Then We Came to the End: A Novel
by Joshua Ferris
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Book Reviews of Then We Came to the End: A Novel
Book Review: I Laughed, I Cried - Three Thoughts
Summary: 5 Stars
Very rarely does a book inspire me to laugh out loud, much less gasp or start tearing up. This book did all of that (which led to some embarrassing moments on the train) and more. I read it several months ago and still think about it at least once a day - although I do work in an office in Chicago that is facing layoffs, so the parallels are undeniable. But I don't want to sell Ferris short - the book would be brilliant even if it didn't resonate with my real life.
The book's real triumph for me (and perhaps the reason some people are so put off by it) is that so much happens by inference, subtext, and implication. With the single (startling, unexpected, heartbreaking) exception, we never really get inside the perspective of the characters. We see their actions, listen to their words, hear their perspective from them, but their true inner life is the central mystery of the book, much as those we spend our time with are truly unknowable. So those moments when truth bubbles to the surface, when we discover something truly personal about a character, are like shocking twists in a suspense film.
When describing this book, I often say it's like Catch-22 in an office, which isn't really fair, but does get at some central things about the book. First off, the characters' unknowability, then the sheer size of the cast, and the time-jumping nature of the narrative, which goes forward and back and around and through the same central time period. But the thing that both books have at their center is a bruised but extremely loving and generous heart that cloaks itself in jokes and distance because the truth is simply too much to bear. I love this book.
Book Review: DID THE AUTHOR EVER EVEN STEP FOOT IN CHICAGO?
Summary: 1 Stars
Those discerning readers who have given this book one star (and one star only because you can't give it zero stars) have provided sufficient insights and critiques of this poorly written (how could anyone have spent 5 -- count 'em -- 5 years on this?) novel? Since one character could not be distinguished from another, I suggest that any future editions include a page with names and stick figures representing the characters so some semblance of recognition of who is who can occur (not that the reader cares about this or anything else the author has to say after about the first 20 pages). And the last line, as another reviewer has noted, truly is something that a high school C student would use to end a short story. However, my main criticism is that the author appears to have never stepped foot in Chicago. People who work in North Michigan Avenue companies are not drawn from the south side of the city nor the far south suburbs. There are no teeming crowds of workers ala 1960s New York flooding the streets at lunch time. Whatever city and citizens he's describing are not Chicago and its people. Lastly, the totem pole. Just about everyone knows that the Plains Indians did NOT make totem poles. Didn't the author have anyone read the proofs who knew this. Did the author think that Tlingit Indians had come down from the Northwest Coast and set up shop in Nebraska? As with other fiction books that have recently received rave reviews from (previously thought) credible critics, who are these reviewers who think books like this are even readable, much less "possibly the next Great American novel"?Book Review: The real office
Summary: 3 Stars
Everyday we spend the best part of our energy on the people who work with us. That ad hoc family that surrounds us day after day. The people we know better than some our own family, and yet really don't know at all. The agency is downsizing, restructuring any other term they can find for layoffs. Every day brings the anticipation and dread. Will it be Carl, who has been more and more erratic as of late, or Jim, who always manages to say the most inappropriate thing, Karen who can reduce even the most heartbreaking incident into something to be mocked, Chris who pilfers a coworker's chair, or Marcia the acid tongued? Of course we could all be like Joe, perfect Joe, who is always ready when called upon, never joins in the pranks or gossip or complains about being the target of the group's increasingly childish jokes and seems to have the respect of their boss Lynn. Joe will never make the Spanish walk with his belongings in a box, escorted by security. One of their main topics of speculation on the health of one of the agency's partners, Lynn. As coworkers become more paranoid and spend more time talking than working, the layoffs continue. The more employees try to ferret out the less they actually know about their coworkers and about their eventual fate.
Then We Came to the End is a wickedly funny first novel from Joshua Ferris. He has captured the endless quest of the office worker to fill time without actually working. The gossip, the endless jockeying for recognition, the speculation on what's ahead...the aggression and apathy. This was an entertaining book.
Book Review: Read Slab Rat instead
Summary: 3 Stars
Never as good as I wanted it to be. There are a few reasons for this:
* It was just too long (385 pages). Cutting 50 pages would have really helped. I found myself counting the pages until it ended.
* The wasn't any character I could really relate to. They were all petty and mean-spirited, and maybe that was the point of the book, since it takes place in the high-stress world of advertising and during layoffs no less, when everyone is hoping they are not the one cut.
* The first person plural narrative, though maybe hard to write, kept me at a distance, and I never felt included, or part of the story. I wish it was just a straight first person.
* The setting of the book--the workplace--has been done before, and done better. Just off the top of my head: Office Space (film), The Office (TV), and Slab Rat (novel) by Ted Heller.
But there are things I liked about the book. The author did an excellent job of juggling the many characters, and keeping their personalities distinct and consistent. The humor, though never laugh-out-loud, was real and true to the characters. I never felt like the characters were cliches. The day-to-day drudgery of working in an office environment really comes through here--the bull sessions to kill time, the watching of the clock, the "real" life you have outside of the office on the weekends, the forced closeness you have with your co-workers, the way you can know someone so well, but not really know them at all.
So, a mixed review. Overall, I liked it more than not and give it three stars.
Book Review: Sparse Humor
Summary: 3 Stars
If one could call Joshua Ferris' debut novel Then We Came To The End a blockbuster for the book world, that would be the one word to fit the profile of the novel. He had the invisible ally of reality on his side to tackle a real-life portrayal of an everyday office experienced by a majority of his audience. Ferris' use of the grueling workdays work in his favor as he displays them with humor and reality.
Similar to the TV show "The Office," Ferris' novel mirrors the idea of showing a funny aspect of menial chores to be done in an office. His unique writing style incorportes humor with a quality which I cannot seem to identify. The novel starts of slowly and uses the humor simply to retain it's essence. This, may be, the one drawback to Ferris' novel. The slowness of the novel takes away from the humor because it takes so long for the jokes to progress. Although the humor was few and far between, when it was used it did exude laugh out loud laughter, however it was the sparsity of the jokes that lost hilarity. For instance a large part of the first half of the novel is spent showing employees' reactions to being fired one man decided to cut up his clothes. Another decided to take another man (the firee)'s "buckshelves" [bookshelves] and when reiterating the story to his peers he expressed his fear of "the man" and with Ferris' use of hyperboles he could successfully show how "the man" controlled the office.
Though a little rough around the edges the incorporation of humor took away the edge to exude a novel which can enjoyed by many.