I just cannot decide whether this is supposed to be a possible future, or whether the story is occurring in an alternate universe. I don't think you could find enough people to actually create a society who are as laissez faire as the syndicalists, or as stubbornly supportive of even an oppressive government as the other folks in this story. And I am absolutely sure that the goddess worshipers just could not exist in this universe. Yet, there are certainly many people who think at least one of these three alternate ways of life should work and would want to push society in all three of these directions. ( )

review of
Cyril M. Korbluth's The Syndic
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 29, 2012

As I remarked in my last review of a Kornbluth novel (Takeoff: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7350671-takeoff ): "I like the ones coauthored w/ [Frederik] Pohl the most". Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. As a person surrounded by piles of thick bks that'll take me mnths apiece to read, it was a joy & a relief to read this in a day & still find it worthwhile.

The Syndic is about a future world in wch the US government has been driven, literally, out to sea & in wch the US has been split into 2 territories: one run by THE MOB & one influenced by THE SYNDIC. At 1st the reader is 'allowed' to believe that these are probably basically the same thing - but Kornbluth develops these 2 societies quite differently - w/ his embracing the liberating aspects of the 'relaxed morals' of the Syndic & criticizing the 'madness' of the Mob.

Added to this are 2 other systems: the ousted government, now set-up outside of North America, & the pagans, the remnants of the Irish population in Ireland itself. All of these are well-developed & the main character(s) adventure thru them.

The observant reader will understand from the get-go that this is no shallow philosophical journey when the bk begins w/ a quote from one of the fictitious character's fictitious bks entitled Organization, Symbolism and Morale in wch the idea of people's diseases enters into the shaping of their personalities in ways generally underestimated or overlooked by historians:

"I cannot for the life of me fit the recurring facial carbuncles of Karl Marx into my manipulations - not even, though we know, well after the fact, that agonizing staphylococcus aureus infections behind that famous beard helped shape twentieth century totalitarianism. In pathology alone, the list could be prolonged indefinitely: Julius Caeser's epilepsy, Napoleon's gastritis, Wilson's paralysis, Grant's alcoholism, Wilhelm II's withered arm, Catherine's nymphomania, George III's paresis, Edison's deafness, Euler's blindness, Burke's stammer, and so on. Is there anybody silly enough to maintain that the world today would be what it is if Marx, Caeser, Napoleon, Wilson, Grant, Wilhelm, Catherine, George, Edison, Euler, and Burke - to take only these eleven - had been anything what they were?"

Take particular note that 18th century mathematician & physicist Leonhard Euler is in this not completely motley crew that consists mainly of political figures. It's also worth noting that Euler only went more or less totally blind when he was 59.

Until the adventures of the protagonist takes him thru government turf, it's hard for the reader to be sure where the philosophical lay of the land is - perhaps the government's to be rooted for? The character, F. W. Taylor, whose fictitious bk is above-quoted, says: "Let me point out what so-called government stands for: brutal 'taxation,' extirpation of gambling, denial of life's simple pleasures to the poor and severe limitation of them to all but the wealthy, sexual prudery viciously enforced by penal laws of appalling barbarity, endless regulation and coercion governing every waking minute of the day." Of course, these days government has taken gambling to its bosom as yet-another-way of engendering false hope in the poor & further robbing them.

& then there's mention of "topological psychology". I thought this was an invention of Kornbluth's but, Lo & Behold!, I find a bk listed online called The Principles of Topological Psychology from 1936 by Kurt Lewin! Now it looks like I'll have to add YET-ANOTHER bk to the to-be-read pile [aside: I DON'T do this on Goodreads].

It's not until Taylor's neat summing-up of his version of Syndic philosophy does it become clear that this is who the author's rooting for:

""I will not tolerate," Taylor went on, "a roundup or a registration, or mass treatment or any such violation of the Syndic's spirit."

"Charles exploded: "Damn it, this is a matter of life or death to the Syndic!"

""No, Charles. Nothing can be a matter of life or death to the Syndic. When anything becomes a matter of life or death to the Syndic, the Syndic is already dead, its morale is already disintegrated, its credit already gone. [..]"

[..]

""I can't back a fighting fleet. I can't back a regular army. I can't back any restrictive measure on the freedom of anybody but an apprehended criminal. Read history. It has taught me not to meddle, it has taught that no man should think himself clever enough or good enough to dare it."

Too bad Kornbluth died at age 34, less than 5 yrs after this novel was published. I wd've loved to've read more mature & sophisticated philosophizing. Here, he was still in his twenties but still managing to put forth a fairly rich world. ( )

I'm fond of this book, even though it is relatively ancient. A distopian future in which everything is run by the Mob. It is the perfection of capitalism. The body count is very small. ( )

This was an entertaining book that kept giving hints that it was about to turn into fullblown "golden age" adolescent male pulp fantasy, only to take surprising turns instead.

The book is set in a post apocalyptic near future, but in this case splitting the atom wasn't the culprit. Corrupt, incompetent governments everywhere have falled, to be replaced by a mix of anarchy and organized crime. An exiled US Government still plots to return to power in a North America, control of which has been split between two crime families, the "Mob" in the west and the "Syndic" in the East. Our protagonist Charles is a minor Syndic family member who is sent to uncover the government in exile's most recent plot.

It's easy to come to the book expecting that our protagonist will learn that Government by Organized Crime is wrong, and somehow help to engineer a successful return of Representative Democracy, but that's not at all what Kornbluth has in mind.

In the end we're left with a message something like "People are people, whatever side they are on. 'Isms' aren't inherently superior, and blindly fighting for a cause is likely to do more harm than good." Not a bad message for the post partisan world into which some of us hope we may move. ( )