If an author wants to write a book whose primary purpose seems to be to make a point, then either the point she is making better be incredibly profound, or the book so nuanced and textured that you are willing to forgive a little pedantry. Thoreau could craft a fine paragraph. Whitman crafted many fine lines. Camus was a master of atmosphere and deep questions. Dostoevsky wrapped his ideas in signature plots of complexity and unreasonably moving human emotion.
Caleb Carr is capable of none of these things, and his apparent philosophical position is about as deep as Anna Nicole after a blow to the head.
I have read Carr’s more popular early novels: The Alienist, which was an interesting mystery that took great advantage of Carr’s research into late 19th century New York, and then Angel of Darkness, a re-tread of his first book that prompted me to check the cover many times to see if I was reading that first book again. This should have been fair warning of the dreck to come.
In Killing Time, Carr has written a bad science fiction novel whose sole purpose for existence is to support his contention that the Internet is an evil force that must be regulated by the government before it destroys us all. Let me say that I am a fan of much science fiction, and recognize it as a genre that demands close attention, study and craftsmanship. Apparently Carr does not feel quite the same way. There are many wonderful works of speculative fiction that make forceful philosophical points within the framework of a powerful fiction. Killing Time does not.
I can’t bear to synopsize the book, but here is the copy from the book jacket.
In some ways, Carr’s novel is a throwback to the earlist sci-fi, with cardboard characters, unrealistic technology, and an outlandish plot sans any credible explanation of how things got the way they are. In this way it is almost a good children’s book except that, because of the polemical, anti-Internet tone, any sense of wonder or delight, even of the juvenile variety, is lost. The technology is unrealistic, but not fantastic. The plot exists only to convey the “unrestricted information flow is bad” theme.
Perhaps being the child of a Beatnik murderer has driven Carr to an unrelenting and unreasonable need for order and external authority. I don’t know. But I find a deeply flawed philosophical or political message much less offensive than that same position masquerading as a piece of art, which is offensive to readers and writers alike.
Too bad its still deeper than 99% of the stuff on your website- which may prove my point.
My book cascades through various possible scenarios in a future society(a la Spielberg’s “A.I.” or “Minority Report”)-and in the end, a primitive society- where technological centralization make it more and more possible for the few to dupe the many.
True, my book may not make much different points from standard satire like “Wag the Dog” or “Network”, but like those films, it is easy to consume and makes a point which many are scared to face.
Which is more relevant than anything Whitman, Camus or Dostoyevsky are currently telling us.
And maybe you can use this segment, from my Salon essay, as advice for your website:
It is my belief, for which I offer no apology, that most of that technology is making people dumber: It is teaching them how to assemble massive amounts of information, of arcane minutia, without simultaneously teaching them how to assemble those bits of information into integrated bodies of knowledge — such integration being the only function that distinguishes the human brain from a mechanical computer.
Leave a Reply