Posthuman Blues

Do we really need more fat, pretentious novels about crackheads and junkies? This is a defining trend in "literary" publishing, as witnessed by "Trainspotting" (which I haven't read) and a procession of others by "hip" young authors. This stale obsession with rejects and outcasts is stifling, yet it continues. There's a new one coming out by some guy who thinks it's really subversive to use "fuck" in virtually every sentence during interviews. Oh, yeah, and he has a cryptic tattoo. The angst!

Don't expect innovation from the new generation of would-be Pynchons who attempt to infuse their autobiographical novels with William Burroughs' iconoclastic hipster panache. Expect literary innovation from the likes of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. "Pattern Recognition" is Gibson's first non-SF novel, and has the potential to invigorate the mainstream literary scene with some fresh ideas. We'll see.