PopCo by Scarlett Thomas
It’s been a while since I’ve been properly disappointed in a book. I must have been lucky because I’ve had a run of books recently that I’ve really enjoyed (I have reviewed some of them here but I have some more to do).
The book is PopCo by Scarlett Thomas. It’s all about a girl called Alice Butler who grew up with her code breaking grandparents (after her mother died and her father disappeared) and who now works for a toy company designing new toys. It is a novel with two distinct threads - the coding, mathematics and patterns of the world Alice grew up in, and the team-building nonsense of a PopCo retreat which turns into something a bit more sinister (just a bit, though).
The coding part of the book is excellent - very enjoyable, very twisty and full of information (although I continue to be rubbish at code breaking no matter how many guides I read). The mystery of Alice’s father disappearing and the various puzzles, theorems and conundrums her grandparents are working on are really interesting. Alice’s teenage life and her covert battles with society and teachers are well-drawn and I could empathise with teenage Alice.
The PopCo stuff starts off pretty intriguing, with a healthy dose of English discomfort at being pushed into team-building activities where you either know the answers (because you’ve heard the questions before) or you stand around awkwardly being made to participate when you’d really rather just get on with things. Meanwhile, Alice starts to get mysterious messages that seem to come from someone who knows about her past.
Unfortunately, the deeper we get into the novel and the deeper we get into the mystery (which is not satisfyingly resolved imo, but I’ll get to that), the deeper we get into some utter bollocks. Bollocks like homeopathy being a valid medical treatment, for one thing (I nearly stopped reading when this got introduced but stuck with it in case it was just a minor part of Alice’s personality - haha, nope). It isn’t. It really, really isn’t. And using homeopathy doesn’t make you principled or intelligent or somehow sticking it to the man, it makes you a gullible idiot.
NB: had Alice’s enthusiasm for homeopathy been framed as her being paranoid about Big Pharma or modern medicine I would have been happier with it, as she had been shown to have reasons to be paranoid growing up.
And there was also bollocks like being hammered over the head by the author lecturing us through the characters on how everyone should be vegan and if you’re a vegetarian you’re just as bad as meat eaters, so there.
There was also the matter of NoCo, who turn out to be a secret cell of anti-corporation protestors working inside big corporations to damage their profit line. I am not pro-corporations by any means, but this was nonsense. It seemed like a bunch of former idealists felt like they’d ended up selling out and so were taking part in sabotage that may or may not have worked out to make them feel better about themselves. Except they’re characters in this book so actually we were supposed to see them as brave and standing up for themselves against big scary PopCo. Oh, do shut up.
There was an odd bit where Alice goes into a shop and rips a seam on a PopCo toy because she’s sticking it to the man!! And damaging their profits!!, except she isn’t. The toy will be bought, returned when the damage is found, and returned to manufacturer. It might damage their profits by £30 or so (if they refund the shop), but what it will do is cause extra work for the shop. That isn’t part of a big corporation. You go, Alice! Well done! This is before she knows about NoCo, so she’s just being a silly little child.
The weird thing is, this is not an anti-capitalist book, it’s just an anti-corporation one. It’s not even particularly anti-consumerism. As impractical (impossible?) as true anti-capitalism is in this day and age, I could have understood that philosophy a bit more than ‘corporations are bad, yeah, but don’t feel like you have to make any changes to your lifestyle to combat them’.
The thing is you can reduce your consumption (or make it more ethical) with a bit of thought and effort. I’m not a shining example of this by any stretch (I’m currently on a three-month self-imposed ban on buying craft stuff and an indefinite self-imposed ban on buying notebooks*), but you don’t have to give any business your money. You might not have a huge choice all the time, but you can choose where your money goes. And yes it may make things a bit more difficult, and yes, people do tend to a) think you’re weird and b) get weirdly defensive if you ever talk about it, but you can do it. But I guess it’s just not as dramatic as corporate sabotage**.
