Book details of 'Transmission'

Title	Transmission
Author(s)	Hari Kunzru
ISBN	0525947604
Language	English
Publisher	Dutton Books

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The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Transmission':

Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
I should like this more than I do. It's not only a story about technology, but about viruses, and even about the antivirus industry. Unfortunately, it's not a really great story. Boy wants to come to America. Boy gets to come to America. Boy is a fish out of water. Boy gets job. Boy loses job. Boy writes a virus. Etc. However, I may be wrong in my assessment of the plot. It's hard to say that there *is* a plot: this seems to be just a loose collection of short stories, or even mere sketches. The writing is generally pedestrian: almost completely devoid of wit or poetry. (From the book jacket bio, it would appear that Kunzru was a journalist before he started writing novels. It shows in the turgid but steady relation of activities, without any explanation of motivations or character development that might make readers care.) While there are occasional flashes of style in places, in this work they only seem to make the dull, plodding progression of one darned thing after another that much more annoying. The characters are unattractive. They also seem to be inconsistent, but it is difficult to say that for sure, since we don't get to know very much about them. Personally, I stopped caring, fairly early on. The book is intended to be a comedy, or at least a satire: Ugly Americans/westerners, fish-out-of-water young Indian programmer. However, any supposed social observations are not exactly biting but merely whiny: real satire should have a point. The only message in the book seems to be that people are venal and stupid. This would seem to be a) apparent, and b) not worth taking almost 300 pages to point out. The technical references at the beginning of the book are reasonable. (Given the people who gave technical assistance, it would be a wonder otherwise.) However, Kunzru has learned just enough to pick up some buzzwords, without understanding the underlying concepts. The virus that is created in the book is the mythical supervirus: impossible to detect, infinitely malleable, and capable of infecting any possible computer or operating system platform. Just how it performs these miracles is left unstated. Basically, I suppose I am being hard on the book because it was disappointing. There are all kinds of interesting things to say about the clash between the world of style and the world of substance. (And interesting questions to ask about where information technology fits.) There are points to be raised about cross-cultural recruiting, management of technology, and even virus activity itself. Instead, Kunzru has given us a work where the impossible virus does silly and trivial things, ultimately ending up as little more than a running gag. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2004
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Book description:

In a networked world, anything can change in an instant, and sometimes everything does… Transmission, Hari Kunzru’s new novel of love and lunacy, immigration and immunity, introduces a daydreaming Indian computer geek whose luxurious fantasies about life in America are shaken when he accepts a California job offer. Lonely and naïve, Arjun Mehta bides his time as a lowly assistant virus tester, pining away for his free-spirited colleague Christine. Despite building digital creatures in a feeble attempt to enhance his job security, Arjun gets laid-off like so many of his Silicon Valley peers. In an act of desperation to keep his job, he releases a mischievous but destructive virus around the globe that has major unintended consequences. As world order unravels, so does Arjun’s sanity, in a rollicking cataclysm that reaches Bollywood and, not so coincidentally, the glamorous star of Arjun’s favorite Indian movie. Award-winning novelist Hari Kunzru was hailed as a "modern-day Kipling," for his best-selling debut, The Impressionist. And now, with his exuberant follow-up, Transmission, Kunzru takes an ultracontemporary turn in a stylish, playful, and wicked exploration of life at the click of a mouse.