Hard Copy: A story of girl meets printer

I agree with the reviews that say this book has been mismarketed. If you’re starting it expecting mostly an objectum romance that’s not what you’re going to get. This story is less about any kind of romance between the protagonist and her printer and more about her obsession with being understood. The way I read it, this is a character study of a woman with a schizotypal personality and in that regard it absolutely excels. I believe the disorganization of memories, non-linear chronology, and the protagonist having an extremely poor sense of self throughout the story are all tools the author uses to emphasize this, though it can make for a frustrating reading experience if you aren’t in mood for literary fiction, which is what this should be portrayed as in it’s synopsis.

There are some absolutely beautiful passages in this book. Wonderful metaphors. I wish that the commentary on class had a bit more depth to it but what was there was good. Commentary on misogyny was great. This book is full of anger at the world, righteous anger, but it also showcases how focusing all your attention on anger and subsequently fear can distort your reality. Like I said, it’s a spectacular portrait of a schizotypal mind- one which has difficulty with relationships, engages in self-centered magical thinking, lives in a distorted reality and is only briefly able to escape it. What’s most interesting about this protagonist is how she’s at times acutely aware of others’ feelings and needs, and other times she is painfully oblivious or even resistant to what’s expected of her in these social situations. Knowing that she needed to be the first to move in order for everyone to stop hesitating going into a certain room, and then later considering asking her coworker “what’s up?” after he asked her but bizarrely deciding it would be rude, for example. She drifts in and out of touch with the world around her and it’s fascinating to watch.

The section from the printer itself I was hoping would be only projection from her onto the object. I understand that it plays into the theme of her coping mechanism of magical thinking, that making it seem as if the printer might actually be a sentient entity contributes to the purposeful confusion, but I think if it’d been more obvious that the printer is not actually sentient it would’ve provided the reader more respite between these long stretches of stays with an admittedly unreliable and disorienting narrator. As it is the printer section still does provide some rest, but I think that slight change, grounding that section in reality just a little more, would’ve made it a bit better for me.

All that being said, this is a great work and Hester Velmans did an outstanding job on the English translation. I’ll be trying to get a paperback copy for my shelf soon.

“If some fateful day my present were to end and my future to vanish, then what I'd like most of all is for my life to be turned into a beautiful story. A story in which the materials and objects are described in all their dazzling glory. A story of gold, cashmere, dates, silk, airy chocolate mousse, fresh tobacco, gleaming oak wood and ripe mangos. A story where people have all the time in the world to land in unexpected situations, ending up in strangers' beds and tripping on acid. A story where the alarm never goes off, where credit cards are never declined.” Fien Veldman’s Hard Copy’s the story of a girl meets printer. “The printer is the only reason I like coming to the office. I take care of him all day long, dusting him, encouraging him, reassuring him, looking after him. I am there for him and he is there for me. I have more feelings for my printer than for anyone else…I simply want to print and send out my letters, replace the cartridge every so often. I want to run my finger over the paper so I can tell if it's fit for use, as I always do. I want to go up to my own little office every day and I want to be left alone in there. I want to switch on my printer in the morning and listen to its start-up sounds as I take my first sip of coffee from my mug, the same one I use every day. I want to spend all day with the machine, watch the printed letters stack up.” “This machine knows everything about me. He knows my thoughts, my fantasies, my dreams. My love and my hate. And he is the only one who knows that story, the story for which there's barely any space, except in some dark storage room where no one ever goes. If anyone knows who I am, it is he. He was the listener, I the storyteller…it's a question of belief. The machine is just a device, almost just as ordinary as the printers in the copy shop. But for all that time, I thought he was different. I really thought he could hear me, that he understood me. But maybe I just imagined it all.” This philosophical printer is a literary genius!