Technology Clock
In Jennifer Egan’s novel, A Visit From The Goon Squad, technology constantly shows growth of characters and reflects the time period in which the chapter is set in. The story is not told in chronological order and can be difficult to follow as the characters progress into the oddly formatted telling of their life. Technology, as a whole, heavily reflects human’s progression of society and in this book, helps make the sporadic chain events connect in an orderly fashion. Eagan specifically reflects her point of view on technology changing music and society through character’s opinions and instances where they long for a connection that has been shattered by technology’s evolution.
One of the most prominent characters, that portrays Egan’s point, is Bennie Salazar. In the novel, Bennie is a successful music producer but is shown struggling to find a connection to most modern music he comes across. He expresses his thoughts on how technology has helped spread the music to all audiences and made it very accessible, but with that comes the erasing of the original sound of most music and other art forms he mentions. He refers to the constant overproduced, “clean” sound as an “aesthetic holocaust”. This is said as he reminisces the olden days by listening to punk bands, which mostly were recorded poorly, but reflect the lack of technology in music. Bennie misses the feeling of knowing that the instruments were truly being played, whereas today, he expresses that technology can fake the instrumentation and is therefore overproduced by the process of digitization. Egan reflects her point of view on how technology has altered music, mostly for worse, through Bennie’s frustration and this helps display how Bennie progresses through a society and connects with other characters. He constantly is on the search for the untouched sound and this helps create his web that ties him to other people in the novel, ironically acting as a social network.
As the novel progresses, the last chapter helps give insight to where technology is headed, how it’s used, and even the audience it's being marketed towards. As Bennie interacts with Alex, conversing about an artist that Bennie has signed, Scotty Hausmann, they are connected through the discussion of untouched music. This helps Egan explore her thoughts of technology and also supports this character spider web, connecting many different folks. Not only that, but in the same chapter, the youthful Lulu is scolded for conversing on a phone, a modern piece of technology. She works for Bennie and Alex so this is why Rebecca, Alex’s wife feels free to scold her. This reflects the gap in generational opinion of technology by having the older person feel angry towards the younger one for “keeping up with the times” by using technology. Egan accurately and subtly predicts how technology companies will market towards the youth by showing Lulu’s effortless use of the modern phone.
Technology helps Egan display time progression and connections from character to character as the jumbled, unchronological, novel progresses. The aesthetic used by Egan to help the reader follow the story is almost creating a timeline through the change of each of the character’s surrounding in every chapter. Technology is one of the most common symbols that helps not only tie the book together, but also reflects a ghastly accurate opinion of the times that Egan expresses.
No comments:
Post a Comment