"People don't know what they want until you give it to them"

Coming fairly hot on the heels of Amis's 'Money', Frederic Beigbeder's '£9.99' was probably always going to be a disappointment. The novel's central character is a repulsive John Self type figure called Octave who's an ad executive:

"I pollute the universe. I'm the guy who sells you shit. Who makes you dream of things you'll never have. The sky's always blue, the girls are never ugly, perfect happiness touched up on Photoshop. Immaculate images, in-yer-face music. When, after painstaking saving, you manage to buy the car of your dreams (the one I shot in my last campaign), I will already have made it look out of date. I'm three trends ahead, and I make sure you're always frustrated. Glamour is a country that no one ever gets to. I intoxicate you with new things, and the advantage with the new is that it never stays new for long. There are always new new things to make the last lot look old. I want to make you drool - that's my vocation. No one in my profession actually wants you to be happy, because happy people don't spend."

The book reminded me of Rushdie's 'Fury' that I read earlier in the year, in the way that its characters and plot are incidental - indeed, even more so here. It just doesn't work as a novel, I don't think, and that's what I was expecting to read, so in that sense it was a major let-down.

It's much more like a seethingly caustic critique of advertising by someone who himself used to be a part of the industry, a critique which is only impeded by the vague and unsuccessful concessions to characterisation and narrative. If read this way, as a kind of essay (and there are numerous quotes dotted around which seem to be there to lend the "argument" credence), then it's full of savage and pithy observations:

"We used to put up gigantic photographs of products on walls, bus stops, houses, the ground, taxis, lorries, the scaffolding on buildings that were being restored, furniture, lifts, ticket machines, in every street and even in the country. Every aspect of life was invaded by bras, frozen foods, anti-dandruff shampoo and razors with three blades. The human eye had never been so solicited. It was estimated that in their first eighteen years, every person would be exposed to an average of 350,00 advertisements. Even on the edge of forests, in the middle of tiny villages, in the depths of isolated valleys and on top of the snow-capped mountains, on the cable cars themselves, you would have to confront logos from Marlboro, Microsoft, Badedas and Pretty Polly. Not a moment's rest for the retina of Homo consumiens."

"Do you know the difference between the rich and the poor? The poor sell drugs so that they can buy Nikes whereas the rich sell Nikes so that they can buy drugs."

Of course, by dressing it up (however loosely) as a work of fiction - which includes putting the words "a novel" conspicuously on the front cover - Beigbeder was no doubt able to get away with more than he would have done were he to present the book's contents as fact and authorial opinion. Even so, the thinness of the disguise (using Damione instead of Danone, for example) must have given Picador's lawyers some sleepless nights...

Following glowing recommendations from both Mike and Pete, I'm planning on checking out some Haruki Marakami stuff in the near future, but in the meantime it's a nice second-hand volume of selected Lawrence essays.