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[theplotforge-blog]

Ready Player One, Novel, By Ernest Cline,2011

SPOILERS—MILD

For several years I have had this book on my reading list. It is only recently, now the film trailers have been released, that I put some time aside for it. I told myself I would pace myself to enjoy the story more and take it a chapter at a time. This didn’t last and I seen went through three quarters of it in two days.

Cline does a good job of painting a rich picture of the OASIS, the virtual world in which the story takes place. Despite my initial enthusiasm this seems to be the best part of the book, a big downside for readers who, like me, like story and character to have a bit more attention than the setting.

Maybe it was the story format (a first-person, past tense memoir) that limited the narration in some way but the OASIS overpowers the real world. This is good, in a sense, as that is partly the point of the book, that virtual reality has replaced the real world as humanities reality, but when the book switches back to reality it glosses over it and never gives us details in the same way. This left me wanting more; there was a great opportunity for the juxtaposition of a utopia and dystopia (if there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent years it is that dystopia fiction is all the rage) but the narration, like the characters, shy away from it in favour of the escape of fiction.

With this comes the shying away of the Wade, the protagonist, from the things that would endear us to him. The teenager is an orphan who lives with his aunt, who he hates (the feeling is mutual) and longs to escape from. Sound familiar? It should, it’s everywhere these days. His personality never comes through clearly, in fact it seems like everything he has to say about himself somehow relates to his 80’s obsession which fills the book from start to finish. I’ve hear the book described as ‘80’s porn’, a term which sounds about right. What really got me though, what really turned me off his character, was how little he seemed to care for his friends and family in reality—not that he is wrong to value his virtual friends, to a point, but because he (and here I’m phrasing this carefully to avoid major spoilers) parts ways with them, even the ones he claims to care about, with little to no regret or guilt.

Despite being released some six years ago now the book felt to have contemporary themes of net neutrality. If the film-makers have any sense they will have built on this but I doubt it. Partly because I think this political turn came too late in the film’s making and partly because… well, I’ve given up asking the film industry for more (so it’s always a special surprise when they deliver!).

SPIOLERS—MAJOR

The one thing that did get me though is the one thing I think will be left out of the film as I have seen no hint of it in the trailers or, more tellingly, the cast. There is a character (who shall remain nameless for their own protection) who, when they make an appearance in the real world, is the complete opposite of their avatar in ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. This is one of the finer points of the novel illustrating how our persona online, and how we identify or wish to be perceived, can be very different from the truth.

Seeing this in the film could be a magical moment in not just the film but in cinema for the whole year if not decade. Will they do it? I predict not. Why not? Because Hollywood isn’t brave enough to challenge the increasingly outdated image they have in their minds of the general populous (seriously, in the young adult audience this twist could go down a treat) or go the extra mile for the sake of the themes the book tried to convey.

I am in two minds about the film but am not getting my hopes up. It looks to be a visual treat or ‘Eye Pleaser’ (copyright pending), a visual piece designed to look good over containing any actual substance.

 I shall be updating this after the release of the film to gloat or announce an apology depending on how it goes.