Results 1 to 6 of 6

Thread: Transmission

  1. #1
    author: Hari Kunzru
    Review by Bina Shah

    It seems hardly yesterday that British writer and wunderkind Hari Kunzru burst onto the scene with The Impressionist, his debut novel which earned him critical acclaim and a great big contract for his second novel. The literary world waited for his sophomore book, wondering if he could pull off the feat of writing a novel that lived up to the promise of the first. Kunzru, in reply, pulled another rabbit out of the hat; instead of a historical novel, he produced what might be called the definitive geek-lit book: Transmission.

    Transmission is the story of people who are connected in a superficial way but in reality are completely disconnected from each other, and the worlds they inhabit. For example, meet Arjun Mehta, a computer engineer from New Delhi, who makes his way to Silicon Valley. He’s ostensibly on an H1B visa, but in truth is little better than a cyber-coolie to be farmed out to any company that needs a brain with two hands and a computer degree attached.

    As he’s shuttled heartlessly from one company to another, before finally settling at Virugenix, a computer virus and security firm in Redmond, Washington, Arjun discovers the seedy side of America a place where relationships are transitory, emotions are embarrassing, and life is all about keeping up with payments or else you simply fall through the cracks in the system and disappear altogether.

    We also meet Guy Swift, a London-based advertising executive who’s the modern equivalent of a fairground con artist, with laptops and flowcharts replacing smoke and mirrors. Guy runs Tomorrow*, a company which is all about branding (the corporate kind, not the cattle kind). However his company is in deep financial trouble with its European financiers threatening to pull out if Guy can’t land two key contracts in Dubai and Brussels.

    Kunzru shows us what both men’s lives are like, and though they are worlds apart, they seem similarly empty and sad. Arjun’s goal is to be a success and impress his family members back in India, but he lacks the personal skills to make friends or give any meaning to his life beyond work. His only happiness comes from his obsession with Leela Zahir and the Bollywood movies that she stars in. Similarly, Guy seems to have everything going for him, but his girlfriend Gaby cares little for him, and he in fact is horribly insecure underneath his confident exterior, relying on material possessions and drugs to control and manipulate both his emotions and his identity.

    The trouble begins when Arjun is fired from his job with Virugenix. He can’t face going back to India a failure, so he devises a scheme: he creates a virus based on his dream girl Leela Zahir and unleashes it through the Internet to computers all over the world. Systems start going down and Virugenix is asked to help. Arjun, the virus’s inventor, tells his boss a few ways to help stop the spread of the virus, in the hopes that they will keep him on at his job. But the plan backfires and Arjun is not only fired but now at risk for arrest by the FBI. He flees into the heartland of California, hoping to evade the authorities, but with dwindling cash and little knowledge about America, the odds are truly against him.

    Meanwhile, Guy, having flubbed the contract in Dubai, heads for Brussels, in the hopes that the European contract will be the salvation of both him and Tomorrow*. Little does he know, however, that the Leela virus has nestled its way into his precious laptop, where the presentation for the Europeans is stored.

    While Kunzru has written a book in which the language is faultless, the plot details carefully-crafted, the characters complex, he has also created a study of a time and place that is unfolding right in front of us: the age of technology. Kunzru knows his subject well; his insights and observations come out on the pages of Transmission, chapter after chapter, impressive in their truthfulness and their accuracy. It is hard to find fault with such a controlled work, the one obvious problem being that the tone is so dispassionate and cynical that the story becomes depressing beneath its steady smoothness and its bursts of ironic wit. Very possibly this is exactly the effect Kunzru was hoping to achieve.

    The novel rushes towards its conclusion in perfect dramatic narrative, but then, oddly, slows down to about thirty pages of “Where Are They Now” epilogue that is the weakest part of the book, with a style change into tongue-in-cheek cyber-journalism that screams Wired magazine and “swallowing your own tail” self-referencing. But it’s at this point that some genuine heart actually emerges in a flashback to a scene between Gaby, Guy’s girlfriend, and Leela Zahir, who’s in Scotland shooting a movie. Curiously, these two women are the only people in the book that actually seem to show real emotion or compassion in the modern world that Kunzru has portrayed. Is this an observation of reality or Kunzru’s imaginary not-so-brave technology-influenced world after all? The line between the two, according to Kunzru, is finely blurred.

  2. #2
    Don't worry i'm here to take care of "guy" if he comes to Dubai...

  3. #3
    ufffffffff meray say nehein parha jata
    A Minute They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them.

  4. #4

  5. #5
    yes she is ... a good review by Bina Shah ..

  6. #6
    indeed saba...

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •