Then We Came to the End: A Novel
by Joshua Ferris
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joshua FerrisEdition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2008-02-26
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Book Reviews of Then We Came to the End: A Novel
Book Review: Lighten up, please...
Summary: 4 Stars
I must have read a different book from some of the other reviewers. My version of this book contained the exact same plot elements, stylistic designs, and even some of the same quotes. But my version seemed both fresh and amusing, not depressing and snarky. Fiction does not have to conform to a direct map of reality in the way that some of the critics of this book propose. The elliptical story lines and the first-person-plural style keep the book from being predictable. In many ways it reads more like a World War II narrative or a castaways story with characters from different places and experiences forming a weird, unstable and entertaining unit. The characters in Ferris' book are somewhat two-dimensional, but this is clearly the author's intent. By failing to identify a truly central character, we get a prismatic view of this collection of people without any grounding in external reality. We get to hear what they think about each other -- but not really. There are unresolved mysteries that make the book seem modern and hip. But beyond that, there is a reminder that contemporary life has the same general features of all of human history except that loss in our time usually refers to a home foreclosure and not being eaten by a lion. Illness and death weave through the book as a deep theme despite the generally frothy nature of what goes on in the office. There is a set-piece that starts off as frightening and ends as humorously macabre. This element stands in for the whole novel -- important things happen, but we are usually too distracted to notice much unless these things happen to us. Could the book be improved? Yes. As good a first novel as this is, it did sometimes lurch a bit. Some of this was in the form of homages to various other literary works (some classical and some very modern). But this is really a slight criticism of an excellent work. And for the record, the middle section really worked as an important piece to cement the whole story together.
Summary of Then We Came to the End: A Novel
No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts. Every office is a family of sorts, and the ad agency Joshua Ferris brilliantly depicts in his debut novel is family at its strangest and best, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks.With a demon's eye for the details that make life worth noticing, Joshua Ferris tells a true and funny story about survival in life's strangest environment--the one we pretend is normal five days a week.
Amazon Best of the Month Spotlight Title, April 2007: It's 2001. The dot-com bubble has burst and rolling layoffs have hit an unnamed Chicago advertising firm sending employees into an escalating siege mentality as their numbers dwindle. As a parade of employees depart, bankers boxes filled with their personal effects, those left behind raid their fallen comrades' offices, sifting through the detritus for the errant desk lamp or Aeron chair. Written with confidence in the tricky-to-pull-off first-person plural, the collective fishbowl perspective of the "we" voice nails the dynamics of cubicle culture--the deadlines, the gossip, the elaborate pranks to break the boredom, the joy of discovering free food in the breakroom. Arch, achingly funny, and surprisingly heartfelt, it's a view of how your work becomes a symbiotic part of your life. A dysfunctional family of misfits forced together and fondly remembered as it falls apart. Praised as "the Catch-22 of the business world" and "The Office meets Kafka," I'm happy to report that Joshua Ferris's brilliant debut lives up to every ounce of pre-publication hype and instantly became one of my favorite books of the year. --Brad Thomas Parsons
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