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Kameron Merritt

11 September 2008

It's all too straightforward to get incorrect - but who's getting it right? The way to look at today a visitor to Tate Modern's World Towns exhibition. To draft a novel entirely "of its time" is a grand accomplishment, a coup that maybe all writers hope to tug off, if purposely or by chuffed accident. In too many books, the inclusion of iPods and texting, and any other supposed signifier of modern life, appears to come from a mistaken belief that they offer instant access to the zeitgeist. The technological accoutrements of the 21st century are now not, however, fascinating in fiction for their mere presence, but rather for the understanding they give us into the way characters " and by extension, we - live. More regularly than not though, Blackberries and the like stick out in up to date books like ungainly flags desperately saying some territory of modernity. Ironically, instead of convincing us of the book's thrusting engagement with all things cutting edge, the effect is often anachronistic. It rightly merits the words "a post-9 / eleven masterpiece" emblazoned across its cover. It even stakes a convincing claim to being the subsequent ( if there had been ever one in the 1st place naturally ) "Great Yankee Novel".

Of all O'Neill's feats though, the best is a tiny passage halfway thru the book that owes it power to a not likely, yet completely good, source. However, halfway thru Netherland, O'Neill gives us maybe the most convincing, forcing and memorable appearance of Google there was ( so far ) in a novel. The lead, Hans, is living alone in Manhattan after his better half and child have left to London in the aftermath of the planet Trade Centre attacks. From his "balloonist's vantage point" he is in a position to hover above his better half and child's home and see "my child's dormer, and the blue inflated pool, and the red BMW" while knowing all the whilst that "there was no way to see more or deeper, I was stuck". Google Earth proves the ideal car to express the unusual sense of both interconnection and disunion that both pervades the book and appears to epitomize our time. Sorry, something has gone incorrect and this action can't be finished. Closing this window without pressing "Report" will result in your words being lost. Sorry, something has gone incorrect and this action can't be finished. Painted from the viewpoint of the novel's storyteller, his use of colours, symbols and viewpoint uncovers a new angle on Martel's brazen myth.