Authors: Nick Hornby

Ten Years in the Tub (87 page)

BOOK: Ten Years in the Tub

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The Happiest Man in the World
made me think, though. Mostly I ended up thinking about the nature and value of experiences and memories, although I didn't get very far. Crossing the Atlantic on a raft or staying in to watch TVâ¦ It's all the same, in the end, isn't it? There comes a time when it's over, and all you can do is talk about it. And if that's the case, thenâ¦ I'm sorry. If you bother with this column at all, it's probably because you're looking for book tips. You probably don't want to hear that all human endeavor is pointless.

Here's a tip: M. T. Anderson's
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. This is yet another book that can be added to an increasingly long list entitled “YA Novels I'd Never Heard of But Which Turn Out to Be Modern Classics,” and
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may well be the best of the lot. It's a sci-fi novel about a world in which everybody is plugged directly into a never-ending stream of text messages, shopping recommendations, pop music, and movie trailersâthis is metaphor rather than predictionâand as a consequence Anderson's characters are frighteningly malleable and disturbingly inarticulate. Even the president of the U.S. has trouble with words!
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is funny, serious, sad (there's a heartbreaking doomed romance at the center), and
superbly realized; the moment I finished it I bought Anderson's latest novel, which is completely different. (It's set in 1775, and it's about a boy who's raised by a group of rational philosophers, so it sounds like the author has allowed himself to be seduced by the promise of a quick buck.) I haven't even read the beginning of it yet, though. It's a novel, so I very much doubt whether there will be any interesting facts in the opening pages. I rather fear that I'm turning into my father.