| A thought-provoking story that has a great deal to say about the modern state of affairs, and miraculously manages to say without the cliches we've all become used to. It's essentially the story of a young man from a poor background, Johnny Pepper, who enters the world of middle-class suburbia with the notion that it will offer him everything he's ever wanted but ultimately finds nothing in his new life can give him a lasting sense of purpose, least of all his tedious occupation as a software debugger. His only source of hope is a girl named Katya, to whom he's addressing his memoirs, and when he loses her, he loses any reason to live. He then decides to crash his software company's system with a virus basically just because he can, and has nothing else to do and has found no vet for his talents.
What really makes this story special to me is the protagonist's motivation and character. He enters the story like a clean sponge waiting to absorb the ideas of whoever is around him. At a Christian party, all it takes is a few Jesus songs to convert him, but he abruptly rejects his new-found religion the minute he meets a girl named Katya who gives him a brief explanation of why he should. Johnny Pepper is like a child who's open to everything and eager to explore his new world.
The tragedy is that his new world turns out to be very lackluster and limited, making him more and more desperate to find a sense of purpose.
He even tries dedicating himself to earning money for an eccentric drifter, but even he won't let him be his friend. It's a very powerful moment in the story because all Johnny really wants is to have an affect on the drifter's life, to mean something to someone, but it turns out the drifter is as trapped in his monotonous routines as Johnny's corporate colleagues.
There are many other powerful scenes. One example is when Johnny's company gives all their employees a message following September 11 saying the best thing they can do for their country is to continue working. It's rather disturbing that a company would expect its workers to look to them for moral guidance in the aftermath of such a tragedy. What's really ironic about this scene, though, is that this is exactly how we have reacted to September 11 as a country. Instead of stopping to ask whether such a tragedy could have been prevented had we done things differently, we've continued with our same old routines as if nothing happened.
I think Johnny Pepper's motive or lack thereof is what really makes the story unique. He doesn't program the virus specifically because of an anti-corporate ideology or out of spite for his superiors. He's basically rebelling for the sake of rebelling because he has nothing else to do with his life. Johnny Pepper's transition from upbeat, dedicated employee to subversive delinquent is brilliantly done through the course of the novel. Even though Johnny Pepper is narrating the story, he never describes the changes in his attitude in too much detail. He seems alienated from himself as well as others; even he doesn't know why he's programming the virus, and never stops to ask himself if he's doing the right thing or not. At this point, we understand why Johnny Pepper's lost his ability to ask such questions because the story has been so successful at conveying his sense of ineffectuality up until now.
To me, Memoirs of a Virus Programmer is more than just a criticism of capitalist society. It says a great deal about human nature in general. I can't help but draw a parallel between Johnny's virus and the attack of September 11. Though the two acts are so far apart in scale of sheer viciousness, both are irrational acts that serve no purpose other than to cause harm. Intriguing...
Overall, this is one of those books that really has something to say and says it all without actually saying it. It's both provocative and funny as hell. I'd recommend it to everyone in the world, especially terrorists. Maybe if they get hooked on programming viruses, they'll stop trying to kill us.
Title: Memoirs of a Virus Programmer
Author: Pete Flies
Reviewer: P. Koohafkan
Publisher: StoneGarden.net
Publisher URL: http://www.stonegarden.net
Publication Date: Jan 1, 2006
Review Date: June 24, 2006
ISBN: 0976542684
Price: 8.99 USD
Book URL: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0976542684/sr=8-1 /qid=1151565501/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8449787-8666323?i e=UTF8
Author URL: http://www.peteflies.com
Pages:244
Format: paperback
Topic: fiction
Topic: office satire
|
