Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #211874 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Los Angeles Times
"Bedazzling ... playfully referential, ostenatiously smart"

Publihsers Weekly
"Like Don DeLillo on acid"

Metro
"Think Pynchon, think George Saunders, but most of all welcome a new, achingly funny voice of dissent"

Customer Reviews

Satire that has the same failings as the media it's satirising
This novel gets off to a poor start as the author thanks his writing workshop, and right from the start it seems to be an exercise in 'subverting writing conventions'. Parodying American TV culture and their national obsession with televised sport, the novel follows one family as they win tickets to the sporting event of the decade, Bear v Shark II, in which a CGI bear will fight a CGI shark, an event that has been dividing the nation like a religion.

It's short and sweet and gets its point across well. Ultimately by trying to satirise the superficial 'blipvert' culture it might fall into the same traps, and lacks any real drama or backbone, but an interesting little read nevertheless.

Brilliant Satire
I really enjoyed this excellent satire on the media, however it may not be for everybody.

There is something intrinsically difficult about satirising one type of media in another. Bachelder attempts to get around the problem by using a very fragmented structure - there are lots of very brief chapters (usually only a page or two) and even within the chapters the style is highly fragmented. He often appears to be attempting to create the sensation of media and information overload, interweaving multiple threads simultaneously (internal monologues, conversations, radio shows, baseball scores). For me, he succeeds most of the time but the style is occasionally a little wearing. It helps that the book is packed with cultural and historical jokes - often delivered in the form of malapropisms - constantly making the point that information does not equal knowledge.

The book is set in the near future where the media, primarily television and the Internet, are even more all pervasive than today. Televisions sense that the viewer is bored and changes the channel automatically. Everybody is on-line all the time. It is a future with zero attention span.

Bear v Shark is the question/joke/theme that runs through the book. "Given a relatively level playing field -- i.e., water deep enough so that a shark could manoeuvre proficiently but shallow enough so that a bear could stand and operate with its characteristic dexterity -- who would win in a fight between a bear and a shark?" In this future Bear v Shark has overwhelmed the culture, it has become the 'eternal question'. It is the only thing anybody seems to be interested in. Society is split between shark followers and bear followers (only a small minority of weirdoes is undecided).

The plot (to the extent that there is one) follows the Norman family on their way to the (next) big event of the century: Bear v Shark II. Bear v Shark II is a fight between a computer-generated bear and a computer-generated shark (a real bear and a real shark would not be realistic enough) to be held in Las Vegas (which has seceded from the rest of the USA). The plot is not really important and the characters are merely ciphers; they exist purely to drive the satire. This is not a character led drama; in fact I found it difficult to feel anything at all about the Norman family.

A successful, original, thought provoking satire. Highly recommended.

Brilliant satire
I really enjoyed this excellent satire on the media, however it may not be for everybody.

There is something intrinsically difficult about satirising one type of media in another. Bachelder attempts to get around the problem by using a very fragmented structure - there are lots of very brief chapters (usually only a page or two) and even within the chapters the style is highly fragmented. He often appears to be attempting to create the sensation of media and information overload, interweaving multiple threads simultaneously (internal monologues, conversations, radio shows, baseball scores). For me, he succeeds most of the time but the style is occasionally a little wearing. It helps that the book is packed with cultural and historical jokes - often delivered in the form of malapropisms - constantly making the point that information does not equal knowledge.

The book is set in the near future where the media, primarily television and the Internet, are even more all pervasive than today. Televisions sense that the viewer is bored and changes the channel automatically. Everybody is on-line all the time. It is a future with zero attention span.

Bear v Shark is the question/joke/theme that runs through the book. "Given a relatively level playing field -- i.e., water deep enough so that a shark could manoeuvre proficiently but shallow enough so that a bear could stand and operate with its characteristic dexterity -- who would win in a fight between a bear and a shark?" In this future Bear v Shark has overwhelmed the culture, it has become the 'eternal question'. It is the only thing anybody seems to be interested in. Society is split between shark followers and bear followers (only a small minority of weirdoes is undecided).

The plot (to the extent that there is one) follows the Norman family on their way to the (next) big event of the century: Bear v Shark II. Bear v Shark II is a fight between a computer-generated bear and a computer-generated shark (a real bear and a real shark would not be realistic enough) to be held in Las Vegas (which has seceded from the rest of the USA). The plot is not really important and the characters are merely ciphers; they exist purely to drive the satire. This is not a character led drama; in fact I found it difficult to feel anything at all about the Norman family.

A successful, original, thought provoking satire. Highly recommended.