Also I’m just going to quote this from Oysters but no pearls, because it’s exactly how I felt:
Another thing that made my brain explode, because it makes no sense at all, is that Thomas then goes on to say that you can’t be expected to do everything right, and that if you don’t want to give up smoking, it’s okay, even though your money goes to support Big Tobacco. Why does she emphasize that one should give up animal products in order to lead a moral life, but waves aside other things like giving up cigarettes? The tobacco industry isn’t exactly super friendly, plus a while back they merged with Kraft and now own all of the processed foods in the world as well. Why wave that aside? I have no fucking idea. Thomas probably just loves smoking. Who knows. Look, none of it makes sense. The argumentation is dumb as a bag of bricks, people.
oystersbutnopearls.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/book-review-popco-by-scarlett-thomas
One other thing I just didn’t quite get was the resolution of the mystery about who is sending Alice the mysterious notes (it’s NoCo, to see if they can recruit her). I felt that having spent a long time worrying about this and being extra-careful (burning the notes, for example), Alice didn’t question NoCo’s motives or how they got the information they needed (they said it was from personnel files but that didn’t quite ring true to me). I was expecting her to at least question them or possibly for another twist to be that NoCo weren’t what they said they were (this was also partially because they were so pointless), but no, they revealed themselves, there was a massive love-in about how great and cool and daring they all were, the end. It was very unsatisfying.
I wouldn’t recommend this book because however interesting the code and cryptography bits are, and however interesting Alice is (especially young Alice), you need to either completely agree with the author’s worldview or enjoy being lectured on veganism, homeopathy and how bad corporations are. More than that, you need to enjoy being lectured on this by an authorial voice that doesn’t even have a consistent worldview.
* That ban is lifted when I am abroad (because of Clairefontaine stuff, basically) and doesn’t extend to people buying me notebooks. I really really like notebooks, ok?
** In case anyone is interested: my gas/electricity is through Good Energy, who have been v good so far: www.goodenergy.co.uk/, I stopped using Lush after reading how they treat their staff and as a result discovered the amazing Future Primitive:
www.futureprimitivesoap.co.uk/ and I only use Amazon these days for LoveFilm because they bought them (I should probably change this). Oh, and if I want to buy a book I always check here first: www.greenmetropolis.com/.
This entry was originally posted at http://hestia8.dreamwidth.org/60993.html.
The book is PopCo by Scarlett Thomas. It’s all about a girl called Alice Butler who grew up with her code breaking grandparents (after her mother died and her father disappeared) and who now works for a toy company designing new toys. It is a novel with two distinct threads - the coding, mathematics and patterns of the world Alice grew up in, and the team-building nonsense of a PopCo retreat which turns into something a bit more sinister (just a bit, though).
The coding part of the book is excellent - very enjoyable, very twisty and full of information (although I continue to be rubbish at code breaking no matter how many guides I read). The mystery of Alice’s father disappearing and the various puzzles, theorems and conundrums her grandparents are working on are really interesting. Alice’s teenage life and her covert battles with society and teachers are well-drawn and I could empathise with teenage Alice.
The PopCo stuff starts off pretty intriguing, with a healthy dose of English discomfort at being pushed into team-building activities where you either know the answers (because you’ve heard the questions before) or you stand around awkwardly being made to participate when you’d really rather just get on with things. Meanwhile, Alice starts to get mysterious messages that seem to come from someone who knows about her past.
Unfortunately, the deeper we get into the novel and the deeper we get into the mystery (which is not satisfyingly resolved imo, but I’ll get to that), the deeper we get into some utter bollocks. Bollocks like homeopathy being a valid medical treatment, for one thing (I nearly stopped reading when this got introduced but stuck with it in case it was just a minor part of Alice’s personality - haha, nope). It isn’t. It really, really isn’t. And using homeopathy doesn’t make you principled or intelligent or somehow sticking it to the man, it makes you a gullible idiot.
NB: had Alice’s enthusiasm for homeopathy been framed as her being paranoid about Big Pharma or modern medicine I would have been happier with it, as she had been shown to have reasons to be paranoid growing up.
And there was also bollocks like being hammered over the head by the author lecturing us through the characters on how everyone should be vegan and if you’re a vegetarian you’re just as bad as meat eaters, so there.
