The Expert of Subtle Revisions
Do you *exist* if no one knows about you? Well, of course you do; this “tree falls in the woods” thought experiment doesn’t really hold up because — at minimum — the vast majority of us are “known” to the government or whatever else powers-that-be by virtue of having an ID, property record/lease, an internet connection, etc. But of course “knowing about you” the way that I mean isn’t about facts necessarily. It’s about feeling. And I just finished The Good Life, the book that outlines and gives insight into the Harvard Study of Adult Development, i.e. “the world’s longest scientific study of happiness.” Toward the end of the book, its authors — Robert Waldinger, MD and Marc Schulz, PhD — write this: “This [participants’ willingness to have their lives studied throughout their lifetime] speaks to a concern that many of us have: Do I matter?”
Here’s a novel with the most clever cover art: The Expert of Subtle Revisions by Kirsten Menger-Anderson. And Hase, our protagonist, kind of doesn’t, really, “exist.” At least not by the aforementioned bureaucratic standards. We don’t know her real first name, why her mother is not part of her life, nor where her father recently disappeared to. But editing Wikipedia pages is where she makes her mark: “Online, I can sit in front of a keyboard convinced that I’m elsewhere. Online, I’m welcome until I’m not, usually because I’ve assumed an influential role—a forum moderator or administrator—and abused my power. My last Wikipedia bot inserted the words ‘History is not neutral’ on several dozen pages before it was suspended, along with me…Online, I can always return. I just have to create a new account.”
That’s where the novel begins. But soon it starts time-shifting, with some notes of what I guess I’d call reincarnation-via-time-travel. I often ruminate on whether or not individuals are the same in different locations/contexts…but are we the same in a parallel universe altogether?!
It turns out that Hase “matters” quite a bit, particularly from a historical perspective. It’s a pity that sometimes the people who have the most impact (i.e. they “matter”) are deleted from the narrative — the Wikipedia of life, if you will — yes?
originally published on instagram