If you say something controversial on social media, YOU DIE! At least that’s what literally happens to the beleaguered characters in Ben Elton’s latest novel, Identity Crisis.
I’d hoped this book was going to be a wry, amusing look at the current state of Western society - specifically: vapid celebrity worship, outrage culture and social media witch-hunts, empty and divisive identity politics, and out-of-control political correctness - but unfortunately it’s not. Elton touches on all of those subjects but not in any way I’d say was fun, unique or insightful.
Instead it comes off less satirical and more simply reflective of everyday life (which I suppose is a commentary in itself of just how absurd things have gotten at this point!). Elton hasn’t got anything to say about it all except “Bit bonkers, innit?”, which, duh. It’s just not funny.
The endless conversations on political correctness (in particular pronouns) become repetitive and tedious fast and it reads exactly like how it is: a 60 year old writing for other 60 year olds about da yoof of today.
I was mildly interested in the Cambridge Analytica-esque company’s storyline and where it was going (nowhere surprising it turns out) and I did want to find out who the social media killer was. But the reveal of the killer’s identity was such a cop-out - an unsatisfying rushed ending to a half-baked plot.
It’s well-written on a technical level and the various voices are convincing but the characters are all dull and largely unmemorable. What little story there is gets stretched much too much, and the myriad strands tossed in to underline the “today’s society is maaaaad” theme feel like stories Elton plucked from whatever was on the front page of the Daily Fail that day.
Ben Elton’s Identity Crisis is a dreary, unentertaining and uninspired “satire” - confirmation bias in book form for the olds that modern stuff is rubbish.
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