Three Dollars, by
Eliot Perlman, starts off clever, ironic, and a little depressing. Perlman’s
writing continues to be clever throughout, but as the story continues this very
good book just gets more and more depressing.
Amazon tells me it is a “deft, passionate portrait of a man
coming to terms with his place in an increasingly hostile and corporate world,
while struggling to retain his humanity, his heart, and his sense of humor.”
Eddie, the main character, starts telling his story from
high school as he and his girlfriend, Tanya, are preparing for college. Though
the two are over-the-top ironic pretentious pre-hipster-age hipsters, I have to
admit that I kind of identified with them. Smart kids, heading to college, with
all this potential but no idea what to do with themselves reeks of 21st
century WPP. "Whatever we chose to study at
university and however intensely we studied it, we would still be the same
middle class, socially-concerned, politically-inactive, foreign-film going wine
and cheese tasters."
This book is worth the read, if only for Perlman’s writing.
He’s great at really capturing things
in a heartbreakingly amusing way. (I tried to google some example quotes, but
am failing…so you’ll just have to trust me on this.)
Like Freedom, Three Dollars is very post-modern and
liberal-leaning. It takes place in Australia -- a country whose politics I know
absolutely nothing about – but the themes of materialism and environmental degradation
and the rise and fall of the middle class are all there. Towards the end Eddie philosophizes a bit too much, which can feel tedious.
Though the book is depressing, I think that Perlman is
actually an optimist. He chooses to focus on the good in individuals (while
vilifying corporate and government structures), and his characters are all
likable. Random acts of kindness seem to be his thing – Eddie meets an
alcoholic and helps him with his dog, and later the alcoholic helps Eddie when
he is in need.
I just hope real life isn’t as much of a bummer as Perlman makes
it out to be…
A movie of the book was released in 2005 to pretty good
reviews.
Perlman is more famous for his second book, Seven Types of Ambiguity.
