| Author | Dimitris Lyacos |
|---|---|
| Original title | Μέχρι το θύμα να γίνει δικό μας |
| Translator | Andrew Barrett |
| Language | Greek |
| Series | Poena Damni |
| Genre | World Literature, Postmodernism |
| Publisher | Il Saggiatore (Italian translation) |
Publication date | 2 May 2025 |
| Publication place | various |
| Pages | 272 |
| ISBN | 9788842834267 |
| Followed by | Z213: Exit |
Until the Victim Becomes our Own is a composite novel by Greek author Dimitris Lyacos. [1] Conceived as the book "zeroth" of the Poena Damni trilogy the book explores violence in its various manifestations, as a constitutive element in the formation of human societies and the eventual position of the individual in a world "permeated by institutionalized power"." [2] Described as prequel to Lyacos' trilogy, Until the Victim Becomes our Own outlines a portrait of Western civilization, examined and reassessed from its Judeo-Christian foundations, through industrialization and the development of advanced forms of coercion, to a harmony imposed by cybernetic control. Employing alternating narrators the book's standalone chapters complement each other in a sequence akin to various techniques of cinematic montage. [3] [4]
Until the Victim Becomes Our Own explores the evolution of violence in a sequence of chapters each headed by a letter of the classical Latin alphabet. [1] The prologue evokes the attack and barbaric murder committed by a mother chimpanzee (called M2) and her son against the cub of another mother (called M1), [5] similar to the story of Passion and Pom recounted by primatologist Jane Goodall. The first chapter is an episode reminiscent of Cain's murder of Abel from the book of Genesis. [6] Further episodes depict violence in its socially more advanced, institutionalized forms, presenting in two consecutive sections the practice of incarceration from two different vantage points: L focuses on an inmate as part of the prison's general population, and M is a take on SHU, the segregation housing unit—solitary confinement. [7] . Chapter N discusses, in essay-like form, Law as a technology that excises and cures animal instincts. [8] The book's take on physical violence culminates in chapter S which presents in detail the industrial slaughter and handling of an animal in a contemporary slaughterhouse. [9] Closing chapters focus on violence's self-effacement, in the form of cybernetic order (X) and psychiatric rehabilitation (Y). The book ends with an unnamed voice calling upon the protagonist of the last chapter (Z) to flee to an unchartered new world. [10]
The book was selected in the Top 10 of the Turin International Book Fair by the Italian daily Il Giornale. According to the newspaper, Lyacos immerses the reader in his "total literature". In a note entitled "That hell in which Western society locks us in" the book is mentioned as "particularly suited to the climate of violence that we have been experiencing with special intensity in the past years. In such context, the only way out for the victim consists in relying on the thaumaturgical power of a superior system". [11] Vanni Santoni in the Lettura of Corriere della Sera refers to Lyacos as one of "the possible future Nobel Prize winners (or at least as the only living Greek eligible)" and considers the work in its entirety with its the games of references, the insistence on certain themes and images as entirely programmatic". [12] Filippomaria Pontani in Il Sole 24 Ore claims that the author "aims to investigate the biological origins of evil in society, with particular reference to exclusion and marginalisation, from the perspective of animal dynamics" [13] and compares Lyacos' approach to the cinema of Stanley Kubrick and Yorgos Lanthimos. [14] Alessandro Mantovani in Il Foglio writes: "Lyacos' writing is dense, evocative and fragmentary, alternating lysergic monologues with sharp dialogues, restoring the complexity of a world in which suffering is both an origin and a destiny. A versatile and profound work capable of speaking to our present with a rare force" [15] .The book has also been hailed as "one of the most radical works of contemporary European literature, a writing that moves between biblical exegesis and post-human aesthetics, between Artaud and Genet, between Blanchot and Pasolini." [16]
Lyacos has given a series of interviews in Italian and American magazines discussing the various themes of the book, in particular violence and coercion in contemporary societies. In his interview in Doppiozero, the author uses the term cybernetic messianism to refer to a combination of cybernetic control and human-machine communication as a solution to the problem of violence. [17] Previous forms of God (or religious experience) are supposed to be supplanted by the harmony of a cybernetic collectivity - a sort of superorganism. [18] According to Lyacos: "We ourselves have created an intelligent organization capable of managing our lives. A superorganism that, taken to its extreme, could impose perfect harmony on the human world. This level of knowledge, achieved in collaboration between men and machines, will end up canceling the desire for God. Soon the divine figure we pray to in mass religious rites will no longer be needed, nor the one that accompanies unbridled individualism, dear to mystics as well as to the prophets of capital". [19] In July 2024 his interview on violence during his trip to Israel and the West Bank, entitled "The Other Side of Violence" was published in The Common. [20]
Chapter O in Albanian translation appeared in Revista Letrare in 2022. [21] Chapter G in English translation appeared in Mayday Magazine in March 2023, [22] chapter D in Image in March 2024, [1] chapter V in the Chicago Review [23] in August 2024 and chapter L in River Styx in December 2024. [24] Chapters A, B and C translated in Hebrew by Ioram Melcer appeared in Alaxon magazine in September 2024. [6] Chapter O appeared in Romanian translation in the review Observator Cultural in May 2025. [25]