Confusion and carnage on the information superhighway claim
reputations, lives, and corporations. The Anglo-Indian author's
harshly satiric second outing (after The Impressionist, 2002) opens
with a charmingly funny account of young computer programmer Arjun
Mehta's hopeful departure from his smothering Indian parents and
arrival in California, where the promised job that lured him there
does not materialize. Arjun frets and daydreams, his culture shock
soothed by romantic imaginings about "India's sweetheart," film
star Leela Zahir-until he's rescued by employment with Virugenix, a
virus-fighting software company based in Washington State. After a
brief period of security, Arjun is terminated, and, unwilling to
return home in disgrace, becomes inconsolable. Then a malignant
virus bearing the image of Leela Zahir attacks the world's
computers-and we know who's created it. Meanwhile (in a
comparatively bland subplot), British paper millionaire advertising
mogul Guy Swift-whose New Age-y company declares itself "not so
much an agency as an experiment in life-work balance"-sees his
dream of "promoting Europe" scuttled, and loses his gorgeous
coke-addicted girlfriend Gabrielle, who provides p.r. for a film
Leela is shooting in Scotland, and beds Leela's serial co-star,
film hunk Rajiv Rana. Transmission (whose witty title is explained
in the closing pages) wanders around its subject almost as much as
Arjun does up and down the West Coast, fleeing toward Canada, then
Mexico, before disappearing into the mists of computer legend,
becoming a "hero" to hackers everywhere. Kunzru lays on the
technical detail thickly, and computer geeks will perhaps best
appreciate the sinuous meanderings and misdirections here. But its
antic vision of an all-too-easily imperiled global village has
enough charm and bite to engage us all. An interesting successor to
Kunzru's now-famous first novel. (Kirkus Reviews)
Hari Kunzru's Transmission is a witty novel about cyberspace, a
Bollywood dancer and a world where everyone is connected. It's the
twenty-first century, and everything and everyone is connected.
Meet Arjun Mehta, an Indian cybergeek catapulted into California's
spiralling hi-tech sector; Leela Zahir, beguiling Bollywood actress
filming in the midge-infested Scottish wilds; and Guy Swift,
hyped-up marketing exec lost in a blue-sky tomorrow of his own
devising. Three dislocated individuals seeking nodes of
connectivity - a place to fit in. Yet this is the twenty-first
century, and their lives are about to become unexpectedly entangled
as a virus spreads, and all their futures are rewired. But will it
take them further from their dreams, or closer to their hearts? 'An
aphoristic joke, a neat turn of phrase; a joke that makes you laugh
. . . there's nothing Kunzru couldn't manage in prose. Thoroughly
engrossing' Literary Review 'Funny, heartfelt and beautifully
written, confirms Kunzru as one of the most talented writers of his
generation' Image 'Very enjoyable, I couldn't put it down. Funny
and wry; it is deftly plotted; its characters intimately drawn.
Blissful' Observer 'Utterly affecting, a novel with devastating
satirical bite' Financial Times Hari Kunzru is the author of the
novels The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions and Gods
Without Men, and the story collection Noise. He lives in New York.
General
Imprint: |
Penguin Books
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
June 2005 |
First published: |
June 2005 |
Authors: |
Hari Kunzru
|
Dimensions: |
198 x 129 x 19mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - B-format
|
Pages: |
296 |
Edition: |
New ed |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-14-100829-5 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General & literary fiction >
Modern fiction
|
LSN: |
0-14-100829-6 |
Barcode: |
9780141008295 |
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