Offmessage

Hey Nostradamus is a truly striking book. Written in 4 voices over 15 years - Cheryl, a student killed in a highschool massacre, Jason, her sweetheart - irreperably damaged by events, Hazel, the girl who tries to love Jason years later, and Reg, Jason’s zealot father. Cheryl’s section of the book is calmy horrifying as she describes the events that lead up to and follow her death hiding under a table in the cafeteria. Jason’s struggle with his reaction to the events and the effect that they had on his life is ultimately darker and less naive, leading us further into the psychology of trauma. The book turns as we meet Hazel, where we see the possibility of redemption and recovery and then finally Reg’s story, where we’re presented with the final uplifting sweep of the book.

Coupland has tried to write this book a number of times before - Life After God in 1993 was his first proper treatment of his soon to become recurring themes of family, religion, love and redemption. Girlfriend in a Coma in 1997 hit the spot again bringing a more whimsical and almost magical realist take on the same themes. Miss Wyoming didn�t sell as well as other novels but is another master work in the same vein. But it is Hey Nostradamus that it is going to really stick as the culmination of his efforts.

Over his career he has consistently shown his class simply through the fact that hardcore fans often recommend his most recent book as his best. Through the continuing development of similar ideas, through his desire to keep approaching the nut of the problem from ever differing angles his ideas have achieved greater clarity, meaning that each novel brings up something new for the reader.

It is clear that the subject of the Columbine shootings has dramatically affected Coupland. On his web site there is an image with soundtrack of Tropical Birds, an installation he has done about that very subject. It shows a destroyed school cafeteria, while the eerie soundtrack is made up of the ringing of a hundred unanswered mobile phones and pagers. This is an image that every modern disaster brings � the Paddington rail crash brought something very similar; I remember being horrified by the shots on the News at 10 of the empty carriage full of ringing mobile phones. That simple question � �are you alright� � going unanswered� The knowledge that we, the voyeurs, the media consumers, know the answer. Disturbing, shocking and thoroughly modern.

Having such a powerful subject around which to wrap his latest work has given it a greater depth than many of his other works. In this book his key themes are beautifully and tightly interwoven around a rock solid emotional backbone. The seemingly whimsical narrative style that he has employed so many times before has real hidden depth this time around, with subtly masked and menacing creatures swimming just under the surface of the sometimes almost saccharine prose.

If you�ve read Coupland before you know that all he�s ever wanted to do was ask the big questions. This book is no different, but this time he�s got the closest ever to answering them. This is an amazing journey through life, death, love and redemption. Read It.

From this week’s b3ta newsletter. I literally spat beer all over my computer:

>> Playmobil Porn < <
We asked for weird porn. We’re not
sure this is porn or just some strange
gynecological exercise. Playmobil
figures Vs Vagina. Vagina wins. But
with pics like these we’re all winners
winners. Warning: close-up vaginal
photography.
http://users.skynet….ymobiel.html

Rilke is an auctioneer for a low rent auction house in Glasgow, who’s offered the job of a lifetime in clearing an old lady’s house. Things like this are always too good to be true however and this particular job is no different. In clearing one of the rooms of the house he comes across what appears to be very old snuff pornography. Through a combination of sentiment and uncontrollable curiousity he makes it his mission to discover if the photographs are real, and if so, who took them… What follows is a slow trip through the sexual underbelly of Glasgow, from fetish shops and private photo clubs to the weekly transvestite coffee morning; all with Rilke as our guide.

The Cutting Room is one of Canongate’s new wave of crime fiction. Quite a lot is made of Louise Welsh’s novel about this ageing and seedy auctioneer from the lower end of Glasgow’s antiques trade. Among other rather over effusive bits of blurb on the cover we’re told that “Crime fiction has finally found it’s award winner”; Canongate themselves are (even for them) unusually noisy about the book, and the film rights are already sold.

Welsh’s language and narrative style creates a lazy, languid yet ultimately disturbing world which the main characters slip through with all too consumate ease. That combined with a complex plot should make for a gripping read, and initially it does. You find yourself drawn in to the story as a number of interesting characters begin to develop within the story.

Something hit me pretty quickly though… They never develop fully - in fact you lose interest in them as the story continues. It’s difficult to empathise with Rilke, or in fact any of the other characters - as the story winds on they become less likeable and more two-dimensional. It is clearly Welsh’s intention that we shouldn’t like her protagonist - what I didn’t get is why it should be so hard to understand exactly why he’s doing what he’s doing. He’s a sad old man, yes, but is that enough to explain the lengths to which he takes his investigations? There’s never quite enough of him exposed for you to see his reasoning and unfortunately none of the other characters are any more revealing (or ultimately less stereotypical) than Rilke becomes by the end.

My problems came when I found my interest starting to slip and the plot becoming increasingly more confusing. It’s not that there are particularly many twists and turns, or that even the grand denoument is that surprising… It’s just that by the end I really couldn’t care who’d done it, and in fact I could scarcely remember what it was they were supposed to have done.

All in all this was a diverting few hours, but it hasn’t opened my eyes to a new side of Glasgow, nor has it opened my ears to a new Scottish voice… It’s not a bad book, but I’m afraid I can’t get excited about it…