C is a Bildungsroman telling the history of Serge Carrefax, an increasingly unlikable amoral antihero. The novel is divided into four sections covering Serge’s childhood, his adventures during the First World War as a member of the Royal Flying Corps, his misadventures in 1920s London with drugs and chorus-girls (all the bits Bertie Wooster left out), and finally a journey into the tombs of Egypt for the Ministry of Communications. Most Bildungsromans follow their protagonists on a journey of development towards self-knowledge. Serge, however, is on a journey to nowhere.
Born in 1898 along with the first experimental radio transmissions, he spends his whole life obsessed with transmission and networks of communication. As an adolescent he is a fanatical amateur radio enthusiast. In the RFC he is an observer and radio-operator. In Egypt he is ostensibly surveying a site for a new radio mast.
New technologies of communication instantly link Serge, as he learns early on, with the whole world.
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