Category fiction

Just starting this one dude looks damn interesting

That is what I said, and exactly how I said it when I excitedly sent a snapshot of this book cover to a friend. No full stop, no comma, no sign of any punctuation. A random couple of words, the meaning of which are undoubtedly clear when accompanied by the image, but no nothing other than that. If I were typing from my laptop, the “j” in “Just” would have probably been in lowercase. My friend did not reply at all- at least not in words. There was a :heart: reaction to my message. That is how real conversations happen in today’s time and world.

Not every book is for the delight of a running commentary that preempts every move of a character, or lavish descriptions that teleport you into a fictive universe, or quote-unquote conversations that make you love (or, hate) a protagonist. A few oddities draw you to themselves simply by promising a spectacle of the exact reverse. They pull you down a rabbit-hole into a space of complete bizarre. Several People Are Typing squarely falls under that category of being that irresistible oddity.

Kasulke gives you an experimental novel narrated entirely through slack messages about the consciousness of Gerald, an employee in a PR firm in New York, being uploaded into slack and the consciousness of the slack-bot taking control of Gerald’s body. While keeping the premise of the novel revolving around the efforts made by Gerald and his co-worker Pradeep to reverse the effects of this hilarious switch between the consciousness, Kasulke brings on a string of relatable and experimental themes into the picture.

Rib-tickling observations on the present-day models of hybrid work systems where every employee wants a “WFH” day everyday, a blooming one-sided love story between the slack-bot and Pradeep (the “one-side” being that of the slack-bot’s), the incomparable joy of adding ridiculous and oxymoronic emojis with hidden meanings (or, none at all), and the inevitable politics of a company and its workings- they are seamlessly rolled into the absurdity of the premise.

This is a novel that takes you a while to acclimatise to the rather crazy way of narration. It is purposefully incoherent in the beginning, no primer is offered- just like entering a slack channel with a hundred messages coming in from different people you do not know at all. It is one of those books where you keep reading without entirely being sure you understand what is happening, and in no time (for a hundred slack messages are really not too much), you find that you are miraculously up-to-date with the story.

If I really force the style of its writing into familiar dominions, I’d say it is an extremely creative version of a play script (minus the action narrations) where slack channels are used as scene headings that set the context, slack messages form the dialogues, and the emojis replace the parentheticals.

The strong point of the novel, in my view, is not the story itself but how it is told. The plot-line is lanky. The ending is as awkwardly weird as the beginning. But, the novel is oddly gripping and unputdownable even when you are aware of how it would end. It left me with a strange satisfaction on knowing that a full-length entertaining fiction novel can be written beginning to end solely using slack messages.

A cherry on the top for readers who double as a bored workforce in corporate offices: this novel so impeccably captures the modern day reality of office set-ups. Kasulke’s writing was so unbelievably relatable that I could barely hold myself from spamming my co-workers with the excerpts as I read the book!

The book is a breeze to read, much like scrolling your phone for a couple of hours to understand all sides to a story. For anyone who wants to read a novel like one they have never read before- pick this one up. It is definitely worth all its strangeness for it pushes creativity to a new sweet spot.

:dusty-stick:

Translated by Geoffrey Trousselot

If I told you that you could time travel to a period of your choice and set something right, you’d probably be thinking about undoing what you did- restoring something as if it never happened, or going back in the nick of time to save all that would be lost. It is the usual trope we see in time travel fiction, and not following that trope is why this novel stood out for me. However, a line of forewarning: this is to be read with patience. With the lack of fast-paced, heroic, save-the-day narratives, this is a relatively slow collection of loose character threads that tie up in the end!

Make me close my eyes and imagine a quirky coffee shop in a busy city, and I’d probably think of a narrow back alley. A pretty little shop that stands quaintly, serves exotic coffee, and is unknown but to a few. You might think cliché; I’d say classic. Before The Coffee Gets Cold brings us to its premise in this classic setup.

Funiculi Funicula is a cafe in a quiet back alley in Tokyo, serving coffee brewed from the expertise of a hundred years and offering its customers a fleeting chance to get whisked away to a period of choosing in their life. However, as with all things magical, there are a suffocating host of rules- the major one being that they return to the present before their coffee gets cold. The writing is simple, and it takes us through the lives of four ordinary people- their pasts, feelings and emotions, and we travel with them where they wish to take their stories.

The novel is as less about the mechanics of time travel, as much as it is about the emotions and the stories of the people who time travel. However, the beauty lies in that Kawaguchi creatively masks the contours of his exploration of a maze of emotions under the garb of the rules for time travel.

Funiculi Funicula offers these four protagonists one special chair, a hot cup of coffee, and time travel with a rule that whatever happens in the past, the present cannot change. A rule that defines and explores the concept of ‘setting things right’ in a vein that is so very heartwarming and fresh. A rule that forces them to acknowledge their feelings of regret, their desperation to have done things differently, and to stay true to themselves. It fleshes out the vulnerability of these four people as they revisit a brief yet painful or bittersweet moment knowing they cannot change it. As a writer, I cannot help but admire the effective way Kawaguchi marries a premise of time travel fiction to writing that primarily deals with emotions.

After reading the novel, I learnt that Kawaguchi is a playwright- and, it adds up! The descriptions are short and straightforward. The characters are etched out thoroughly, and the tone is conversational. Visions unfold as you read. With the power to bring that picture in the reader’s head, the novel also brings a strong foot in its emotive setting, making you acknowledge the feelings of the protagonists.

You are not allowed to flit through stories of protagonists brushing their choices gone wrong under the carpet and soaring in the bravado of erasing the past, as if it never was. Instead, you stay with the people as they find the courage to acknowledge it. They enact to us how far a simple conversation takes people. I loved that it allows you to soak in the reality that, most of the time, the sorry you convey in time, or the mindful ‘thank you’ that you could say to make someone feel seen, is how you actually set things right.

All said, the stories are not narrations of emotions too strenuous to handle. The beauty lies in knowing they are ordinary people feeling ordinary things that are important to them. The novel is a quick, enjoyable read that is both bittersweet and hopeful. I’d suggest: grab this book one early weekend morning when you are ready to allow yourself to feel a bit, make yourself a hot cup of coffee, and settle back for a sweet read till lunch!

Also, I weirdly liked the ghost.