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Vurt - novel as unending hallucinatory, wild, intense fever dream. Full Disclosure: I relished reading every single page.
How did Noon do it? In an interview, the British author recounts pouring fifteen years of personal frustration into his writing the novel, letting the burning and channeling just happen. Noon also cites reading lots of J.G. Ballard when he was young and being struck by Ballard's very personal, distinctive voice. When Noon read Ballard it was as if he entered Ballard's mind. And that's what he wanted to accomplish with his own writing: to have every single sentence be distinctively his, including his own take on how technology, dreams, music, drugs and the whole 1990s rave scene can penetrate our flesh.
Jeff Noon goes on to say he thrives on mixing literary genres in with surrealism and what's considered avant-garde. As a hater of conventional novels, he wanted to cut out the middle and jam different elements together within his story, invent new ways to tell his tale, recognizing much of the newness blossomed from his mad ideas.
Mad ideas? They gush, drip, stream and flutter off each page. Taste a handful of hits:
VURT
In this futuristic world, the drug of choice turns out to be a substance on various kinds of feathers. The potency runs from low-level legal Soapvurt where the user goes to live in a neat and tidy house and gets to interact with famous soap opera characters (seems like the whole world is hooked on Soapvurt) to illegal superpowerful feathers like Black Voodoo that propel you to a parallel reality where you will experience either ecstasy or a nightmare so frightening it will drive you into madness.
STASH RIDERS
The Riders are a gang of illegal Vurt junkies: Beetle (the leader), Mandy, Bridget, Twinkle, and the tale's narrator, twenty-three-year-old Scribble. The novel follows the month-long odyssey of these Vurt users in their city of Manchester. Through all the Stash Riders' moves, curves, swerves and highs, Jeff Noon zooms at turbocharged full-throttle. The English language on speed.
THING-FROM-OUTER-SPACE
Scribble lugs around a talking, feather imbibing blob that appears to be combination giant octopus and oily psychedelic slug he calls 'the alien' – and for good reason: this creature plopped in our world from the world of Vurt to maintain cosmic balance. That's right, Scribble's sister/lover Desdemona became trapped inside Vurt some time ago and something from Vurt had to take her place. Scribble attempts to travel to Vurtland with the alien by way of a rare Curious Yellow feather in order to rescue Desdemona via a switch, blob for sister. Scribble's desire to effect this switcheroo serves as the major drive and focus of Vurt.
SHADOWCOPS
“Broadcasting from the store wall, working his mechanisms; flickering lights in smoke. And then the flash of orange; an inpho beam shining out from the shadowcop's eyes. It caught Mandy in its flare-path, gathering knowledge.” One of the freakier elements in Jeff Noon's phantasmagorical tale: law and order shadowcops appear to be part flying android, part metaphysical mist creature capable of reading people's minds, exactly what Vurt junkies operating outside the law don't need.
DREAMSNAKES
“Dreamsnakes came out of a bad feather called Takshaka. Any time something small and worthless was lost to the Vurt, one of these snakes crept through in exchange. Those snakes were talking over, I swear. You couldn't move for them.” Thus speaketh Scribble. And Scribble should know since a dreamsnake once sunk its fangs into his lower leg. Result: Scribble always carries around something of the Vurt in his blood.
SHADOWGIRLS
“Bridget must have the same feeling; she was looking daggers at the new girl (Mandy), smoke rising from her skin, as she tried her best to tune into Beetle's head.” Bridget is a real human girl but with special qualities including the extrasensory ability to read other people's minds which makes her a shadowgirl. One thing's for certain: it bodes well Bridget is a bona fide member of the Stash Riders since, in the bugged out turf of this futuristic England, a gang needs all the powers it can muster.
FLESHCOPS AND ROBODOGS
“Murdoch's gun roared and flashed, but the dog was first, knocking her off her feet. The shecop was on the floor, Karli on top of her, biting at her face.” Oh, yes, the Stash Riders must square off against their ultimate nemesis: a real flesh and blood shecop by the name of Murdoch. And Murdoch isn't the kind of cop to give up when she wants to make a kill in the name of law and order. As for Karli, we're talking a dog critter that's pure android. Ah, yes, echoes of Philip K. Dick.
