Bright Young Things - Scarlett Thomas

Branching out into books this time, I’ve been reading Bright Young Things by Scarlett Thomas. Originally published in 2001, it’s stuffed full of pop culture references from the nineties / early noughties – some of which I can remember, some of which (namely the video game references) are entirely lost on me.

With not a great deal of action in the story, the book is basically about a group of twenty-somethings sitting around talking about not very much. In each chapter, the focus is on one particular character’s thoughts and perspective. There is no consistent overarching or omniscient narrative, as we spend time with each of the 6 characters and we only ever know what at least one of the characters knows. This means that the central mystery in the book is subject to a lot of speculation but never resolved to a certainty.

I guess this is what Scarlett Thomas means in her preface to this 2012 edition, when she claims that it’s a postmodern novel. Lots of individual perspectives give us lots of stories but no central ‘truth’, and the characters discuss their own predicament with about the same degree of attention they give to discussing Neighbours.

We’ve all been there, I suppose.

The other comparison the author draws in her preface is to the turn of the century reality shows, such as Big Brother and Castaway. Inevitably, seeing a group of characters removed from their own environment and put in a house together on a remote island will conjure up certain associations for those of us who watched TV in 2000. And that the characters argue, pair up, talk rubbish, and worry about their supply of cigarettes, makes it all the more familiar.

This must have been a very zeitgeist-y book at the time. Now, just over a decade later, it definitely feels like it’s from another era. What’s the latest thing? Is there a post-postmodernism? Is there a novel being written now that captures 2013 in the way that Bright Young Things captures the turn of the millennium?

A quick word on the book’s cover, because it’s always fun to analyse a cover. It’s clearly been re-done to resemble the author’s other, later, works and to fit in with their distinctive visual branding. But there are palm trees on the cover, and compass motifs. Did they not read the book? It’s not a desert island the characters are on – in the book they guess at Scotland!

I must admit I was expecting something quite different having only seen the cover – something more Robinson Crusoe-ish, possibly.

And the blurb on the back of the book, too, makes it sound like there’s more plot than there actually is, as if the characters might try to escape rather than just sit around talking. I’m not saying that that’s what the book ought to have been like; just that the cover suggested something different from what was inside.

This is essentially a book about flawed, not always particularly pleasant people talking to each other. And while it sometimes felt too much like a writing exercise in character and perspective, I still found it an engaging read. Not as page-turning as The End of Mr Y, but an interesting time capsule from the turn of the millennium all the same.