The Mandibles audiobook

The Buck StopsLionel Shriver's new novel, "The Mandibles: A Family 2029-2047" is captivating, and at the same time a humorous and chilling work of speculative fiction. Early on, one of Shiver's characters, in referencing the works: "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "1984", says: "Plots set in the future are about what we fear in the present. They're not about the future at all." Since this particular character turns out to be extremely wrong about a lot of things, I take this as a wink to the reader that Shriver believes that many of her dire predictions about the economic future of the US may indeed become true. We'll see!"The Mandibles" begins in 2029 (100 years since the "crash" of 1929). In what is later called "The Great Renunciation", the president (who is a "Lat": of Latin descent), calls for the renunciation all US debt and defaults on all foreign debt. Invoking the International Emergency Powers Act of 1977 (it's real), he calls for all gold to be confiscated. Blame is placed on nebulous "hostile foreign" entities who have tried to replace the dollar with the "bancor". The President, in addition to recalling all gold (including jewelry and dental work) from every citizen, has ordered the military to do a door-to-door search for hoarded gold and for those responsible to be fined and imprisoned. In addition, the US has "reset" all US Treasury bonds to zero and inflation has driven the price of a (scarce) head of cabbage up to $30. Some folks are happy that the "uber-rich" or the 1%-ers are falling like dominoes seeing it as finally a way to erase the vast economic disparities. The US starts printing (now almost worthless) money by the truckload, though with the toilet paper scarcity - well, you can imagine what happens.The novel revolves around the eponymous Mandible family, founded by wealthy grandfather Douglas Mandible aka "Grand Man". His oldest granddaughter, Florence, lives in Flatbush, NY, with her teen-aged son, Willing (no kidding), and her lover Esteban. Florence is highly educated (Barnard) but can only find work processing cases in a homeless shelter. Her son, Willing, is the only one who seems to grasp what is happening to the economy, but of course, no one listens to him - he's just a kid! Florence's younger sister Avery, a pseudo-psychotherapist, is married to Lowell, a professor of economics at Georgetown. They have three children, Savannah, Goog and Bing (yep, named after search engines). Avery is used to the good life and now finds that she can't even afford olive oil. It's a long way down. Lowell has a particularly difficult time accepting the economic realities that don't match up with his economic theories.Shriver's fictional future is full of interesting and humorous possibilities: Putin is still in power: dictator of Russia. Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for president necessitating the 28th Amendment (requiring the President to be born on American soil) to be nullified. Judge Judy was appointed to the Supreme Court (which made cases much shorter). Also in 2024, the entire infrastructure of the US (electricity, water, The Internet - gasp!) was shut down for three weeks and chaos ensued. China was blamed (no proof ever attained). Journalism is dead - no source can be trusted (I'd say that's already happened). I don't want to give away too many of Shriver's "treats" so that you can savor all the ironies yourself, but one about Mexico and a wall is particularly biting.Shriver is in her element with her sterling wit, scathing satire, and stunning irony. This is the kind of novel you'll want to talk with people about - so I highly recommend it for any Book Club with nerves of steel, because it's going to stir up some fervent feelings about race, class, money, guns, and trust in the government. It couldn't be coming out at a more auspicious moment in US history!

