No Limit is a book
about hip young things doing hip things and wanting the world to know about
their hipness via social media.
The novella is set in Auckland, New Zealand, in December 2012,
which is important because the world was supposed to end then due to the Mayan
calendar running out. To add to the apocalyptic feel of the novella, a volcano
is erupting. Its ash causes the cancellation of Ash’s plane to Australia. With
no idea how long she will have to wait, Ash decides to look up a cousin in
Auckland. She spends much of the novella searching for him, meeting a few
strange people along the way.
The novel is full of references to pop culture. For example,
Tom, everyone’s first Myspace friend, makes an appearance. And many words are
spent describing the clothes the characters wear. Labels, labels everywhere.
The characters all seem to suffer from attention deficit disorder
as their thoughts flick from observations of the world around them to desires,
to how they are going to get to where they want to be, and then to wanting to
be somewhere else immediately after they get there. Their lives seem jaded by
too many unlived and unanalysed experiences.
All along the way, they want to record everything they do
and say, but the internet keeps on dropping out, perhaps the end of the world
is really happening. The novella emphasises a youth culture that can’t see the
point in doing anything if they can’t take pictures of it and then share it on
social media.
This is Holly Childs' first published longer work of
fiction. She is a writer and artist, who, according to her bio, creates work around digital semiotics, transformations of
language, obscurities, fashion, aberration and corruption.
She uses a lot of short sentences
in No Limit, as if to emphasis the
quickly passing thoughts of the characters. The novella is written with a lot
of humour.
This is a novella for those who
enjoy watching the slightly deluded lurch from one unfulfilled fantasy to
another.
4 comments:
Maybe it's just the way you describe it, but you make it sound awful - a lot of jittering activity and no depth. Did you actually enjoy the book? Is there anything good you can say about it?
I did enjoy the book, I think its style said a lot about the themes it was pushing - consumerism, narcissism, hedonism, the need to be acknowledged. If it was longer than its eighty pages, say a full length novel, then I don't think the author would have gotten away with the it. She would have had to give them more depth. The novella takes place over one hedonistic night. Like a group going to a party and getting drunk.
Interesting that its a novella - where did you find it Graham?
Sounds like a good idea for a novella.. keeping it short.
I saw Holly Childs at last year's Melbourne Writers Festival. Even though she was very nervous, I thought the idea of the novella sounded interesting and I was also interested in reading something written by an author who was living youth culture. So I bought it at the festival bookshop, run by Dymocks.
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