This Novel Doesn’t Go by the Book, but It Plays by the Numbers

Given the choice between cleaning out the garage and reading a novel on the Internet, I would normally head right for the garden implements and boxes of bolts and screws just waiting to be sorted.

Long sections of text on a computer screen are no fun to read and take little advantage of the electronic medium. Besides, when it comes to text, books have great advantages: They are portable, not so hard on the eyes and less likely to identify you as a nerd. As for literary value, the best I can say of the vast majority of original fiction I’ve read on the Net is that they are, well, original.

But then came “two five three,” an interactive novel by the British, sometime science fiction author Geoff Ryman, who primarily makes his living creating Web sites. “two five three,” described as “a novel for the Internet about the London Underground in seven cars and a crash,” can be found at https://www.ryman--novel.com.

The novel takes place on the Bakerloo Line of the the subway, traveling from the Embankment to Elephant and Castle stations. There are seven cars on the train, each with 36 seats. That makes for a total of 252 passengers at full capacity, plus the driver, which brings us to the “two five three” of the title.

There is a chapter for each of the 253 characters and within each, you’ll find out about his or her appearance, destination, thoughts, secrets, home life (unless homeless) and actions while riding the train. And here’s the tricky part that makes it all work: Each of these chapters is exactly 253 words in length.

That might seem an artificial rule, but literature has a long and cherished history of embracing restrictions: the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare, for example, or the exacting count of syllables in a haiku poem.

Ryman works within his self-imposed restriction to create astonishingly vibrant portraits of each person on that train, which is headed for disaster. For example, the chapter on the driver, Tahsin Cilekbileckli, tells us that he is a former Turkish political scientist who is tired because of staying up late to argue politics and religion with his two best friends.

Ryman creates the portrait with details--the description of Tahsin’s appearance includes the line, “His Hush Puppy shoes are worn along one edge”--that are more evocative than many authors’ lengthy texts.

Here’s the entire description of passenger Clive Kelton, character 24: “Middle-aged man. Gray, short hair. Sharp pale face, no jowls. Wears new, all-black, casual clothes. Fast asleep.” The chapter goes on to tell us that he moved his family from peaceful Devon to London, where he found work in a bathroom fixtures showroom. When violence erupts on the train, he awakes. “What am I doing here, he thinks. Could we go back?”

Each chapter is a little gem, but sometimes individual lines stand out. Of Jason Luveridge, an African American man living in London, Ryman writes: “His clothes are camouflage. He expects to wear camouflage all his life.”

To make the novel “interactive,” each of the people on the train are linked to at least one other. For example, as Kelton is waking up, he hears someone shouting about a “knife in the ribs.” That line is highlighted--click on it and you go to the chapter about the man who said it.

In all, “two five three” is a disturbing, melancholy work, but it’s also lyrical and totally engaging. So far, Ryman has filled only four of the cars. I’m very much looking forward to reading about who he puts on the other three.

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Cyburbia’s e-mail address is david.colker@latimes.com.