BOOK REVIEW: Who would have thought that a satirical dystopian tale could be such a fun, if terrifying, romp. Well, Kurt Vonnegut probably would and there is, among others, a Vonnegutian flavour to Melbourne-based Jordan Prosser’s Big Time. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four begins, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” Now, imagine the boot is all sparkly with a platform sole, tapping out a beat on that face and the face is loving it.
There is a lot of positive buzz across the ditch about this book, and you can understand why. Prosser, a film-maker and actor as well as an author, is a beautiful writer. This is his debut novel, and he hits the ground running.
The film-maker frequently comes through in the writing, which at times reminds one of a less-jaded Chuck Palahniuk when he was still a bit punk, Ben Elton when he was still funny and, at times, Jennifer Egan at her most cinematic and Proustian. Prosser’s pacing is perfectly judged. His characters feel fully realised. His prose is rich, sometimes poetic, sometimes brutal. How is it possible for a first novel to be this good?
The setting is, as these things often are, the not-too-distant future, assuming things carry on as they are, but down the really, really bad leg of the trousers of time. Australia’s eastern states have become an autocratic North Korea lite called East Australia, joining the ranks of Airstrip One, The Hunger Games’ Panem and the Republic of Gilead.
The regime controls the internet – the Great Barrier Reef equivalent to the Great Firewall – all media, pop music is a convenient propaganda tool, science is bad, and morality is strictly policed and weaponised. Julian Ferryman plays bass in the band The Acceptables. He’s been away for a year overseas and has just returned to record the band’s much-anticipated second album.
Outside East Australia, time itself seems to be becoming unstuck. Inside, a highly addictive, hallucinogenic drug called “F” is spreading – drop it in your eyes and it gives you visions of your own future. Julian is introduced to it early on, on the plane, actually, by a fanboying Kiwi flight attendant. The more F you take, the further into the future you see. Julian just wants to make music, but the band’s lead singer keeps making the kind of political songs that the government very much doesn’t like. And Julian is having visions of East Australians rising up against the government.
To an extent, you need to have a familiarity with Australia and its culture and live music scene to really appreciate how close Prosser cuts to the bone as the band tours East Australia’s states with increasingly Hunter S Thompson-esque gonzo surrealism. That’s part of the delight, leading you through the familiar and then punching you with the unheimlich right in the uncanny valley.
The F is a nice, Philip K Dick-esque touch. How, after all, does the ability to see the future, at least what appears to be the future, affect free will? Do events roll out because of causality or does knowledge of the future force the users of the drug to follow a predetermined script. And how far into the future can F let you see, exactly? Much of the plot circles around what F is and trying to keep ahead of the government’s machinations.
The centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is about to be let loose upon the world. But how will it end? With a bang? With a whimper? Or something else entirely unexpected? This is a novel that does not easily give up its surprises. It is extremely rare that I say this, but I could not put it down. Truly, if you were to read just one Australian novel this year, it should be this one.
