I picked this book up on a whim, not having realized that Hari Kunzru is a critically acclaimed author thanks to his first book the Impressionist.
What actually made me want this book really badly was the New York Times review featured on the cover which stated that this book was:
Wickedly astuste… starts out with an eye for literate social satire that suggests Martin Amis or Zadie Smith… winds up in a Chuck Palahniuk paranoid daydream.
Zadie Smith and Chuck Palahniuk. A dream coupling.
Transmission is a witty satire of the corporate world and globalization. It shows us the reality of life for a visa worker, particularly in the technology sector as it is about to boom. But let me back up a second. The story starts with Arjun Mehta interviewing abruptly for a job in the United States, receiving it without much effort and then being transported into a different world. A world… much less glamorous than the one he was expecting. Especially since he is a master hacker and virus writer. Once he makes it to America and lands a shitty job the tech sector starts slowing down and Arjun loses his job, he releases the Leela Virus. He does this in the hopes of saving the company and getting his job back. What he ends up doing is breaking down technology all over the world, the markets, records and even ElderQuest. A nice gaming reference.
Transmission had a really interesting play between perspectives. Though it didn’t feel like it was hard to distinguish between each perspective nor were the shifts forced in any way. The three main characters were so different from one another though, that it allowed for you to develop a strong attachment to one of the three while being able to really dislike the other.
What made me really enjoy this book, oddly, was the ending. They weren’t kidding about the Chuck Palahniuk paranoid daydream. Because of the Leela Virus that Arjun had released Mehtologists popped up whose sole purpose in life was to analyze his actions, potential reasons why he created the virus, etc.
I think the ending could have gone on for another 80 pages with the Mehtologists and the paranoid theories and speculation and I would have kept reading. The ending was brilliant.
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Filed under: Hari Kunzru, Literature Reviews , Arjun Mehta, Bollywood, book review, Chuck Palahniuk, fiction, Hari Kunzru, India, Literature, New York Times, Novels, Transmission, zadie smith
