Two weeks ago, it was announced that Ernest Cline would be starting work on his next novel. It’s a sequel to “Ready Player One” that is, get this, called “Ready Player Two.” As far as sequel convention names go, this may be one of the more predictable.
Though that doesn’t compare to the reaction that audiences had when the news was announced. Many were left wondering what ground Cline could possibly need to cover to expand this story into an even more massive pop culture landscape. It’s a fair point, especially with many labeling the recent film adaptation as one of Steven Spielberg’s worst movies of the 21st century. The once “holy grail of nerd culture” was now considered this problematic text, whose every line was an exhausting read of references that added very little to the story. Not only that, but it pandered to the trend of the 1980s ephemera that everyone else was copying. Even its use of quests and hero archetypes was very much from a different era.
So why even make a sequel? Oh sure, there’s reason to believe that you can strike gold twice. Maybe Cline would move his references up a decade, serving as a Schooled to his The Goldbergs. Even then, it questions what the value of writing an “original” narrative needs to be when it’s so reliant on preexisting media for its substance. Why doesn’t he just find a new world to build and make audiences interested in that? There is something defeatist about returning to “Ready Player One,” especially this late after the original. Everyone has moved on. They have grown a taste for more creative forms of subtlety.
Though all of this will never top one detail that amuses me to no end. You see, the “Ready Player Two” announcement came out on my birthday.
I think it feels significant right now because of one thing. Back in April, I released my first short story collection (“Esoteric Shapes”) that featured a short story called “Ernest Cline, Revised.” It was basically a story where I tried to use Cline’s approach to writing in order to have an analytical relationship with his work. I wondered if I could use style to comment on substance, and if there was anything more interesting that I felt wasn’t being explored.
Deep down, I feel like this detail secretly informed the announcement, even if I’m sure that Cline has never even heard of me. While it has critical moments, it’s ultimately a sympathetic take that attempts to understand why his art matters. Why do we need to present this world with such blatant detail that it sometimes distracts from any forwarding momentum? Even if the story only ever appeals to me (I hope you like it), I am amused by the idea of this post-modernism because on some level I feel like Cline is a misunderstood author. I’m not saying he’s great or really deserving of his spot on PBS’ Great American Read, but the truth is that I don’t know how to quit him.
If Wil Wheaton does the audiobook, I will be there ready to listen to “Ready Player Two.” If you have to read the words, it’s a bit insufferable and highlights what’s wrong with this line of thinking. There are pages of references meant to reflect the protagonist’s obsession with references, using it as a form of escapism in a world that has grown largely desolate. It’s a clever dystopian take that feels painfully relevant right now during a quarantine culture, where we can only exist in our virtual realities, going on adventures. Having Wheaton makes sense, especially as a premier figure in nerd culture. Why he’s so dorky that he could play HIMSELF as an antagonist on The Big Bang Theory without batting an eye.
But here’s the thing. I notice that the story is seen as this thrilling and exciting adventure story where people go on a quest to find keys that could give them ownership of the virtual world of The Oasis is a bit misleading. The movie even alludes to the idea of going mountain climbing with Batman. So much of this is a fantasy meant for you to embrace a childlike wonder of these figures in your life. One minute you can be in a thrilling car race and the next fighting towering forces medieval style. It’s a place where everything can happen and at points the thrill makes sense. Being rewarded for recalling every line of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) seems fun because no other novel has thought to use that as a plot device.
And yet, I think there is something to be argued that this novel is depressing. When people look at it in a modern lens, they will see all of the problematic elements. From the top down, there is the douchebag white savior trope who feel they’re self-righteous because they can accept people with facial deformities (and Black people). It’s a fantasy where the white guy saves the day, and his cockiness is frustrating because we get to the end of the narrative and it is rewarded. This “epic” journey winds up with him getting everything he’s ever wanted.
If you judge that way (which is what I assume Cline intended), it is a flimsy novel and one that makes you rue the day “Ready Player Two” comes out. There’s nothing fun about a story where A to B to C happens and very little of note throws things off course.
But, and I’m serious when I say this, I think the novel is more interesting as a cautionary read. It’s one that doesn’t look at the action and see something thrilling. Every detail feels built like a personal form of isolation that humanity has bestowed upon itself. Our ability to obsess over pop culture references is a tool of distraction from any deeper emotional pain. When corporations use it as a force for evil, it reflects the malleability of media that these are all about interpretations that can be perverted horribly.
