The Last Book In The Universe

Several styles of parenting and their impacts on childhood development are introduced in The Last Book in the Universe. Charly and Kay illustrate the foster home, a place where love is not shared equally between the members of the family. In the case of Bean and Spaz’s home life, Bean’s physical illness is treated as a measure of urgency whereas Spaz’s epilepsy is seen as shameful and potentially life-threatening. Bean is one of the most intelligent people in the Urb, and quite possibly Eden as well. She is also able to see the good in people where others might fixate on the bad. Spaz’s biological father, Billy Bizmo, does not make time for healthy parenting with Spaz even after he is kicked out; his relationship with his son is largely abusive, negative, rule-oriented, and based on fear. Spaz is not even told he is Billy’s son until he has been living with him for several years, believing during that time that he is an orphan and could be kicked out of his home again at any moment. Five-year-old Little Face, on the other hand, is truly a homeless orphan, and perhaps representative of what Spaz could have fairly easily become if things had gone differently for him. Little Face is eager and kind, but largely mute until Bree adopts him. Love, and the feeling of being needed, are transformative to this young character’s life.

On the other side, Lanaya has grown up in Eden with two biological parents, referred to as “contributors” because of the genetic modifications Lanaya received before birth. As Lanaya is being primed for a leadership position amongst the proovs, she believes she did not necessarily need to rely on familial love and support for her to become the person she is. While this may be the case, she was given a stable foundation, unlike Bean, Spaz, or Little Face; now, she is an independent thinker, a future decision-maker for her people, and a confident and beautiful young woman.

Similar to Western society today, power dynamics and class structure in The Last Book in the Universe have affected the development of cities and the physical breakdown of wealth between neighborhoods. Eden relies on a system where seven leaders, or “Masters,” are chosen before birth for their abilities, which have been genetically modified. The Urb, significantly less resource-heavy, has not maintained a singular focus with regard to power structure, as Eden has. Not only are conditions wildly different between the latches of the Urb, the ones that are functioning best are run by veritable gang leaders and maintained by their goons.

Already, a significant separation of classes has taken place between the Urb’s urban poor and Eden’s suburban rich. All of the power, freedom, excesses, and access to education and medicine sit squarely in Eden. Still, there are those in Eden who feel unsatisfied and wish to wipe out the Urb altogether. One way it has been suggested that gentrification could be achieved is through the introduction of probes into the Urb. While banned in Eden, they are purportedly manufactured there for distribution to normals, both above and below ground, with the suggested goal of wiping out the normals altogether by bringing about their own self-degradation and destruction from within.

The younger generation, with Bean and Lanaya at its helm, representing the best of both the Urb and Eden, desires a different approach to bringing about city-wide change. Both young women express desires to open the doors on Eden and to expand Eden or transform the Urb into an extension of Eden. The narrative ends before any of these changes can be enforced.In fact, the book ends with more separation and strife than ever before. However, the proov enforcers who return Spaz and Ryter to the Urb also deactivate all the probes in Billy’s latch, leaving the reader with a glimmer of hope for their future after all.

The institution of leadership can be viewed very differently when comparing its establishment and the effects it has had on the Urb and Eden. In the Urb, after the Big Shake, a variety of gangs emerged across the city, each claiming a section of territory, known as a “latch,” for him or herself. Operating as independent government bodies, each gang put together a group of henchmen and formed a kind of dictatorship within their parcel of land. Unfortunately, as resources were scarce across the Urb altogether, even the most successful leader found it difficult to build a profitable, healthy society for its citizens. More often, the goal became looting and amassing riches for oneself and one’s gang to ensure rivals would not rebel or challenge them and undermine their leadership. Perhaps from the very start, the citizen’s wellbeing was not at the forefront of the leader’s mind in the Urb.

In Eden, leadership comes in the form of the seven Masters, chosen before birth to receive genetic gifts allowing them further success as competent and benevolent leaders to the general population of proovs in Eden. Not only is their “nature” enhanced, so too is their “nurture.” Parents are known as contributors, and those who care for future Masters are encouraged to allow their children to explore and even break the rules. Focus is less on control, restriction, and fear and more on freedom, creativity, and consideration. Rather than focusing on the present, Masters are encouraged to consider the future of their land and their people. As riches are more abundant in Eden, they are able to be shared more evenly among citizens, even though Jin and his family do acknowledge that not everyone in Eden lives in a palace or is quite as well off as they are. Therefore, the Masters’ primary concern does not appear to be hoarding wealth amongst themselves, although there are a fair number of proovs who would not like to see normals gain access to their resources. In this way, this book physically places a privileged society within the boundaries of an impoverished society and allows the reader a peek into the development of each of these territories, as seen 200 years past a cataclysmic event.