Harsh Generation
| Author | Damien Blake |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | |
| Language | English |
| Genre | black comedy, drama, postmodernism |
| Published | 27 May 2021 |
| Publisher | Amazon E. Whipple Publishing House |
| Pages | 421 |
| ISBN | 979-8508504342 Search this book on  . |
Harsh Generation, often stylized in all lowerace letters ("harsh generation") is the debut novel of Damien Blake, published through E. Whipple Publishing House and Amazon in 2021 in paperback format.
The novel was also released exclusively through Amazon Kindle on May 2021.
Synopsis[edit]
Largely plotless, the narrative is told entirely through stream-of-consciousness style, and follows the life of a nameless protagonist, roughly corresponding to the span of a year. Initially, the chapters are dedicated to the night-time debauchery of the teen protagonist and his circle of friends, alongside his girlfriend Jane, who suffers from an unspecified mental illness.
The central cast of characters spend the majority of their time engaging in risky behaviour, including unprotected sex and drug abuse.
Following his break-up with Jane, and a string of one-night stands, the narrator is embroiled in an affair with Sonia, a young girl with an eating disorder and suicidal ideation, further attributing to his compromised sanity. Following an anticlimactic separation with Sonia, the narrator is groomed by a female teacher while pining after an elusive girl named Hope.
During the novel's latter part, the characters have degenerated into prolonged scenes of drug abuse, self-harm, and pronounced bouts of mental illness (particularly depression and depersonalization) and the narrator constantly questions his sanity, finally lamenting the fate of humanity and his social circle.
As the protagonist exhibits extremely self-destructive behaviour, up to intentionally overdosing twice and breaking his own arm, he finds himself in a bar, where an acquaintance invites him for a night out. The novel then abruptly ends midsentence.
Themes and Devices[edit]
Identity is a central theme of the novel.
The narrator's name is never revealed to the audience, and a running motif is that every time he is about to announce it, he is interrupted; furthermore, he is constantly mistaken for other people from his group of friends, suggesting they all look similar. The narrator's outlook is also in complete contrast to his age (mentioned in passing reference to be seventeen at some point midway through the novel) as he constantly expresses a nearly relentless pessimism regarding human institutions and life in general. The characters espouse nihilistic worldviews, but it is implied they themselves do not clearly understand what they are saying at times.
Friedrich Nietzsche's eternal recurrence of the same also seems to have some influence on the novel's structure. The opening sentence is the latter part of the final sentence of the novel, making it a perfect circle both syntactically and context-wise, implying that the characters are trapped in a time loop, making the nameless city they inhabit a sort of metaphorical Purgatory. Transgression is another theme of the novel. The characters experience, and constantly refer to, complex issues such as abortion, drug abuse, child abuse, sexual grooming and abuse, eating disorders, prostitution, juvenile delinquency, mental illness, and suicide.
All such difficult topics are handled crudely by the characters, who comment on them either with dark, cynical humor or complete apathy.
Millennial apathy is also a running theme throughout the plot; the characters mention events such as the financial crisis of 2007–2008 with pronounced boredom, while obsessively detailing their clothing, eclectic music taste, and favourite entertainment (i.e. video games, television series, and films.) It is implied that the obsessive listing of clothing brands, music acts, and similar paraphernalia has replaced the characters' personality, reducing them to collages of elements they have appropriated from various subcultures, hinting at a screed against hipster culture.
Metafiction[edit]
About halfway through the narrative, the central character alludes to working on a memoir, named after a record from the band Grendel (alluding to the title of the novel itself, Harsh Generation).
There are sparse references to this book-within-the-book afterwards, and the narrator mentions leaving it incomplete because of his profound ennui after his break-up with Hope.
The actual novel is also incomplete in a sense, as it is stopped mid-sentence.
Writing Style[edit]
The plot is narrated entirely through the first-person, present-tense lens of the central nameless protagonist. It is narrated in a stream-of-consciousness manner that describes even acts of extreme abuse with a blasé, emotionless style.
This is juxtaposed with run-on sentences, some reaching paragraph lengths, wherein the protagonist recounts his night terrors. The plot is dialogue-heavy, with extreme attention devoted to the nonsensical discussions among the narrator’s peers; entire chapters are dedicated to discussing seemingly trite concepts and events, such as hang-out spots, comic books, and gossip revolving the characters’ social circle.
A running motif is that the narrator expresses disturbing points of view throughout such discussions (such as openly commenting on his drug addiction, social alienation, misanthropy, and suicidal thoughts) with his co-speakers not paying attention and continuing to relay superficial topics.
The narrator’s style changes over time, with the ennui of initial chapters being replaced with savage nihilism the further the story progresses.
About the Author[edit]
Damien Blake is believed to be the nom de plume of another author, as no concrete information or known photos of the author themselves exist.
References[edit]
This article "Harsh Generation" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Harsh Generation. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
