Wednesday, January 30, 2013
TIME WARP HISTORY
I have finally completed Kurt Andersen's
This doorstop of a novel speeds along the seams of the two recent centuries with a power couple named George and Lizzie.
They sit in the nexus of the media/dot.com/celebrity whirls. New York City.
And they aspire to great things but can't quite put their finger on what that is specifically. And when they do achieve successes, they seem to skip past them without savor. On to the next thing and they missed the fun of the present.
This book is more satire than reality and, at the same time, feels perfectly true to its time.
When was that time? Almost 15 years ago? Did we talk like that then? Was the world spinning on that particular axis?
I didn't find the novel at all dated. I think, partly, because these kind of shenanigans are still going on but also because Andersen has lived in the bubble and knows the human side of it. The side that transcends the ethos. The zeitgeist. There are people involved here and people really don't change much. Just the situations they are in.
There are many many jokes, one liners, funny asides and more than enough name dropping to make the pages turn. Bill Gates shows up along with his big company. Others.
Although there is a period in the late middle that I wanted Andersen to hurry up I didn't want to miss anything either.
Lots of LOL which can't be explained to the person sitting next to you.
George and Lizzie have good hearts though and we care about them and their family. Not so with a lot of the other main characters who are ego driven greed pigs.
There are the pioneers of money manipulation. The ones who make no real contribution to the GNP but have it all. There are the techno geeks and the purpose driven hackers who are bent on doing in the powers that be. We see the inside workings of a television production. The bones of this novel are all very good ones. Lots of realistic stuff to be funny about. There are actual, breathtaking, scenes of fiddling the stock market. Puts and calls and margins.
As for George and Lizzie, they almost lose each other. This becomes the through line of the novel and we do care about them.
It is not surprising, this being a moral tale as well as a hilarious hell bent for leather fun ride, that G and L have to lose everything to gain the world and to get each other back.
I am not sure yet if this book is a keeper or not. It is too long to read again, I think. But I didn't put it into the "send to library" pile.
Labels: books