Lionel Shriver is not for everyone. That said, I need to read more Lionel Shriver. She's just... my latest girl crush. And one of the most important authors out there when it comes to igniting healthy debate and challenging authority and the status quo. In the four novels I've read of her 13, she's tackled: the U.S. health care system (So Much For That), obesity (Big Brother), the nature vs. nurture debate (the absolutely riveting, 5-star We Need To Talk About Kevin), and now, via the all-too-plausible dystopian The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047: monetary policy and the inefficiency of government.There is no fairness, just degrees of unfairness.Shriver's writing is never perfect; it's often unbalanced, and undeniably locked and loaded with an agenda. Certain sections run on too long; I almost put down So Much For That and Big Brother before I was fully won over. And her characters are rarely likable. The Mandibles is probably her most challenging read to date. Coming off more diatribe than story, it needed more story, less lecture, and more finesse weaving in character dialogue between rants. ...oh, but the passion is there. As is her trademark cynicism, wit, shock-value, and dry humor. And the vision.Shriver paints such a chillingly realistic and Orwellian view of America's economic collapse (in the all-too-near 2029), it was tough to find anything in her story that seemed unbelievable. It's told through the eyes of the Mandible family, who are forced to come to terms with not only losing their inheritance overnight after the dollar loses its value, but in the weeks to follow, not being able to buy groceries, or stay in their home.Willing. God, I loved 14-year-old Willing. He's like Stewie from Family Guy, wise and slightly diabolical beyond his years. The first to realize the magnitude of what—in essence—is a financial apocalypse, Willing approaches his still-naive mother Florence, volunteering to give his dog to a family moving to Europe, so that they won't be forced to kill it, or set it loose. Whether it be buying a gun, dropping out of school (because they're still teaching algebra instead of how to build a fire or forage for food), or telling his ever-expanding family when it's time to pack up and move on to a safer neighborhood, Willing becomes a soothsayer of sorts, always knowing what's to come, as well as what it will take to survive, no matter how unpleasant. Because I mentioned Shriver's cynicism (I've yet to stumble upon any pro-government passages in her books), I think it's only fair to say there's also a powerful undercurrent in her novels of the strength of family, and looking after one's own (even in We Need to Talk about Kevin). To me, that helps balance out her bite.Whether you end up liking this book or hating it (I could see a lot of people hating Shriver; she's got her balls out there way too much to please everyone), you will remember her stories and characters.

As always, Shriver's books are challenging, harsh and thought-provoking. I found some of the financial detail a bit hard going, and it's hardly a feel-good book, but it was darkly funny at times and I would recommend.

I am glad I took accounting classes along with working in the computer lab in college when I pick up books like this! Lionel Shriver, the author of 'The Mandibles', is obviously an intelligent writer who has kept up with current dotcom drawing-board schemes and Kickstarter inventors of new products beyond cellphones and tablets; but this densely written, post-scarcity science-fiction novel about an impoverished 2029-2047 United States is also a great example of a talent to postulate knowledgeably about finance and civic post-disaster planning as well. Not that I am an expert on finance or civic planning beyond 101 classes! My opinions on Shriver's knowledge are based simply on that I can somewhat understand the imagined fictional specifics of the effects of a Wall Street/USA government banking crash. In 'The Mandibles', we readers follow several branches and generations of an American family for almost two decades after the American dollar collapses on world currency markets in 2029. Like some families today, the 50-ish parents, Carter and Jayne, are well-off in the beginning of the story, while their adult children, Florence, Jarred, and Avery are spread out in several states with their own lives, partners and children. Some of the related characters are poor, while other siblings are almost as wealthy as their parents. The grandparent, Douglas Mandible, is relaxing in an assisted living home, comfortably well off and sitting on the Mandible Fortune. His only sorrow is his second wife, Luella, has dementia.The various Mandible families and their daily concerns are very similar to how we live now, only they have the use of extrapolated technological marvels which are common household items to them while these electronics are only experimental items on the horizon to us in 2016. For me, the smooth insertions of future technology into the story was the best part of reading the novel.In the novel people worry about the usual things that are familiar to us in our time. The one exception is the lack of potable water. It is not merely a possibility like it is for us but it is in the book a widespread problem and thus water is expensive. But then a television announcement of a financial catastrophe is broadcast on the news. Only one of the Mandibles, Willing, a young boy of eight, understands dimly that a major disaster has occurred. He is very smart for his age, a fortunate happenstance for the Mandibles, since it only due to his precocious intelligence that the members of the family find a way to live when everything changes for the worst.This book won't exactly be a page-turner for many mainstream action-genre readers, I think. Those readers whose tastes can encompass all at once a book which can be shelved under the category alternative-future-history/hard-science-fiction/Wall Street finance/social-dystopia/multi-generational-saga might enjoy it. There isn't much thriller action, either. (view spoiler)[ The country has shortages of power and food, jobs disappear, and people end up migrating to farming areas to survive. The dollar is worthless, so barter and gold become the only way to 'buy' anything needed. Foreign countries move in and buy up American businesses, and other nations' currencies gain ascendency, while America loses face as the most prestigious address in the world. Eventually, things settle down and a recovery begins, but new technologies and new policies change America into something not exactly a democracy anymore. (hide spoiler)]In my opinion, the story is on the dry side. Perhaps this was because I was unable to connect to any of the characters, who nonetheless, are realistic and charming while they are onstage. I was enchanted by all of the fun tech-toys in the novel that are as common to the year 2029 as tablets and the internet are for us today. The novel seemed a little bit like The Shape of Things to Come to me, an H. G. Wells story which was an alternative-speculative-future-history from 1933 to 2106, but with more warmth.

