Ponder Post: Touch

I was cleaning out old notes in my iPhone and I saw a reference reminding me to read the novel Touch by Courtney Maum. I have no recollection who recommended it to me – nor when or why – but I reserved it at the library and just completed it. It was offbeat and weird, but pseudo-likable if you were willing to suspend disbelief.

The premise is that Sloane, the main character, has had a special talent since she was a little girl. She can forecast trends – what is going to be popular in the future. This is not to be confused with the gift of fortune telling for specific actions in some time yet to come, but rather a sensed knowledge of what the population in general will desire and seek in the future.  These predictions can encompass trends in lifestyle, global fashions, or technology features. For example she was famous for predicting "the swipe" as the next ubiquitous mobile device motion after the point, click, and finger spread. She consults with various companies to advise them on potential paths to take to increase future profits.

In this novel Sloane's generality capabilities to achieve "one-mindedness with the masses" are juxtaposed with a strained relationship with her family. Sloane used to have a close relationship with her family but become estranged when her father unexpectedly died while Sloane was living in France with her French boyfriend Roman. Roman thinks he is trend forecaster like Sloane, but these self-views are delusions of grandeur. He does not possess Sloane's talent, but rather rides her coat-tails to fame. He is a strange character, convinced that "touch" is a fetish of the past. He professes to be a "neo-sensualist" and parades around in a zentai suit in a variety of colors, so that his skin can make contact with the skin of others only across the barrier membrane of suit. Per Wikipedia "a zentai suit is a skin-tight garment that covers the entire body, (hands, feet and face). The word is a portmanteau of zenshin taitsu literally – full-body tights. The following photo shows people wearing zentai suits.

The story opens when Sloane and Roman return to the United States, to New York, where Sloane has accepted a full time a job with a huge technology company called Mammoth. At Mammoth, her job is to lead the company's groundbreaking annual conference revealing the development of technology that supports the childless; trending indicates that having children is an extravagant indulgence, due to rising food prices, unemployment, college costs, etc. Future technology, in order to maximize its profit, must focus on this predicted majority childless demographic. While employed at Mammoth, Sloane and Roman choose to continue their Parisian-influenced cohabitation in her childhood neighborhood, close to her widowed mother and her married sister's family of four-and-a-half. Sloane awkwardly tries to revive a close relationship with her mother and sister.

In O, The Oprah Magazine, the novel Touch is described as “[A] warm-hearted tale of a woman reconfiguring her priorities.” I do not quite agree with the warm-hearted adjective, but it is true that submersion in the company environment of millenials – with cell phones glued to an ear, or cell phones being constantly probed and swiped with their fingertips – does cause Sloane to rethink the desirability of a childless future. There is so little eye contact and interpersonal interaction in the work place that she finds it hard to believe that people do not crave human contact. She begins to realize her relationship with the touch-less Roman is definitely unsatisfying. She eyes her married sister's hectic lifestyle with two children and one on the way as having merit of a different sort.

I will admit that the first few chapters of Touch turned me off. They were filled with so much technological jargon and references to desired in-vogue merchandise or experiences that a lot of the content went over my head. But I hung in there with the book because the topic had a science fiction type flair, a genre I do not usual pursue but might appeal if I gave it a chance. In retrospect, I think developing a distaste for the stereotypical millennial lifestyle may have been the intent of these early chapters. I was glad I hung in there. The book got better. 

My favorite supporting character in the whole book was Anastasia, Sloane's company issued, self-driving car. Anastasia, having been programmed with a great deal of Sloane's biographical information, was a sympathetic (dare I even say empathic?) friend to Sloane. Sensors in the seat, measuring body temperature, heart rate, facial pallor, depth of breathing, level of fidgeting, etc. allowed Anastasia to ask probing questions as to how Sloane was feeling, enabling Anastasia be a true sounding board as any close friend should be. Anastasia played a beloved role comparable to R2-D2 or C-3PO. Who does not love those two endearing Star Wars robots?

A work of art or a song or a book can be criticized as being derivative, i.e., not original or creative enough. Touch clearly was not derivative. I found aspects of it thought provoking. There were nuggets of wisdom scattered throughout. One I remember is the assertion that people today sometimes mistake convenience for contentment. Hmmm. Convenience versus Contentment. I like to use the term effort-effective, which is the ratio of how much effort a task took to how well it got the job done. Was that drive-through really better than a sit-down meal? Even if those prepackaged salads or frozen meals are "effort effective" do they make me feel contented or just that I have checked a box?

I hesitate to recommend this book because it is so off the wall and may not have a wide audience appeal, i.e., four stars versus five. But if you are willing to take a chance and spare some of your precious reading time, Touch does give pause for thought; and that thought is worth pausing for. As the Oprah Magazine review intimated, “[A] warm-hearted tale of a woman reconfiguring her priorities” can be construed as having a happy ending. If you happen to like that sort of thing, Touch is a worthy read.