There was also the matter of NoCo, who turn out to be a secret cell of anti-corporation protestors working inside big corporations to damage their profit line. I am not pro-corporations by any means, but this was nonsense. It seemed like a bunch of former idealists felt like they’d ended up selling out and so were taking part in sabotage that may or may not have worked out to make them feel better about themselves. Except they’re characters in this book so actually we were supposed to see them as brave and standing up for themselves against big scary PopCo. Oh, do shut up.
There was an odd bit where Alice goes into a shop and rips a seam on a PopCo toy because she’s sticking it to the man!! And damaging their profits!!, except she isn’t. The toy will be bought, returned when the damage is found, and returned to manufacturer. It might damage their profits by £30 or so (if they refund the shop), but what it will do is cause extra work for the shop. That isn’t part of a big corporation. You go, Alice! Well done! This is before she knows about NoCo, so she’s just being a silly little child.
The weird thing is, this is not an anti-capitalist book, it’s just an anti-corporation one. It’s not even particularly anti-consumerism. As impractical (impossible?) as true anti-capitalism is in this day and age, I could have understood that philosophy a bit more than ‘corporations are bad, yeah, but don’t feel like you have to make any changes to your lifestyle to combat them’.
The thing is you can reduce your consumption (or make it more ethical) with a bit of thought and effort. I’m not a shining example of this by any stretch (I’m currently on a three-month self-imposed ban on buying craft stuff and an indefinite self-imposed ban on buying notebooks*), but you don’t have to give any business your money. You might not have a huge choice all the time, but you can choose where your money goes. And yes it may make things a bit more difficult, and yes, people do tend to a) think you’re weird and b) get weirdly defensive if you ever talk about it, but you can do it. But I guess it’s just not as dramatic as corporate sabotage**.
Also I’m just going to quote this from Oysters but no pearls, because it’s exactly how I felt:
Another thing that made my brain explode, because it makes no sense at all, is that Thomas then goes on to say that you can’t be expected to do everything right, and that if you don’t want to give up smoking, it’s okay, even though your money goes to support Big Tobacco. Why does she emphasize that one should give up animal products in order to lead a moral life, but waves aside other things like giving up cigarettes? The tobacco industry isn’t exactly super friendly, plus a while back they merged with Kraft and now own all of the processed foods in the world as well. Why wave that aside? I have no fucking idea. Thomas probably just loves smoking. Who knows. Look, none of it makes sense. The argumentation is dumb as a bag of bricks, people.
oystersbutnopearls.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/book-review-popco-by-scarlett-thomas
One other thing I just didn’t quite get was the resolution of the mystery about who is sending Alice the mysterious notes (it’s NoCo, to see if they can recruit her). I felt that having spent a long time worrying about this and being extra-careful (burning the notes, for example), Alice didn’t question NoCo’s motives or how they got the information they needed (they said it was from personnel files but that didn’t quite ring true to me). I was expecting her to at least question them or possibly for another twist to be that NoCo weren’t what they said they were (this was also partially because they were so pointless), but no, they revealed themselves, there was a massive love-in about how great and cool and daring they all were, the end. It was very unsatisfying.
I wouldn’t recommend this book because however interesting the code and cryptography bits are, and however interesting Alice is (especially young Alice), you need to either completely agree with the author’s worldview or enjoy being lectured on veganism, homeopathy and how bad corporations are. More than that, you need to enjoy being lectured on this by an authorial voice that doesn’t even have a consistent worldview.
* That ban is lifted when I am abroad (because of Clairefontaine stuff, basically) and doesn’t extend to people buying me notebooks. I really really like notebooks, ok?
** In case anyone is interested: my gas/electricity is through Good Energy, who have been v good so far: www.goodenergy.co.uk/, I stopped using Lush after reading how they treat their staff and as a result discovered the amazing Future Primitive:
www.futureprimitivesoap.co.uk/ and I only use Amazon these days for LoveFilm because they bought them (I should probably change this). Oh, and if I want to buy a book I always check here first: www.greenmetropolis.com/.
This entry was originally posted at http://hestia8.dreamwidth.org/60993.html.