This is easily the best novel that I've read this year. You probably know the story in broad strokes. In one sense, it's a renegade economics textbook presented in the form of a novel with brilliantly realized characters. In another sense, it's a form of doomer porn, or to use the author's own coinage, it's an example of "apocalyptic economics."I don't think this is necessarily a prophetic book. The eventual economic melt-down of the USA might not result from a cabal of competitor nations cooking up a replacement reserve currency with the USA defaulting on its debt in retaliation. There are many failure modes for our unsustainable economic arrangements, but the form of disaster that Lionel Shriver chose to dramatize is one in which the meltdown is both obvious and proceeds slowly enough that the people who haven't yet lost their jobs, their savings and their homes can pretend that the country is just going through a "rough patch" and that things will bounce back pretty soon.The book can't be everything. The author chooses to have her characters struggle to stay ahead of an adjustable rate mortgage and buy groceries in the context of hyperinflation. If your main doomsday fixation is debt deflation and the "welshing" of wealth out of existence, this book won't be your bible. Goldbugs, libertarians and white nationalists will find plenty here to validate their worldviews, but, ultimately, this doesn't feel like a book with an ideological axe to grind because, above all, it is an expertly executed novel populated with characters who I imagine will be with me for months or years to come.

Dystopian novel – based on a crisis for the American economy. After the US struggles to meet an auction of treasury bonds, a consortia of countries (lead by China and Russia but including many previous allies of America) announce the (apparently pre-planned) formation of a new global reserve currency – the bancor backed by a range of valuable commodities. The American president (their first Latino President) decides to declare a (doomed) economic war on the rest of the globe and announced drastic capital controls, a seizure of all gold and “resets” the national debt, wiping out all treasuries overnight – economic collapse follows.The story focuses on the Mandible’s family. The paterfamilias Grandfather (now living in a luxury retirement home with his prematurely demented younger wife) holds the unknown (but assumed) vast family trust fund from previous generations industrial wealth. His son Carter is now in his 70s – his dreams of inheriting that wealth while he can still enjoy it fading while he still regularly visits his father. His sister Nollie is a successful author in exile (largely from her mother – Carter’s ex-wife) in Paris. Carter has three children. Avery lives in a prosperous Washington home with her dandyish economics professor husband Lowell (a traditional Keynesian who is convinced that the economic crisis will quickly fade) and her three children – the already world wise Savannah, the confident and greedy Bing and the eager to please Google. Florence is living even pre-crisis in much closer to hand to mouth poverty (in a world where meat, water and jobs are already scarce resources) working in a homeless shelter, living with a Hispanic mountain tour guide and with a preciously and economically aware son Willing (the only character who seems to understand immediately what is happening and how things will develop). Jarred is the family black sheep – and takes some money to buy a basic farmstead.A provocative book – with a chilling but compelling plausible dystopian scenario. The key drawback of the book is that much of the convincing economic detail of the scenario (which includes lots of additional nice touches – for example a Mexico open to the bancor erecting fences to keep out white Americans) is set out in lengthy exposition by either Lowell or the (unconvincingly prescient character) of Willing – but nevertheless a very interesting and enjoyable read.

Absolutely brilliant. The author writes with great wit and humor about a fictional family, the Mandibles, in the year 2029. I would describe this novel as semi-post-apocalyptic: the US is facing a crisis caused by the lack of faith in the very foundation of its financial system. The US government defaults on all its debt and orders all gold to be recalled, the dollar is essentially worthless and replaced by the 'bancor' as the globally preferred currency, and inflation grows so rampant that a head of cabbage is $20 one week and $30 the next. The Mandibles, who used to live as part of the 1%, lose all of their fortune, and it is both entertaining and alarming to watch how each of the colorful characters adapt and survive in the new environment. The novel is filled with amusing and chilling scenarios: the entire US infrastructure was shut down and chaos ensues, China is blamed, Judge Judy sits on the Supreme Court, Jon Stewart runs for president, there is a Chelsea Clinton administration, and so many other fun bits... Lionel Shriver is ingenious. She writes with scathing wit, irony, and an unparalleled sense of observance. She touches upon every topic, from race to poverty to class to money to big government, and through her characters, cuts to the core of what makes us human: our flaws. What makes this story so disturbing is that the foundation of everything that happens is very real (there is a wall between the US and Mexico, and it is used to keep impoverished Americans out!), which makes it all the more relevant to what is going on in the world today.

