Saturday, July 24, 2010

Literature and Technology: No, this is not a post about the e-book. . .

Tom McCarthy is one of the smartest writers I've ever read and wholly original.  His first novel Remainder is so imaginative, so unusual and so enjoyable that it's almost impossible to describe without spoiling the reader's pleasure. He is especially good at endings as his second novel Men in Space proved so admirably. He's written a very interesting piece in The Guardian on literature and technology, the literature of technology, and how technology helps us understand literature. You can read it here.

McCarthy also talks about his new novel C which will be out in early September. It also immerses itself with the experimentation and effects with early communication technology in the first part of the twentieth century. He set the novel on purpose between 1898, when Marconi was experimenting with radio and 1922 when the BBC was founded (and some key modernist works published - Ulysess, The Waste Land).

1 comment:

Isabella K said...

Thanks for pointing out this article. I just finished reading Remainder and am eager now to search out everything else McCarthy has written.