A cross between a savage satire such as Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift and a dystopian novel such as Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, this is a story of a wannabe saboteur infiltrating the biggest company on Earth, a monopolistic conglomerate of digital companies, which offers convenience and security in return for freedom by innovating apps which are "a mixture of benign utopianism and pseudofascist behavioral compliance” (Ch 2) for humanity's ubiquitous phones.
One of the themes is that the world is climate-doomed unless the wastefulness of humans is curtailed which means reducing choice. Foreign travel is replaced with virtual tours, putting millions out of work. Foodstuffs from far-off places, such as bananas, are more or less banned.
The workers in the corporate headquarters, a self-contained world, are being driven crazy by the demands of the workplace, which monitors their every move and gives them targets based on spurious research, such as the need to aim for ten hours sleep each night to maximise their creativity. Eye-tracking means they are forced to read every word of their non-disclosure agreements.
A wave of suicides follows when the eye-tracking is made available in the outside world, at which point everyone can see who you are eyeing up, and which bits of them you're ogling.
One of the strengths of this novel - a little like Milton's poem Paradise lost, in which the devil has the best lines - is that the arguments in favour of the totalitarian monopoly are so convincing. Who doesn't want a sustainable world, where we can live in safety, without perverts?
Selected quotes:
- “His worldview had remained that of a high-minded teenager: bad was bad, good was good, rebellion inherently noble.” (Ch3)
- “Every person has his blind spot, Delaney thought. ... But I don't know my own blind spot, she wondered, what does that mean? Being blind to one's blind spot: it did not portend well.” (Ch 17)
- “Subjectivity is just objectivity waiting for data.” (Ch 18)
- “A very tall man with a tremendous beard - a sort of waterfall of black lichen.” (Ch 22)
- “You can get anything you need here. You just can't get everything you want. Or anything you think you want.” (Ch 26)
- “He ... hopped up to sit on the counter, where his fleshy thighs spread like an oil spill.” (Ch 26)
- “Shame ensued, and shame was deserved, and shame was the internet's currency and lever for change.” (Ch 29)
- “It turns out my goals were out of reach ... Which is funny because one of my main ... goals was to set goals that were out of reach. Growth mindset, right?” (Ch 40)
A comic novel with a cutting edge. Chilling.
First published in the USA by McSweeney's in 2021
My paperback edition was issued in the UK by Hamish Hamilton
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