*Gasps*I’ve long waited to read Lionel Shriver and the recent release of The Mandibles presented me the perfect opportunity to start working on her oeuvre. Having just finished reading it, I’m still gasping for my breath. It feels as though I’m back from a particularly arduous underwater expedition. But I’m “immense” glad I read it. If I were Willing or any other character from the book, I’d describe it as “Malicious”.The Mandibles is stratospherically ingenious and a particularly heavy read. It took me almost 3 days to finish it – despite its comparatively shorter length of around 430 pages. It is loaded with information and a slow assimilation could be the only way for you to enjoy it. Information overload isn’t the only reason for perusal – Shriver’s language simply isn’t meant for careless reading. Skimming through The Mandibles would only leave you exasperated. It is the kind of book that demands your absolute attention. For all its heaviness, it is extremely rewarding. It is easily among the ten best books I’ve read this year.As you might have known already, Mandibles is set in a financial dystopia. But it successfully escapes from most of the traps/clichés that usual dystopian tales succumb to. It is immense rich in characters, originality, inventiveness, brilliance, wit, language, emotions - the list goes on. Of all the things, I was very surprised to find it funny. You’d never expect to laugh until your stomach hurts while reading your regular dystopian fiction. It is easily one of the funniest books I’ve read.Mandibles has a formidable bunch of characters most of whom I loved – something that has never happened before. Some of my favorites: Willing obviously, Nollie, Bing & GGM. Every character is bustling with some idiosyncrasy that makes it hard for you to not fall in love. I found Willing’s character to be startlingly unique and a joy to read.One warning though: this book has more than a fair share of economical information, only natural as it is set in a financial dystopia. But some people may be overwhelmed by all the pecuniary talk. Most of the concepts discussed were pretty high-fi and though I tried real hard to follow the economics, I couldn’t understand half of what was being discussed. The only thing that pricked me while reading Mandible was the disturbingly casual racism. Though you can’t blame the dialogue exchange between characters, the whole story gives off an anti-Asian vibe. Shriver has basically inverted what’s happening in today’s world and labelled it as dystopia for America. By inversion, I mean the role reversal between Asia & US in the book. All Asian countries are portrayed to have their manufacturing plants in USA, not giving a damn about the American environment/people; Asian countries fight to claim control over foreign countries; headquarters of all the famous organizations are moved to Asia; etc. The reverse being the universal truth now (almost for every dystopian condition mentioned in the book, the role reversal holds true).The Mandibles has every ingredient for the perfect novel – characters, language, humor, setting, concepts, ideas – and reading it is one awesome experience. An ultimately satisfying & riveting affair that’s guaranteed to leave you yearning for more. Go for it. Because it’s rare to find a gem like this one.

This book is an interesting read albeit with some problems. Unlike many of the reviewers I didn't object to the economic details per se but instead found the concept of a post-apocalyptic novel purely based on a crisis caused by loss of collective faith in the financial system fascinating. Humanity doesn't need zombies, an asteroid or a plague to fall apart, the ingredients are really already there. That said I found the core principles here a little off-putting, at times it seems like the author is suggesting that the right wing nut jobs who want to go back to the gold standard and cut all social spending are correct. Is Shriver a Ron Paul style libertarian in real life? No idea. It's also tough to write a novel of the near future, as it is difficult not to argue with her future predictions at times since they're just round the corner. One of my favorite things was the details of the language. Shriver invents a new slang vocabulary for her society based on her imagined events and it has a very natural ring to it. Lots to ponder in this book so 4 stars for making me think, 3 for characters and plot and 4 for the inventive language.

