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Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris
Feb. 2nd, 2008 02:00 pmThe Blurb On The Back:
They spend their days - and too many of their nights - at work. Away from friends and family, they share a stretch of stained carpet with a group of strangers they call colleagues.
There's Chris Yop, who is clinging to his ergonomic chair; Lynn Mason, the boss, whose breast cancer everyone pretends not to talk about; Carl Garbedian, secretly taking someone else's medication; Marcia Dwyer, whose hair is stuck in the eighties; and Benny, who's just - well, just Benny. Amidst the boredom, redundancies, water-cooler moments, meetings, flirtations and pure rage, life is happening, to their great surprise, all around them.
Then We Came to the End is about sitting all morning next to someone you cross the road to avoid at lunch. It's the story of your life, and mine.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Given that most authors seem to split between using third person limited and first person singular as their narrative voice, it is very heartening to see an author (particularly a first time author) try to break the mould by using first person plural. In the context of this book, and given the author's aims, I think it's something that works well and as such the book is worth a look on that basis. However, I suspect that the fact that you never really get emotionally close to these characters and you do see them display a herd-like casual cruelty at times may put some readers off. It's slow to build up steam, but once you do find yourself involved it's easy to follow and enjoyable.
They spend their days - and too many of their nights - at work. Away from friends and family, they share a stretch of stained carpet with a group of strangers they call colleagues.
There's Chris Yop, who is clinging to his ergonomic chair; Lynn Mason, the boss, whose breast cancer everyone pretends not to talk about; Carl Garbedian, secretly taking someone else's medication; Marcia Dwyer, whose hair is stuck in the eighties; and Benny, who's just - well, just Benny. Amidst the boredom, redundancies, water-cooler moments, meetings, flirtations and pure rage, life is happening, to their great surprise, all around them.
Then We Came to the End is about sitting all morning next to someone you cross the road to avoid at lunch. It's the story of your life, and mine.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Given that most authors seem to split between using third person limited and first person singular as their narrative voice, it is very heartening to see an author (particularly a first time author) try to break the mould by using first person plural. In the context of this book, and given the author's aims, I think it's something that works well and as such the book is worth a look on that basis. However, I suspect that the fact that you never really get emotionally close to these characters and you do see them display a herd-like casual cruelty at times may put some readers off. It's slow to build up steam, but once you do find yourself involved it's easy to follow and enjoyable.
