Ben Elton's Identity Crisis

[TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross]

Has anyone else read this? Am reading it now - a satirical reflection on today's society with a particular focus on gender identity and social media.

I've just got to the bit where Mumsnet gets name-checked: after a trans woman is murdered, there's a thread on MN asking why this murder gets more attention than the murders of "ordinary women" and then an online campaign forces MN moderators to ban the phrase "ordinary women" as hate-speak.

I did pause to reflect on this passage, where the protagonist is thinking about the character who is very clearly based on Germaine Greer:

"Even five years earlier no one would have imagined that a whole generation of women with vaginas would unite in defence of women with penises to take down a woman with a vagina who had previously been a feminist icon."

ah, I was looking for something to have on in the car...

He's not on Twitter? I don't know what his specific views are on matters GC, but he's just gone up several notches in my estimation.

He's not on any social media apparently. Which is good because it comes in for a bit of a hammering in the book😂

Not on social media? God, imagine all that time he must have

Not on social media means the TRAs cant get him, as they dont seem to do real life so well

Just bought it on Audible- anyone fancy a book club?

I’m gonna buy it in hard back when I get paid on Thursday. Spent my audible credit this month on Superior by Angela Saini (which is awesome so far btw)

What would the book club do?

Just chat about it on here when we’ve read/listened, I suppose....

Jus bought it on Audible - thanks for the heads up

I reckon that someone is sitting in amazon scratching their head and wondering at this weird spike in pre-orders and sales of this book Including mine of course.

I’m up for it Bertrand (book club I mean)

Could be cool to read some books with the fellow vipers. Start a thread in a couple of weeks once I’ve had a chance to get through it and I will come!

He's returning to stand up and has shows in October. I'm apprehensive because I used to love him so much.

I read this, and really wanted to enjoy it, but found it quite clunky. It's covering trans issues, Cambridge Analytica / Russian interference, Weinstein, #metoo and Love Island, as well as being a police procedural - and it just seemed to spend so much time explaining everything that I couldn't lose myself in the story, or care about the characters. There were lots of points where the satire really hit the mark - it just didn't feel like a very coherent whole.

I'm not clear that he is GC. The one GC character didn't get to say much, and the criticism of TWAW seemed to be more around the use of language in a scientific setting rather than getting into any of the issues around women's spaces. (Which is fine - there was a lot of other stuff going on in the novel!)

Just bought it on Kindle, I've read a few of his and thought they were a brilliant comment on society. Looking forward to reading.

I've a suggestion for future book club: I saw Lissa Evans on the twitter thread about tampons for 'menstruators' - I'm half way through her brilliant book - Old baggage - do check it out. She also wrote 'their finest hour'

Elton often writes the way he performs and he has a bit of a scattergun approach. If you read it in his ‘voice’ his books seem more coherent. I’m tempted by the audiobook as I have a spare Audible credit but not sure I have time to listen at the moment as I want to finish Catch 22 before I start the series.

Sorry can't remember the specifics nickymanchester. Worth a re-watch. I've not seen them all.

Due to the power of Amazon Prime, I ordered the book 24 hours ago and it's arrived and I've started reading it. I adore it.

(Long term Ben Elton fan).

Ben Elton turned my ds into a reader. I don’t think I ‘actually read anything of his-looking forward to giving it a try.

Oh, Bertrand - you also want to try Stark, This Other Eden, and Gridlock. HIs best IMO. Although I read them in 90s where did that time go?? Oh yes, I had children

High Society and Dead Famous are well worth a read. (about legalising drugs and 'Big Brother' style TV.)

Was listening to it today whilst around town. It genuinely made me laugh out loud a few times, and boy does he get it! Bloody good job he's not on Twitter tbh or he's have been crucified by now...

Love the MN references too!

Just finished it. I’m not at all sure he does get it. Or rather, he does, but his position is pretty much sitting back and saying both sides are as bad as each other, it’s all a load of rubbish stirred up online to set people against each other and only idiots fall for it. The GC characters are either thick or naive, out of touch and easily manipulated. The Woke are intelligent, interesting and not actually involved in online death threats at all, that was just fake news.
Basically, and I think he’d be very amused to hear this and think I’d proven his oh so clever point, he’s up there on his middle class straight white male ivory tower in a position to laugh because none of it affects him. Ho ho. I’m really pissed off that I gave him a tenner.

I haven't read this one but Blind Faith is interesting. There's a passage where it's noted that in this dystopian future, not having a faith is illegal. The reason is that if you don't have one, you're telling those that do that you think their beliefs are wrong, which is discriminatory and disrespectful. So you have to believe.

There's also a bit where 'I have no evidence but I feel it's true, and you can't tell me that my feelings are wrong' is treated as a valid form of argument (again, highlighting how ridiculous and dystopian said society is). Also a couple of instances of a character trying to tell the common-sense truth and then recanting and going along with absurdities instead, because of fears of social disapproval.

Definitely spookily prescient.

The GC characters are either thick or naive, out of touch and easily manipulated. The Woke are intelligent, interesting and not actually involved in online death threats at all, that was just fake news.

Whaaaat??

That's the opposite from reality.