Allan Cameron's intriguing novel is set in a near future where the predictions of the US theorist Francis Fukuyama have been taken to their logical conclusions. Fukuyama declared that, with the collapse of the USSR and the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism, history has come to an end. In Cameron's book, history has indeed been halted by decree and the citizens live in a permanent present of spurious consumer choice and endless material consumption, their bovine lives ruled by the embedding of Rational Consumer Implant Cards in their brains. A cardless underclass exists in the Fukuyama Theme Parks, vast squalid concentration camps on the outskirts of cities. At the pinnacle of this society sit those lucky individuals who, because of their dedicated pursuit of stupendous wealth, are awarded the Plutocratic Social Gratitude Award, popularly nicknamed the Berlusconi Bonus as it effectively puts the recipient beyond the law. The book takes the form of a confession by Adolphus Hibbert, a recent beneficiary of the Berlusconi Bonus, who is recruited by the sinister secret police officer Captain Younce to spy on dissident elements. Adolphus embarks on a dizzying journey among the clandestine opposition, in which he finds love, betrayal and violence; discovering terrifying truths about himself and his society.A - New Internationalist
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Product Details
Weight: 275g
Dimensions: 138 x 210mm
Publication Date: 13 Aug 2010
Publisher: Vagabond Voices
Publication City/Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
ISBN13: 9780956056092
About Allan Cameron
Allan Cameron writes in English and Italian and has published two novels: this one and The Golden Menagerie (Luath Press 2004). He has published a book on language In Praise of the Garrulous (Vagabond Voices 2008) and a collection of poetry (Vagabond Voices 2009)He has also translated twenty-five books and has published articles in Reset Teoria Politica L'Unita and Renaissance Studies. Praise for previous books: The Golden Menagerie (Luath Press 2004) is highly rewarding in the richness precision and humour of its language the enviable lucidity of its thought and in that classical humanist quality it insinuates of simultaneous lightness and profundity a sleight which can alter perception. - Suhayl Saadi Scottish Review of Books Allan Cameron's The Golden Menagerie is a work almost impossible to classify although it is just possible to fit this marriage of fantastic invention and reflections on the human predicament and our times ... into the capacious container called the 'novel'. In some ways it recalls the conversation pieces of Thomas Love Peacock although the invention is more fantastic. Whatever we call it it is consistently fascinating and readable the work of a writer of high intelligence who has a stylish way with words. - Eric Hobsbawm In Praise of the Garrulous - a deeply reflective extraordinarily wide-ranging meditation on the nature of language infused in its every phrase by a passionate humanism - Terry Eagleton In Presbyopia Cameronsteers clear of personal topics turning his presbyopic gaze outward in a sequence of poems that take in eco-vandalism press barons George W. Bush and death. One admires his determination to reject the pretension and obscurantism that winds its way around to much of the poetry that crosses the desk these days. - Colin Waters Scottish Review of Books
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