Book Review: "Noir" by K. W. Jeter

Noir by K. W. Jeter, 1998, Bantam

A re-read of Noir after 5 years gave me the creeps. Noir is a deeply disturbing science fiction novel that might be classified as a work in the Cyberpunk genre. It delivers far more than cyberpunk geekiness however. To call Noir a dark vision of the future is to call a black hole a dark portion of the universe.

I almost chucked it in the trash at one point. Then I realized that my uneasy, sickening sense of dark, evil, foreboding, imminent doom was the result of personally experiencing a taste of pre-Noir reality during the three years, five months and fifteen days of the Bush Regime. How could I punish Noir for delivering Truths, albeit exaggerated? Noir does contain excessive, gratuitous violence; bizarre, sadistic, extreme punishments; and obsessively detailed incidents involving people getting thoroughly connected-over ("connect" is Noir's slang for the "F word"); but the core Truths of it ought to be heeded: Americans are getting connected over in a big way, big time, and not just by the Bush Regime, but by Congress and politicians in general, by the courts, Big Business, the Federal Reserve, the media, churches and schools, ad nauseum. Sure, Jeter doesn't spell all that out in Noir. But it's all connected up.

The main character in Noir is McNihil (no first name given). I cannot call McNihil the hero of the book because the way he makes his living is thoroughly disgusting, and in many ways he is a repulsive character. If McNihil worked for the mafia as an enforcer he would seem to be the devil incarnate, but instead he obtains a paper-thin veneer of respectability as a legitimate, legal enforcer of intellectual property rights working for the Collection Agency. That doesn't make him likable or heroic, and it doesn't make what he does right, any more than what the connected-up guards at Abu-Ghraib prison did with bananas was "right". It's just all part of The System, and that's what makes Noir and Bush America so totally dark: people constantly connecting over other people for money and survival believing that the rules make it all right...and anyway, "I was just following orders."

I'll give you one example of extreme Noirness, just to satisfy your curiosity and to perhaps dissuade you from buying the book. Then I will get to the point of this rant, drawing appropriately educational conclusions.

When I say that McNihil is an enforcer that is like I am saying the Bush Regime has a "credibility problem". In the future setting of Noir, intellectual property theft is a capital crime and enforcers for the Collection Agency operate as cop, judge and jury all rolled into one. But the Collection Agency has found capital punishment to be an ineffective deterrent. The Noir solution is to send men like McNihil to extract the living brain and nervous system from an Intellectual Property thief and embed him/it into a life-support system which is then packaged by the Collection Agency as a self-aware, natural intelligence component -- doing fuzzy logic -- in an everyday consumer item,  such as a sound system or a toaster ("Every slice is perfectly golden brown!"). Then the final product is given by the Collection Agency as a gift to the infringed upon author. This is, in a word, extreme. Very. But it does complete the loop: those who steal intellectual property forfeit their own intellect. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth...

That is some sick shit! Eh? But it is really just fantastical, fictional context window dressing for the hard core reality of our future as extrapolated in Noir. There are two main takeaways from Noir, the acronyms TIAC and TOAW. To understand these we must place them in the context of modern day fascism, which is the marriage of big business with government. We see this now  in the hob-nailed bootprints of the Bush Regime on the faces of democracy and freedom all over the globe, but especially here in America. Our fearless, elite (mis)leaders govern of, by, and for the corporations, and justify that to America with mass media propaganda campaigns, such as the job creation story, "lower taxes are good for America because when people are allowed to keep more of their own money, they demand more goods and that means more jobs to produce those goods!" But the politicians and CEO's don't brag about the vast, trillions of dollars of debts and trade deficits that are temporarily maintaining the illusion of soundness while American jobs are sent overseas, along with increasing amounts of our wealth. The leaders justify connecting over the American people by referring to high stock prices, which boils down to this: invest your money in corporations that are royally connecting over your neighbors, friends and family, and you will have an ownership stake in the future of America. The future envisioned by the Bush Regime is essentially the same as the worlds of 1984, Soylent Green, Fahrenheit 451, A Clockwork Orange, Blade Runner, and so on. It is the world of corporate primacy, or rule by the iron fist in the velvet glove of our benevolent Big Brother...who is CEO of The Mother Company....It is the world of TIAC and TOAW.

(To quote McNihil here and pray that K. W. Jeter doesn't come hunting for me...)

"TIAC stood for 'turd in a can'. It was DZ's notion -- at least back then -- of their ultimate consumer strategy. A general principle, to just make sure that the customers get the least amount of goods or services for their money. Max out the packaging and you can forget about the actual contents. But it wasn't enough."  [...]  "There's always room for 'improvement,' at any rate. Thus we go from TIAC to TOAW."  [...]  "The good folks at DynaZauber had a great idea, you see. ... It's not enough -- it doesn't achieve ultimate profits -- to sell people shit in a shiny can. Metaphorically speaking; shit being all those products that get sold in the cheap-'n'-nastiverse. Because even shit costs something to produce, and the can -- the advertising and all the rest of the pretty package -- that doesn't come free. If DynaZauber's going to achieve the perfect ratio between price and product -- which is of course one hundred percent to nothing -- they needed to come up with something even more of a scam-job than their previous TIAC program."

I saw a perfect example of TIAC in action the other day at the store. A pudgy little boy was begging his mother for one of those gaudily packaged snack packs that contain a few ounces of processed meat byproducts, a few ounces of processed cheese, a few tiny crackers and a minuscule container of fruit dessert. He was actually parroting her own words back to her, "See! This is nutritious!" And no doubt he has seen the product advertised hundreds of times on television. His mother said no and managed to continue her shopping trip without the benefit of any "snack packs", but how many hundreds of times will that incident repeat before the young boy grows up? Parenthood has got to be a form of living hell these days, with every child's happiness contingent upon acquisition of as much as possible of the advertised TIAC products they see on TV every day!

TIAC is everywhere and it is in nearly everything we get from the corporations. Take insurance, for example. You pay your money year after year and in exchange the insurance company promises to review any claims you make. Perhaps they will pay? Maybe so. Or maybe they'll cancel your coverage if you submit a claim. TIAC. Very profitable shit. And I don't even have the time to go into how the internet, cable TV, down loadable music, wireless phones and all of the rest of e-business amounts to TIAC. If you've used these services you already know. And if you haven't then you aren't reading this rant.

Want to hear about TOAW? Buy the connectin' book! I can't tell you any more now because I hear a knocking at my door..