2023 reads, #12. I read this on the recommendation of one of my freelance clients, in that his own dystopian day-after-tomorrow thriller was partly inspired by this one, plus of course I'm just a sucker for dystopian day-after-tomorrow thrillers to begin with. Shriver is a lit-fiction veteran with 18 novels now in her oeuvre, most of which are obscure MFA titles with only tiny audiences; the reason her name may sound familiar is because of the one and only big hit so far of her career, 2003's school-shooter psychological character drama We Need to Talk About Kevin, the winner of that year's prestigious Orange Prize and then adapted into a Hollywood movie with Tilda Swinton that itself was a multiple award winner. Here Shriver is taking on a much bigger subject, which is showing exactly how a prosperous industrialized nation like the US could in fact devolve in the space of a mere decade into a lawless third-world country with no infrastructure to speak of. Shriver has mentioned in interviews that she wanted this to be the most realistic look possible at how such a thing could happen (as one of her characters astutely says in the book, science-fiction is never really about predicting the future, but rather commenting on the present); and so that makes this novel both queasily thrilling and nerve-wrackingly terrifying, in that every single plot development is based on a real thing that has actually happened in real-world America in the last couple of decades, only cranked up one or two notches and with no last-minute reprieve or savior that has (so far) allowed all of us in the 21st century to wipe our brow and give a huge sigh of relief every time one of these issues has reared its ugly head out in real life. For example, the event that starts this crisis is China giving the US a "margin call," suddenly demanding that we pay back the trillions of dollars that the country has loaned us over the years, feeling empowered after recently becoming the official biggest economy (and largest military) in the world; then when it becomes clear that the US neither has the money to pay off its national debt nor even particularly cares about doing so, the rest of the world suddenly devalues the US dollar as its main international form of currency and refuses to accept it as payment for anything, leading to a currency crash and hyperinflation situation much like Germany in the 1920s, where a loaf of bread at Whole Foods costs $20 on a Monday, then suddenly $50 on Tuesday, then up to $100 on Wednesday. Meanwhile, under a far-left administration that happens to include the first-ever Latinx President in American history, the White House is still so obsessed with social-justice issues that they essentially ignore the economy altogether (a very telling moment is when Congress debates whether or not to change all federal government forms to Spanish, since Latinx people now technically make up over 50% of the American population, at the same time that most of America's police go on strike because their government-issued paychecks keep bouncing); and meanwhile, all the upper-middle-classers keep talking about how things are bound to get better if the unwashed, uneducated, mouth-breathing masses will just remain calm, while all the poor people are positively giddy over the destruction of these upper-middle-classers' wealth, most of them not realizing that it will only be a matter of a few more months before all that vanished money will result in basically a collapse into violent anarchy for everyone, a slow-motion "gentle apocalypse" that Shriver deliciously doles out in infinitely clever, infinitely nauseating detail. (And don't worry if you're confused -- another clever detail here is Shriver including a 16-year-old autistic son in our title family who basically acts like a walking Wikipedia, explaining to readers the actual real issues being discussed in this fictional novel, and why taking these issues for granted like we do [for example, why going off the gold standard is actually the worst thing the US has ever done in its entire history] will inexorably lead to the society-collapsing disaster our Mandibles live through over these 400-odd pages.)Needless to say, I luuurved this book, although in a wrist-slashingly depressing way that makes me never want to read it or even think about it again, which of course officially makes me one of those millions of middle-classers with their head in the sand that has helped cause all these problems in the first place. It comes strongly recommended in this spirit, as a cautionary tale about all the bad things that can happen under such seemingly innocuous attitudes like, "A prosperous country like America can ring up as much debt as it possibly wants to with no repercussions whatsoever." A tough but great read like this will show you in graphic, infuriating detail exactly what can happen under that kind of attitude, so please understand in advance that you're in for a pretty harrowing tale here indeed.

