QUILLBLOG

R U reading this novel?

The Globe and Mail ran a story this week on a new novel published in Finland that is entirely composed of cell phone text messages.

The Last Messages tells the story of a fictitious executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only through text messages.

His messages, and the replies — roughly 1,000 altogether — are listed in chronological order in the 332-page novel written by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala. The texts are rife with grammatical errors and abbreviations commonly used in such messages.

“I believe that, at the end of the day, a text message may reveal much more about a person than you would initially think,” said Luntiala, who also is head of a company that keeps databases on people living in Finland.

Reading between the lines on a larger scale, the fact that text messaging has reached the realm of literature may also reveal more about our society than we would think.

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