House of Stairs
by William Sleator
It was only a matter of time before I had the opportunity
to read a “sci-fi” type book, and I found it in William Sleator’s House of Stairs. Set in a dystopian post-world, five sixteen
year-olds, all of whom come from orphanages, are found in a strange building
that has no walls or ceilings, but only stairs in all directions. At one portion of the stairs is a “feeding
machine” that only feeds them under certain circumstances, ones that they need
to figure out. Two boys, Peter and
Oliver, and three girls, Lola, Abigail and Blossom, are caricatures of what one
would think of teenagers (athletic boy, reserved/cowardly boy, heavy-set
spoiled girl, rebellious juvenile, and pretty, shy, worried girl). They try all kinds of things to make the
machine dispense food. Lola figures out
that, when they fight and alienate each other, food dispenses, but she tries to
encourage all to avoid doing so as it will lead to their demise. Three of the teenagers decide to not listen
to Lola and eventually almost kill her and Peter in an effort to continue
eating. In the end, they are all stopped
right before the two children are bludgeoned and wake up to a doctor – it turns
out they were part of an experiment! The
book reminded me of Lord of the Flies
in that the belief was that the strongest would survive. In this case, those
who fought against the evil, Lola and Peter, were released by the research
doctor to fend for themselves in the world, while the three others were kept
for the next experiment. Totally spooky
and gave me a feel of Sartre’s No Exit.
It gets its message across!
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