little scratch - Rebecca Watson [Review]

There was a time in my life when I was strangely in awe of Steve Jobs. I think it was around the time of his death that I had read quite a bit about his professional life, and his role in the development of those early Apple products, where every minute detail was reworked and reimagined until Jobs deemed it perfect. He had a complete disregard for what the industry standard had been at the time, and his overriding goal was unequivocally to provide a uniquely intuitive user experience. 

My introduction to Apple was the iPhone 4, which was in every imaginable way a totally different machine to the Nokia’s I had in the past, and yet turning it on for the first time was an instantly familiar experience. It is only in hindsight that I stopped to consider the genius engineering required to ensure that everyone who picked up the phone had this same experience.

I had that same feeling of complete awe and total inadequacy when I started reading this book. Its style is a complete marvel in ingenuity, and combined in particular with Rebecca’s execution this is a genuinely impressive debut novel. I had seen a lot of this book but knew absolutely nothing about it, so when I flicked it open I was daunted by the erratic format — by the end of the first page, though, I was almost completely accustomed to her style, as if all the books I had ever read had been written this way. I stayed up until 6am to read the whole thing in one sitting (I’ve never read anything in one sitting, but I suppose there is a first for everything). 

Rebecca’s writing has its own rules, principally logical, all immediately familiar. I have seen attempts at similar styles before, but Rebecca’s here doesn’t seem like a gimmick or overtly difficult to grasp — it is well thought out, completely complimentary to the narrative and themes, and is deliberately constructed to enhance the reading experience rather than just a pretentious ploy.

The brain is the most powerful computer we know, but if it were a computer in the conventional sense and you could request to print a list of its thoughts, inputs, outputs, and commands for the day, I imagine it would look something like this book. It is a stream of consciousness amalgamated with digital and verbal conversations, with the two sometimes compared quite literally side by side on the page.

This book details these thoughts, inputs, outputs, and commands of our unnamed protagonist on what appears to be a normal Friday at the office, but is littered throughout with relatable millennial overthinking (her routine and thoughts will be recognisable to anyone who has commuted to and worked from a London office setting), and ultimately a lot of trauma. I don’t really want to reveal what is at the heart of this book, it definitely enhanced my experience going in blind, but I should issue a trigger warning of sexual assault, rape, and at times a pretty intense depiction of the protagonists pain and anguish, which I suppose tells you everything and also nothing at the same time. 

I doubt there is a single correct order to read this in, but there is an audiobook available if you’re interested in hearing the intended reading of this. This isn’t a poem, irrespective of how it appears on the page — it is to be read fast (from my perspective), like a never exhausting continuous flow of thoughts. I think part of the charm of this style, and in particular Rebecca’s execution of it, is that each individual reader will create their own rules and use their own logic to give the text on a page a real voice. It is very powerful, and truly a masterpiece.