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Title
Transmission
Hari Kunzru
Review
Arjun Mehta, computer programmer and devoted Bollywood fan, product of modern India’s burgeoning cities and booming economy, lands a dream job in “magical America” and seeks to make his fortune. Instead, he finds himself trapped in the United States among causalities of the global economy, living on the outskirts of Nowhere, California, working for a seedy labor contractor for a fraction of what he is worth. Then he loses his job. In desperation, Arjun releases a video, a transmission, of his favorite Bollywood star, Leela Zahir, dancing across the screen in her latest movie, Naughty Naughty, Lovely Lovely. The 5 second video contains a virus that wreaks havoc on computer networks from continent to continent.
Welcome to Hari Kunzru’s Transmission, a what-if tale of what can go wrong in an economy that is so global and so interconnected with computers. Kunzru follows a cast of characters across the world, from Guy Swift, a high-flying London financier long on style and short on liquid assets, to Leela Zahir herself, India’s Bollywood sweetheart, as the virus forever affects their lives.
I read Transmission when it was first published, and it resonates still today as a tale of technology and its pitfalls. Kunzru, a former travel reporter for The Guardian and other newspapers, shows his cultural acuity as he guides his characters through the United Kingdom, India, and the United States, with stops along the way at places like the Kiritimati atoll in the Pacific, and, briefly, Guthrie, Oklahoma. Kunzru paints stereotypes and then humanizes them as the virus redirects their lives.
Transmission is a great after-finals read about an event that is disturbingly easy to visualize. The library also owns Kunzru’s Gods Without Men, another finely crafted and completely different tale of America. ~ Ona Britton-Spears
Review Date
Reviewed November 2013