A few things can be said to have formed a cult around Lionel Shriver in the past few years, especially since the watershed publication of her 2003 novel We need to talk about Kevin. By and large, readers have followed Shriver’s fictional production on account of (1) her unique repertoire of topics, i.e. her keen interest in sensitive social issues (obesity, healthcare, gun control, marriage), and (2) her virtually matchless narrative voice, ever-present sarcasm, and good ear for particularly stinging phrases. In other words, Shriver has been known to tackle gargantuan issues head-on, hardly sugarcoating any of her sentences. She has also become famous by virtue of a fondness of depicting mankind’s fall from grace as epitomized by any of her numerous (oddly named) characters.Thus, what one should first mention about The Mandibles is that Shriver is still playing her own game, still deploying her time-tested tools. The scenario now is post-apocalyptic: the novel focuses on a family’s strive for survival in the aftermath of a gruesome financial debacle. My lackluster economic skills prevent me from offering you a three-dimensional explanation of what exactly is going on, so let’s just say that the year is 2029, and the United States is undergoing the most violent financial crisis in its history. The dollar has plummeted; the president has officially defaulted the national debt; and inflation levels are skyrocketing. In practical terms, what happens is that previously affluent families soon find out that their resources are dwindling with every passing day, and misery’s walking towards their door at an unprecedented pace. Imprecisions aside, I think you get it: this is a time and a place in which money is progressively rendered worthless, and everybody’s life needs to be reorganized around that.In her previous books, Shriver has attempted to demonstrate how distressing or calamitous situations can significantly interfere upon human behaviour. In Double Fault, for instance, what started out as a healthy, vibrant love relationship between two individuals is slowly corroded by competition’s ever-flowing drops of venom. In So much for that, a lifetime saver is forced to make a choice between trying to save his wife’s life and savoring the long-awaited rewards of a lifetime of self-denial. In The Mandibles, Shriver’s main argument is that much of what we take civilization to mean hinges directly upon our consensual reliance on money, regardless of how unfair capitalism may be. Money helps us ascribe value to ourselves and others; it tinges and restrains our behaviour; it consolidates our goals and dreams; it even helps us make sense of what failure is. What happens when our all-important currency becomes nothing but fragile paper?To illustrate her alarming points, Shriver will focus on four generations of the Mandible family: people who, because they were born at different times and under different circumstances, have developed different relationships with their dollar — which means that, when the national economy goes awry, each will experience collapse in a different way. Shriver’s a very gifted storyteller, and she understands that the only way of making her book seethe with diversity is by giving voice to a myriad of equally diverse characters. And that’s what she does. Most of the book is crisscrossed by heated arguments between characters – grandparents and grandchildren, men and women, upper-class and middle-class individuals, all caught up in the same never-ending task of making sense of financial death. Much of the dialogue is quite riveting, but it’s true that Shriver is highly prone to pontificating: her characters often come up with elaborate, unreal explanations of the situation around them, and the information overload can at times feel dull. One gets the impression that certain parts of this book would have been more successful as essays: both because they ring hollow in the ears of a non-specialist readership, and because they compromise the book’s verisimilitude. Goog and Willing, for instance, are two teenagers whose absurd eloquence in the topic of violence reminded me of an old Victorian motif: that of the angel-child, early deprived of innocence, but always splendidly articulate.Another downside is the fact that, despite the various opinions they embody, and despite the fact that they have lead substantially different lives, most of the characters in this book seem to have more or less the same voice. The magnanimous ninety-something great-grandparent? The rebellious brother who runs his own farm and barely keeps in touch with the family? The nineteen-year-old wannabe art student? They all adopt the same sharp inflection which characterizes much of Shriver’s work. While she has certainly succeeded at populating her novel with divergent viewpoints, she has not been quite as brilliant in the task of giving her characters authentic voices. They all have exactly the same sense of humor, the same proclivity to sarcasm, the same easy manipulation of little-known words. Which, in turn, brings about a major problem: the fact that, at times, one can fail to distinguish between characters. People lose individuality and richness when they get reduced to their adamantly expressed opinions.Those two problems aside, I would thoroughly recommend The Mandibles to every single reader out there who’s even slightly preoccupied about what looms ahead. Even for people who don’t have as profound a knowledge of economics as Shriver seems to boast, the future she conjures sounds eerily possible. She’s playing at that thin line between the likely and the absurd, and quite often the former prevails. Furthermore, in spite of characters’ unlikability and frequent unreality, the storyline she weaves is too good to put down. I found myself reading page after breathless page, wondering what would happen next, how they would cope with having to let go of yet another everyday necessity – how do you live without toilet paper, for instance? Just as she’s done in her previous novels, here Shriver brings together the best of both worlds: her social commentary has the pungent accuracy of a sharpshooter, and her chapters have the easy-to-follow melody of a bestseller. If this book lacks anything, it’s definitely not sophistication. In fact, maybe its weaknesses all stem from the fact that, at certain points, Shriver could have tried to be a bit less sophisticated.