Identity Crisis

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There’s Brexit, there’s Johnson and Gove and Rees-Mogg, there’s Yew Tree, there’s MeToo and there’s Love Island; isn’t that just the most 2010s book you’ve ever heard of? The youngest of four, he went to Godalming Grammar school, joined amateur dramatic societies and wrote his first play at 15. I would have liked more of a focus to the story, which only really got going in the last 1/4 of the book. In this first book of the tale, Rothfuss leads us towards something huge in Kvothe’s biography that’s somehow affected life for everyone – when the book ends, we still have to wait to discover what.

Society seems to be divided into very specific boxes based on beliefs/politics/gender/sexuality, and Ben has a great time flogging each of these sacred cows. I've always liked Ben Elton without ever being his biggest fan but in this book, he genuinely spoke to me. Even by his own standards, ‘Identity Crisis’ is a heavy hitter, with a random set of murders being its central theme.Of course, this is a very funny work of fiction, but there are some very disturbing truths which we will probably never be able to prove. He has received accolades for his hit TV sit-coms, The Young Ones, Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line. I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with the rather bewildered Matlock as he tries to negotiate the new climate.

Enjoyable commentary on contemporary society and its over the top political correctness, and the ‘me’ generation with their social media obsession. 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. Even more so when Matlock very publicly struggles to get his middle-aged head around the notion of Sammy’s chosen pronouns.But, they very quickly realise there’s no sexual tension… there’s no kissing, there’s no sex, there’s no betrayal… no one is ‘coupling’ and they’re all getting on perfectly fine. That is not to say that I didn’t frequently laugh out loud because it was mostly funny, but I would classify it more in the mystery genre, rather than humor. I even liked Malika; recognising her as an interesting and well rounded character even if she wasn't someone I would ever want to spend time with. Almost instantaneously after the press conference his social faux pas is trending number one on twitter. I really liked a lot of the characters - DC Sally Clegg was probably the most relatable of all the characters, but I even grudgingly found myself liking the gruff, old-fashioned Detective Matlock, trying to keep his head around a world he didn't grow up in, but doing his best.

The singular murder of Sammy leads Mike to the realization that the world has literally left him behind in ways he can not fully comprehend and reveals how ‘unwoke’ he is or is perceived to be. Other people who are involved in culture-war issues also keep turning up murdered or having committed suicide, including a TERF, a prominent feminist historian spearheading a terribly silly campaign to retrospectively prosecute Samuel Pepys for sexual abuse, the sexual predator actor she worked with, a couple of Christian hotel owners who turned away a gay couple, a far-right incel, a Black girl on a council estate, and a straight couple on a queer edition of Love Island. 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. It did give a look at how mad our society has become and how our outrage is manipulated by hashtags and how lots of us struggle to understand the changing way we identify gender.It’s well-written on a technical level and the various voices are convincing but the characters are all dull and largely unmemorable. So, Love Island re-brands as Rainbow Island, and brings in contestants of all different colours and creeds; all sexualities and identities, all trans- and nons- and everything they can think of. For a person of my age (61) who is struggling to understand the PC terms and the ever more baffling sets of initials e. These sort of identity wars, the language policing, the no shades of grey type attitude already exists, on Tumblr, on Twitter, in a multitude of online spaces. Set in the near future against the backdrop of a referendum for England to leave the United Kingdom with some murder and suicide thrown in it shows how the major tool now is not mass media but mass social media.

The penultimate chapter, in contrast, was sinister and menacingly threatening; ending it there would have been perfect. Ben Elton is fiercely intelligent and this is one of the most intellectually satisfying books I have read for a long time.Even if you are not big on mystery/suspense or humor, I believe it is an essential read for everyone in this day and age. By the end, it turns out the Russians are bumping off all these people in collaboration with a Cambridge Analytica-type organisation, so they can turn their deaths into more culture war fodder, push through Brexit, and destabilise the UK.