There’s other symbolism that I find personally depressing in relation to the blanket idea of pop culture. For instance, I am dissuaded by the fact that The Oasis is a place where people use avatars, getting to be people that are not themselves. Whole relationships can be formed over these false identities, and the fact that you can’t get any more personal than your avatar feels like an even more limiting idea than the fact that most of these people will never meet. They will never get to have a genuine relationship. As it stands, many go to The Oasis because reality has disappointed them. Nobody talks to each other, forming terrible addictions with technology that substitutes for personal growth. We’re stuck in this cognitive limbo because fiction is much more exciting than reality.
I suppose as a writer and someone who often looks at their life through pop culture (that’s the crux of this website), I am a bit hypocritical for disliking “Ready Player One.” After all, most of the time I’m just having personal interactions with these various texts. With that said, my life is not defined by them, at least I hope, but my reaction to them and how small personalized moments inform my admiration for them. I am not somebody who likes to get lost in fantasy and virtual reality. I frankly hate VR because I fear forming a delusion that I see in “Ready Player One,” where I lose touch with myself and the world around me. I’m a technophobe in that way thanks to a lot of early-90s James Cameron movies. I guess using a laptop isn’t much better, but at least my peripherals can see the world around me.
That is what makes Cline such a fascinating force of nature to me. There is a sense when approaching his work that he is trapped in The Oasis and thus is unable to fully exist in ours. When I listen to his stand-up special, his rants about Ultraman are endearing because the audience clearly gets it. However, it’s also a sign that we’re not getting much in the way of something personal. What we get is someone’s obsessions, a guard from anything deeper inside of him.
As someone who frequents Twitter, I recognize how much my interpretation of “Ready Player One” is informed by social media. Having dealt with trolls and people who put on airs to receive any affection, I get what The Oasis is based on. I get why pandering to this ideology would be cool. However, I also see the other side, where people are worn out from the abuse trolls throw on people, where presenting fake selves has the power to rattle the world in offensive ways. This confident behavior is no longer cute, and what was seen as a generic protagonist character building a decade ago is now the archetype for a delusional man who clearly needs to get out of the house more.
The irony is that I don’t really encourage you to read “Ready Player One” because it’s not a great book. I am cautious to talk to those who really like it because I fear it reads as something very specific to them. They don’t see the irony or allusions in the book that make it depressing. Then again, as an autistic man, I am aware of how impossible it is sometimes to get out of obsessive holes. Maybe mine isn’t The Oasis, but I remember watching Cats (1998) two months ago and getting too into the world-building and inane lyricism. Someone practically had to insult me just to make me stop singing every number like I was Harold Hill.
That is why this text is such an amazing case study. I simultaneously respect it for pushing excess to its insufferable limits. I also notice that it can (and should) be read as a study of the decay of society in the 21st century. We’ve been reduced to something impersonal, unable to have a basic human connection because our cultural cache is reduced to these outdated ideas and references that have no deeper substance than to take up space. They’re like drugs blocking us from feeling deeper emotion, and when we do they have no choice but to have this juvenile straightforwardness that’s not that fun to read.
There is something here that I frankly can’t imagine his other work capturing as well. If anything it goes from a novelty into something reflective of a depressing mental illness. This is a book about a new form of addiction, and I think it’s difficult to spot because I believe Cline is in his own form of denial. After all, he was deemed a Nerd God upon the book’s release and he got Spielberg to make a movie out of it.
With that said, I love anyone who’d make the argument that Ready Player One (2018) is Spielberg coming to terms with his own career. He looks at what he’s created and the chaos and bastardization they’ve bestowed on society, and he sees it in a negative way. What have we done to Jaws (1975) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1984)? These are all things that have been manipulated into unrecognizable forms because we obsess too much over it.
Am I looking forward to “Ready Player Two”? Not really. With that said, I think there’s something interesting about applying the auteur theory to Cline. He’s a writer whose work is going to age horribly, and yet he captures something implicit deep down about how society is crumbling, needing to build as something more analog. I see the ending as optimistic, something self-aware that change needs to be made for the better. However, I don’t know how many people will read it as an excuse to go outside and go for a walk. At most, they’ll find the satisfaction that they mastered a computer game. There’s value in that, but glorifying it like this cannot be healthy. Going back a second time may even be a worse thing to do.
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