, literature, arts and economics, is superb. It truly made me rethink about certain notions in a new, fresh light.
I honestly do not know a lot about music beyond the basics, so that is probably the main reason why some of the more in-depth parley on the on its theories, history and perspective became somewhat difficult to follow, to grasp. Even if extremely insightful, the author was a tad bit pretentious, at times, particularly in a few language choices. This can also be seen as adequate, nonetheless, since he is exploring a hard art to describe within a social class typically associated with flamboyance and artistic reveries.
The enticing meditations on music deserve a special shout out: they are immense and powerful. Despite other themes being brought up and explored, the line that is drawn from beginning to end is that of the eternal debate on old versus new, of preserving versus innovating. “Our music is sick,” a character declares at some point, “and it has sickened us”. Alexander, the protagonist, delves into this question throughout the novel, hearing different opinions on the best way to proceed. It all comes down to an important point raised in various disciplines and artistic fields: what kind of art do we want, what kind of art do we need in a world that seems to have exhausted every corner of human imagination?
Overall, it is an elucidative and creative book. I would recommend it especially to anyone who loves music, as it constitutes the basis of its writing, creeping between each word, each comma, with an unfathomable love for this art form.

Replete with operatic complexities and other nuances of musicology, “In the City Of Pigs” (the title itself being an imaginative take on references contained within Plato’s ‘Republic’), is grist for a musical mill rather than common fodder for the consumption of the lay reader. Even though the author sincerely attempts to weave together an appealing tale of raw and uncontained human emotions, an undisguised fetishism towards classical music means that the reader has to trudge through elaborately esoteric passages that discuss and dissect the intricacies of Bach before distinguishing those minutiae from Mozart.

In the preface to the book, the author helpfully informs his readers that the book - an amalgam of the mysteries of music and the menace of real estate that is emblematic of modern capitalism – assumes the shape of a symphony, an extravagant opening closely followed by three shorter movements before finally reaching its climax. An incorrigible fan of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Doors, yours truly is alas bereft of all the intellectual acumen that it takes to enjoy a symphony.

Alexander Otkazov flees both a failed career in music and the city of Montreal to the more bustling pastures of Toronto. Taking up accommodation in a bland and unremarkable apartment, he waits tables in a restaurant. A chance meeting with Sev, a new recruit, sends Otkazov plunging headlong into a world of Bohemian excesses and political blandishments. Sev, an aspiring musician is from and of a respectable pedigree. He has taken up a job in the restaurant purely as a temporary and intermediate measure before going on to a higher calling. Sev introduces Otkazov to some of the most well known names in the musical establishment, and one such meeting leads to Otkazov bagging a job as a journalist covering music.

Otkazov first makes his mark by producing a blistering piece of reportage on an iconoclastic, yet reclusive musical band that calls itself Fera Civitatem. Breaking into abandoned theatres and warehouses, Fera Civitatem are absolute apologists for anarchy. Rebelling against modern materialism, their symphonies and shows are purely by invitation and shrouded in absolute secrecy. No recorded labels of their programmes are available and the only time their songs are heard is when they perform. One of their manifestos says, “our music is sick, and it has sickened us. We pitch between hieratic abjection and narcissistic consumerism on an ocean of our own vomit. We slurp back the pablum fed to us through wet gums; we fill our bellies with syrup and heavy cream and shit our guts out in the bleak hours of the afternoon.” Otkazov, attends one such performance. The show degenerates into sheer bacchanalia. Drugs, drinks and orgies complement eardrum rupturing music that to the uninitiated seems to be a cacophony from the very depths of hell. A hymn to libidinal glory and a paean to carnal urges, Fera Civitatem is anarchy taken to hitherto unimaginable levels and degrees.

Otkazov’ s life of immoderations takes a dark twist when he begins an affair with the wife of one of the industry’s most well known and respected patrons, Lionel Standish. Otkazov also discovers the nauseating alliance between the industry, the real estate establishment and paid artistes that furthers material gluttony at the cost of utilitarianism.

“In The City of Pigs” is a story that could have been. At every stage the reader is getting to grips with the colour, context and contours of the essence of the story, she is exasperatingly distracted by a lengthy allusion to some delicate musical convolution. For example there is a humongous chapter on the evolution and acceptance of hydroorganonology, a concept of a huge musical organ that is constructed underwater and is used to play classical pieces to the appreciation of audiences who are scuba divers as well. Thus the reader is informed in a most painstaking manner that “on August 15th, 1993, an unknown aquatic engineer/architect/amateur organist named Kenji Saito announced that he had completed his “Senritsu,” the first full-scale, fully-functional hydroörganon to be built in the modern era, on a promontory off the coast of Numazu in Japan’s Suruga Bay. Overnight, hydroorganonology went from being a armchair science to a controversial new form of public art, one that united disciplines as diverse as acoustics, oceanography, architecture, and musicology.” This, by the way is a reproduction of an earlier piece by the author for the online webpage “Earth World.” If the description would have ended there, maybe the interest of the reader would have retained its status quo, if not piqued. However an egregious dive (no pun intended) into the complexities of the hydroorgan and its music, the opinions of the sceptics and acolytes etc. tests the patience of the reader. Really tests the patience of the reader. Really really tests the patience of the reader.

Similarly, a detailed explanation on the frequencies at which the musical instruments should be tuned makes the reader (who is not a musical aesthete) tare her hair out in frustration.

“In The City of Pigs” – a relevant story masked by a flood of irrelevant details.