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Until the Deep Water Stills: An Internet-enhanced Novel by Michael Robert Dyet (Author)

Why we're reading this: This is an "internet-enhanced novel" with a companion web site located at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog It is currently on 8 Goodread Members "To Read" list.
[close] This is an "internet-enhanced novel" with a companion web site located at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog It is currently on 8 Goodread Members "To Read" list. [close]

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Apr 21, 2009

Michael added it

Read in March, 2009

Doomsday prophets who sound the death knell of the book shortchange the artist and his abilities to find new ways to express himself. In Until the Deep Water Stills, Michael Dyet offers a glimpse into the evolution of the novel, harnessing the new technologies to reveal layers of story in a way that can only be done in the electronic age. Dyet deftly uses the Internet to create underlying strata, allowing the reader to slip away, if she wishes, from the third-person narrative of the novel to acc...more Doomsday prophets who sound the death knell of the book shortchange the artist and his abilities to find new ways to express himself. In Until the Deep Water Stills, Michael Dyet offers a glimpse into the evolution of the novel, harnessing the new technologies to reveal layers of story in a way that can only be done in the electronic age. Dyet deftly uses the Internet to create underlying strata, allowing the reader to slip away, if she wishes, from the third-person narrative of the novel to access the first-person intimacy of the blogs, diaries, letters, audio, and photo journals of the characters. When the reader returns to the main narrative, it is with deeper understanding, and sometime astonishing new facts.

The story unfolds from a central event – the drug overdose death of a teenage girl at a rave. The aftershocks set out in ever-expanding circles, engulfing her parents, her aunt and uncle, and also a social worker using the death to promote her personal agenda of drug-free raves. Tragedy and misfortune rock the lives of the characters, but it is the emotional narrative beneath these events that is the epicenter of the novel. Secrets lie beneath the surface, as do fault lines beneath the earth. It is private life to public life, subconscious mind to conscious mind, third person to first person - what we choose to reveal (or not) to those who are supposed to be our “intimates” – our spouses and partners.

Marshall McLuhan said, "The medium is the message." He might have been peering into the future to see Dyet's novel, where the medium of the Internet enhances the story, certainly, but also, becomes the story, revelations offered to the reader in a way not possible in the hard-copy, print-static world of the past. The mode influences the telling.

~Marianne Paul
Author of Tending Memory, Twice in a Blue Moon and Dead Girl Diaries

“It's an urbane story of relationships and choices people make. The theme of facing up to the consequences of our choices is poignantly unfolded, with the tragic loss of love and life, a cautionary tale of our contemporary times.

The writing is excellent, whose luminous quality oft outshines the waxing moon on the deep still water.”

Ben Antao
Past President, Canadian Authors Association, Toronto Branch
Author of: Blood & Nemesis, Penance, Living on the Market and The Priest and His Karma
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May 03, 2009

Shane rated it:

Read in June, 2009

The five central characters in this novel are locked in grief, constantly psychoanalysing themselves, their actions and those of others. Michael Dyet uses elaborate layering in his prose to draw his characters down, deeper until they reach the still water at the bottom and emerge from their condition. Not all arrive though: some are locked in anger and hate, and self-destruct enroute; others, ensnared in the guilt stage, engage in self-destructive behaviour and are left damaged and having damage...more

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