| READING: 'The Futurist': The Hero Goes Around Spouting Drivel. It Pays the Bills. |
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| Written by JANET MASLIN | |
| Saturday, 31 March 2007 | |
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This is the past history of the Futurist, the terminally cynical (and paradoxically nearsighted) main character in James P. Othmer's debut novel. He used to believe that things were getting better. He thought that science had a heart and that progress had a conscience. Then came doubts, followed by questions and alarming insights. Soon this high-profile, big-ticket trend prognosticator was prophesying doom and gloom. THE FUTURIST By James P. Othmer (Non Fiction) "He began to criticize the present, and he warned of a more damaged tomorrow if we refused to change," Mr Othmer writes. "He gave heads-ups and watch-outs, supported by facts and scientifically validated forecasts and cautionary tales." But this kind of outlook left his audiences feeling troubled, which was not the desired effect. "It was suggested that he might want to put a bit more of a smile back on his work." So the Futurist, named Yates, switched gears and began telling those audiences what they wanted to hear. Those are the preliminaries for this acerbically funny book, clearly written by a refugee from corporate culture. Mr Othmer, who used to be an executive at the advertising firm Young & Rubicam, has obviously heard or delivered his share of baloney-laden lectures. He knows the protocol of the business trip, the pecking order at the creative conference and the strategic efficacy of spouting pure nonsense when the time is right. Delivering a speech to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, Yates tells his fellow experts, "If the people in this room were right just 1 per cent of the time, we'd all be telecommuting from Tahiti, eating dinner in pill form and having literal sex with our virtual selves." This is not pleasing to other futurists. And it is part of the reason Yates next finds himself in professional free-fall. Mr Othmer picks up Yates's story just before he commits career suicide. Then "The Futurist" follows him into a globe-trotting limbo. Once Yates's ability to lie with style catches the eye of quasi-governmental operatives, he is enlisted to embark on what he calls a "World Bad Karma tour," visiting destinations of his choice to find out why America has become so unpopular and theorizing about how to reposition America as a brand. "Right now we're conducting focus groups in five of the markets that despise us most," a colleague tells him. "Wow," Yates answers. "I didn't know they had two-way mirrors in Fallujah." With impressive gall, Mr Othmer inserts the actual celebrity futurist Faith B. Popcorn into this particular scene. Mr Othmer's voice echoes other, well-established ones: Max Barry's for outrageously deft business satire, Christopher Buckley's for geopolitical comedy of errors, Bruce Wagner's for free-floating malice. That he can even dimly be equated with any of them makes "The Futurist" an impressive foray into satirical fiction. But like many a first-time novelist, Mr Othmer has overloaded his story with hectic elements, to the point where it becomes too busy and diffuse to sustain interest in its latter half. Besides, once Yates sees the error of his ways — by Page 118, less than halfway through a book that gets off to a flying start but has a long way to go — he becomes much more idealistic but much less fun to follow. Fortunately for the reader, Yates's conversion never quite takes hold. Among the surfeit of plot elements: Yates has recently been dumped by his girlfriend, who decided she preferred a sixth-grade history teacher; the remarkably innocent call girl, Margaret, who counts herself a white victim in post-apartheid South Africa; the doomsday predictions of Nostradamus, which are maliciously e-mailed to Yates for reasons he does not understand; the band of wealthy space adventurers whose voyage is turning disastrous before the eyes of rapt television viewers everywhere; and the euphoric surfing idyll in Fiji that eventually exposes the ability of corporate culture to despoil even the remotest corners of the world. A raucous Fijian gathering of British media executives winds up being such a cultural outrage that it makes an elderly Fijian waiter cry. Then there is Greenland, a place visited by Yates for no great reason (beyond the presence of Campbell, his college friend turned reclusive billionaire) but evoked by Mr Othmer with the gimlet-eyed acuity that is the book's best asset. Also in evidence is its trademark weird streak, as in descriptions of Magga, the local mafia princess who is Campbell's scarifying girlfriend. "Not only is she dirty and ugly, she is more than six feet tall and layered with fat, and she smells like fish and smoke, not to be confused with smoked fish," Mr Othmer observes. And: "Yates figures 12 teeth total beneath that brief grin, though one could be a rogue piece of fish cartilage." This novel's global gonzo qualities remain workable even during a sentimental interlude with Yates's family and a final trip to a fictitious Arab country where Yates is given grand accommodations in a converted prison and is expected to join in the country's efforts to project peace, prosperity and cultural sophistication. "The independent film movement in Bas'ar is absolutely thriving, teeming with young would-be Scorseses," Yates proclaims, as part of a promotional documentary. "And there is already talk within the Ministry of Film of having an annual festival right here that will hold its own with your Sundance, with Cannes." Then there are the Futurist's real remarks, all too truthful and not voiced until after the camera stops rolling. "The only young filmmakers they have in this country," he says, "are video-taping suicide bombers in ski masks standing in front of a silk jihadi flag." |
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