Moderation by Elaine Castillo review: 'a strangely vexatious book'
Elaine Castillo’s novel is full of meaty ideas, political sass and scrunchy wit - but then it all goes wrong on page 291, writes Stuart Kelly
What a strangely vexatious book this is. If it had stopped on page 291 I would have given it a wholly positive review, with points verging on the superlative. But it continues to page 307, and – to be blunt – blows it. That disappointment does not erase its virtues, but it does tarnish them.
The opening prepares the reader for the acerbic and incisive. The protagonist, who calls herself Girlie Delmundo (equal parts cute and snark), works in online content moderation. She is Filipino, and catalogues herself as “kingdom: asshole / phylum: know-it-all / genus: first-generation eldest daughter”, who “refused to be a tenant of her face”. She has been “pan, then bi, then queer” and is now “nominally bi, but it was like a driver’s license she’d gotten as a teenager and had let expire: she could probably still drive the car but that didn’t mean she’d be safe on the road”.
She caustically notes how few white people do the job she does; indeed, her explanation is tart: “well, what was there to say that hadn’t been said in 1765; in 1899; in 1946; in 1965? The bootstraps way of putting it was that they excelled, frankly, in the manner of people who had been formed to excel in these very specific theaters: because they spoke and read good English, because they respected chains of command, because they kept a positive attitude, because they would take a fifth of an American worker’s pay”. The wryness and smartness belie the clever analysis of how service and caring can transform into sifting and scrubbing the digital world.
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Castillo is unblinking when it comes to Girlie’s speciality. The opening black humour softens the reader for the proper horror: as part of her evaluation, Girlie has to determine whether a particular video actually shows genuine child abuse. Might it be a deepfake? Or a consensual, slight adult in costume? If the detail of the grey pubic hair wasn’t queasy enough, Girlie’s proof made my gorge rise. All she says to prove her point is “her socks” – expanding that there is an unintentional camera glimpse where you can make out a character from Disney’s “Frozen” on them. Girlie’s expertise, her forte, is verifying paedophiles. The company does take the employees’ mental health seriously – although when a superior asks “how her job could best be improved”, Girlie answers “a raise” and get a karaoke machine for social activities. It is useful to note that the higher rate for detecting sickening forms of violence is $1 more per hour.
The Pinay culture is evoked succinctly, and with equal amounts of affection and exasperation. Girlie has been inveigled into organising her cousin’s same-sex marriage, everyone’s current salary and relationship status is of keen interest to the Aunties, watches are a kind of dark currency, status symbol and investment. More importantly, they are in the long hangover of the 2000s – “the age of rhinestones, the age of velour, the age of shock and awe, the age of that most rhinestoned, most veloured, most shocking and awesome of things: the adjustable mortgage”.
As a novel this cannot just be a sociological overview, however sassy. Girlie’s plot is driven by money. She is acutely aware of the gradations and nuances (one restaurant is described as “bourgeois aspirational, not flat-out oligarchic”), she knows the indebtedness means more than a credit arrangement. The catalyst for change in the arrival of William, a British-Asian tech entrepreneur whose company, Playground, has just been acquired by the larger French firm, L’Olifant. The reference is made explicit later – L’Olifant was the horn that Roland failed to blow to call for help in the medieval La Chanson du Roland. Whistleblowing and early warnings are flagged early. Girlie will be live moderating their virtual reality space, where, it turns out, a great deal of inventiveness goes into codes for racism and terror and violence. Girlie realises “you had to keep your eyes open for the constantly renewing online language of assault, all the hundred-blooming-flowers of how to rape someone”. William’s design genius is realising “the most effective virtual reality scenarios were the fantasy ones – fiction, in the end, was the most potent vehicle for immersion”.
There are two other hooks. William’s business partner, the true genius, died – or committed suicide? The company also has a therapist, Dr Perera, who maintains that all the games and leisure are a byproduct, and the real virtual reality benefit is therapeutic. Both Perera and Edison Lau thought “alternative realities” might be prescribed the alterative medicines. Moreover, the corporate backers might – as in Season 2 of “Westworld” – be using the virtual worlds to model and data-mine the humans.
As I hope you see, lots and lots of meaty ideas, political sass and scrunchy wit. But, to misquote Ol’ Blue Eyes, “and then you go and spoil it all by saying somethin’ stupid like she loves him”. Suddenly Fleabag turns into Bridget Jones. Curiously, the novel is puffed by Kaliane Bradley, whose The Ministry of Time had the same sentimental squelch. I might turn to content moderation myself and put a post it note on page 291 of every copy I see: “STOP HERE”.
Moderation by Elaine Castillo, Atlantic, £17.99. Elaine Castillo is appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 22 August
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