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I don't know about you guys but whenever I read a novel that's halfway passable, I turn the last page a little bit sadly. These are characters that, love or hate, I have spent lots of time riding the subway and procrastinating with. It's sad to see the final print that puts them to rest. I usually want an epilogue... a little bit more.

Now I like how contemporary authors are starting to get a little bit 'real' with their drama. That is to say, specifically, they are acknowledging that this big crazy thing called The Internet exists and that their characters would probably use it from time to time. Because, you know, they'd be freaks if they didn't. Email! Text messages on phones! Fucking insane cyber-donkeys!

Usually the author will cleverly think up some witty login handle for their protagonist and stuff it haphazardly into the plot. Or they'll mention a character's blog, or Google searches they've done, or whatever. Canadian Jesus Douglas Coupland does this, by the way, all the time. In Eleanor Rigby, the book's title comes solely from our leading lady's email address: eleanorrigby@arctic.ca. That's a pretty salient plot point, wouldn't you think? Something that people might be curious about interacting with, given the possibilities of this beatific cyber-world we currently prance in? I mean it's right there.

Well let me tell you, I wrote a very compassionate email to Liz (the character), telling her how I thought she probably had psychic powers at that point in the narrative - I wasn't done the book yet. I poured my heart out to this make-believe woman for at least 30 seconds. A few hours later, the email bounced back. Address does not exist. What the fuck, Douglas Coupland?? You're supposed to be the voice of modernist counter-malaise.

Where's my clever e-epilogue? How come TV shows like Heroes get to have fictitious online personas and yet the novel, the esteemable madame of the fiction world, is a static hardboiled entity cooked between two covers? Now I am sure that some novels on the precipitous edge of publishing have played with interactive elements, but I haven't found them yet. It's a little upsetting. I think it's rather unfair to write the Internet into your storylines and not let it work for you. Or, more specifically, to work for me.

[Douglas Coupland] [Eleanor Rigby] [books] [fiction] [interactive characters]

Posted by Chris at 10:41 PM >> Commentations (3)