Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
OK, let's just take it as read that Cory Doctorow is great for publishing all of his novels under a creative commons license and get straight to the point: This book is freaking weird. And not just because the protagonist is an ambiguously named, navelless Mary Sue whose father is a mountain and whose mother is a washing machine ("he kept a roof over our heads, she kept our clothes clean." it rhymes, get it?*), not because there are characters who are, unironically, Russian nesting dolls (they can't digest food unless all three of them and appropriately stacked), not because the heroes girlfriend has wings that need to be trimmed regularly so she can appear in public, and certainly not because the various handy man tasks that the hero does are described in glorious, meticulous detail. No, this book is freaking weird because of how it randomly and capriciously jumps from a (granted low stakes) Cryptonomiconian techno-thriller about dumpter diving for computer parts to make routers to provide free wi-fi to downtown Toronto, to a quasi horror story about Danny,Doug,Davey**, the psychotic brother chasing down Alan,(Albert,Aaron), to a story-within-a-story allegory about being one's brother's keeper.***
At a thematic level, everything is linked. All of the stories are about how people depend on each other both in explicit and implicit ways. (The brother's keeper-ness being an example of the former, dumpster diving an example of the latter.) But while the novel is heavy on ideas and examples it's low on conclusions.*** What is to be done about Davey,Devin,Darcy, the psychotic and evil brother? He can't be killed, he is an entirely unredeemable malevolent force.**** Everyone loves the idea of free municipal wifi, but who provides the electricity? Who provides the bandwidth?
Or maybe I'm missing the point. As I've commented in my other reviews of Cory Doctorow books, he does a fine job of packing an emotional punch, within reason. The flashback sequence of Alan and his first girlfriend are sweet and moving and heartbreaking.
I have a great deal of respect for Cory Doctorows writing *and* his ideas. I think he's Right an awful lot of the time, and what he says, he usually says very well, but this novel could have really, *really* benefited from some kind of grand unifying conclusion?
But, as i've said before. Cory Doctorow writes fascinating, moving, highly readable, grandly ambitious and deeply flawed novels. I'm glad he does what he does, but I think i'm ready for a break.
* This is apparently a Gene Wolfe literrary reference, so bonus points to Mr. Doctorow for digging deep into the archive.
**Oh, yeah, did I mention none of the characters have a name? Over the course of their appearances in the novel, only their first initials remain constant. This has lead to a delightful remix of the novel where a script dynamically randomizes the first names as you read. (http://craphound.com/someone/) Brilliant!
*** This is straight out of the classical Doctorowian playbook, actually.
**** This degree of malevolvence is one of the most genuinely scary things I've read recently and his character is one of the high points of the novel, but loses something for not having anything resembling a cathartic climax.
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