DAS UBERDOG
“A perfect split, straight across the middle. Sometimes it happens like that, once in a thousand matings. He was human from the waist up, dog from the waist down. He placed his fur-covered legs down on the floor, sitting on the bed, with the Karli in his strong arms.” What! How can such a half-half being have come into existence? Are we rumbling through a far distant futuristic England here, as in after nuclear war? No answers are provided; Jeff Noon leave it all to one's imagination.
GAME CAT PSYCOTERROR
“THE HAUNTINGS. This is the bitch incarnate. Once that ghost has got hold of you, you just gotta go with her. Back to life, back to the boredom. That's how you feel right? Except that the Haunting isn't a bad thing. What? What's that, the Cat's saying? Haunting isn't bad? Man, the Cat's losing it! Listen up, kittlings.” Scribble's narrative is punctuated by dreamy, vaporous quotes from GAME CAT. Who and what is this shadowy presence? You'll have to read the entire tale to fathom the mystery.
If what I've highlighted here grabs you and you're moved to pick up a copy of Vurt then I've done my job as reviewer. However, if you choose to take a pass then it might be best if you return to Anthony Trollope and pretend our everyday world is the only world that counts as real.
British author Jeff Noon, born 1957
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
sad
Everything you could ever dream of in a book. Then you read it and you’re like, wait, am I dreaming? One of my all-time faves.
Reading this book gave me a feeling of nostalgia for my student days as the novel is set in Manchester, with a lot of the action set around Rusholme/Platt Fields Park. There is one particular scene that would be immediately familiar to anyone who has ventured down the Curry Mile during Eid.
The backdrop for Noon's novel is a gritty, urban dystopia influenced by the Manchester rave scene, populated by a weird mix of hybrids (dogmen, robo-goths, shadows) and "pures". Recreational drug-taking has reached a new level of sophistication with virtual reality scenarios that can be experienced by ticking your tonsils with colour-coded "Vurt" feathers and which are reviewed by the elusive "Game Cat".
The storyline focuses on a small group of friends, the Stashriders, searching for their next hit and a lost companion, whilst narrowly evading the law through a series of evocative locations such as Bottletown and Turdsville, not to mention some of their Vurt hallucinations.
This novel will be particularly appreciated by anyone who has lived in Manchester and it is one of the most original works of speculative fiction I have read in a while.
The backdrop for Noon's novel is a gritty, urban dystopia influenced by the Manchester rave scene, populated by a weird mix of hybrids (dogmen, robo-goths, shadows) and "pures". Recreational drug-taking has reached a new level of sophistication with virtual reality scenarios that can be experienced by ticking your tonsils with colour-coded "Vurt" feathers and which are reviewed by the elusive "Game Cat".
The storyline focuses on a small group of friends, the Stashriders, searching for their next hit and a lost companion, whilst narrowly evading the law through a series of evocative locations such as Bottletown and Turdsville, not to mention some of their Vurt hallucinations.
This novel will be particularly appreciated by anyone who has lived in Manchester and it is one of the most original works of speculative fiction I have read in a while.
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
wow, what a bonkers book, reading makes you feel you have chased a curious yellow feather.
a twisted world with a jumble of characters chasing a good time. it's a puzzling book and you have to work to keep up but it's worth the effort.
the vivid images and story stick in your mind long after you have finished reading. a great original piece of writing
a twisted world with a jumble of characters chasing a good time. it's a puzzling book and you have to work to keep up but it's worth the effort.
the vivid images and story stick in your mind long after you have finished reading. a great original piece of writing
This was really something. Seems to be in the tradition of weird sci-fi like Harlan Ellison but with a Northern England Mancunian vibe running through, seems like something that's rife for an edgy film adaptation and kind of weird that it's not had one (I'm imagining Human Traffic but directed by David Cronenberg). My only true issue with it is that it's a little long, which is true with a lot of brave experimental first novels (I'm guessing this is a first novel), but at the same time there's a joy in seeing a writer unload so many ideas all at once like it's their one and only chance.