Imagine a f*cked up life coach inadvertently giving you Universal Wisdom by making you play a video game that closely resembles Life. “Some skills take a lot of training to acquire, bro” – he’s squatting next to you in your dirty bedroom – “you cannot just go into a store to purchase Hypnotism Skills or Extended Reason”. You nod. Neither of you have to look each other in the eye because you can both look straight at the screen and pretend you’re not talking about either a) you or – b) real life – EVER. It’s pretty cosy. This is The Broken World.
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I first read The Broken World in my first year of full-time employment at a literary agency. It was the only book I could finish at the time. I mustn’t say things like I was feeling depressed outside of university floundering even with a job which was meant to be enviable because I’ll strike myself as seeming ungrateful – but, in short, I was working in books and hardly reading them. I’m taking this book off my bookshelf now because I lent it to two people and neither of them could finish it – “nothing happens” they complained. This is true. Most of the action in this novel is conceptual. (Most of it.) In so far as its a gamer narrator walking you through what’s happening inside a game world but since imagining what characters do in novels is already conceptual I don’t see much of a difference. It’s all described beautifully by the narrator because he betrays no digital prejudice. He believes in the possibility of real beauty in pixels. And philosophical insight. Which is so endearing to me. This exists alongside the “standard action adventure stuff” like suburban shopping malls full of zombies waiting to get domestically hammered…
We have two problems here already:
1. I like video games ( I’m a pick-me girl )
2. I like being told what to do [through the safe distance of a book] ( I’m a pick-me girl )
That’s the clickbait out the way. This novel is written as a walkthrough for a video game called The Broken World so you can expect instructions like Claudio will not come with the diamonds in the suitcase if you didn’t speak to Greg Nolan in the Park and collect the butterflies from him the weekend before – which, if you’re feeling depressed, will strike you as a wonderful commentary on the absurd idiosyncrasies of existence and success.
It’s written by Tim Etchells who doesn’t identify as a comedian which is surprising because I think he’s very funny. The scope of this novel is comfortingly tiny and self-involved. Which strangely, is my style. Think guy in his bedroom playing an infinitely detailed video game all night long and posting his advice on a forum – obsessively. Game worlds, like novels, are necessarily contained. I’m sure I took the same pleasure in reading this book about a guy playing a video game in his dirty bedroom as many guys take pleasure in playing video games in their dirty bedrooms. Video games are incredible ciphers for uncomfortable emotions. But it’s the combination here that really works. The “unpoeticness” of the set-up: a video game walkthrough (“go to fourth town and rescue Rachel”), the constant bro-ing, the web chat names “Tomahawk”, “JarHEAD” etc. & then the crystalline moments of unpretentious life poetry (“press your head against the glass and let the world go by”). He capitalises Time like it’s a character or a Power Up – which I love. Time swoops in. Time steals the show. Emotions & States of Being are also capitalised e.g. I return to this review with Second Thoughts or Lame Excitement. Also there’s a brilliant dualism going on because there’s the video game which it’s ostensibly about and then there’s his real life which keeps creeping in (news of his messy flat; his job at the pizza delivery place; his fights with his girlfriend) and it’s good having this dichotomy. Let’s go to my favourite level now = The Crowded Earth.
In this level you wake up in a city surrounded by tall buildings and lots of people you don’t know and you notice a massive billboard which reads “I DID NOT KNOW DEATH HAD UNDONE SO MANY” which causes you to sly wink at your old English teacher (heeeeeelllllllooooo.) To pass this level you need to find a key. Someone in the crowded earth knows the key and you just have to find them. Sounds simple right? Wrong. You have no idea who this person is and there are NO clues & NO short cuts as to who or where they are. @GrinningCat says you’ve got to adopt a state of “wishless waiting” here to succeed – this is a case of search and you will not find but drift, drift, and it will come to you. Which is every depressed person’s lullaby. Action is not the basis of success (no fortune cookie, no) Destiny is at work whilst I sit here on this bench…. (sort of.) But you’d be better off walking around the city as it takes you and interacting with as many people as possible. In the rest of the game you have access to magic potions and irresponsible artillery, but in this level the only weapons at your disposal are Patience and Free Floating Desire. So good luck. What you can do is make sure you’ve always got a pen and paper handy because the key will come to you in the form of a 27 digit code – and you don’t know when. It could get whispered to you by a drunk girl you’ve been riding with in the back of a rickshaw, or ringed by a sweaty bank clerk in the numbers of a bank statement, or written in the sand by a friend you’re falling in love with against your better judgements, or chalked by some dumbass kids on the wall at the end of a long long garden in a house you just happen to be staying in when all hope is gone etc etc etc. I think you can imagine why I like this level so much. Because it’s exactly how I figure strangers. Full of unearthly potential. Of course it’s also a good metaphor for falling in love and a brilliant parody on the idea of finding the one.
I decide I don’t need to finish this book to remember I back it.
I return it to the bookshelf. That was easy enough.
Go to next book —> Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
With the hidden enormity of being back,
Tilly
Quotations from the book:
[pending until I get my copy back]
