Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 It can be done! April 20, 2008
For years I've been told you can't maintain a narrative stance like this within anything longer than a short story. You can! Hahaaaa!
 Dull December 27, 2007
This is not that great a novel; it's actually as dull as the people it details. The set-up - a failing advertising agency - could be a perfect vehicle for all sorts of comments on modern life but it simply fails to tackle any of the possibilities available, plus the writing is just bland. I think Joshua Ferris wanted to write a Microserfs (Douglas Coupland) for the noughties, (themes of: mass-consumption; alienation; boring office-cubicle lives and how people deal, or fail to deal, with that reality etc.)- but, whereas Microserfs definitely captures the zeitgeist, this book just drones on and on, and is about as interesting as the 'drone-lives' of the ('we') character(s) that inhabit the book.
A great first novel November 27, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
While Then We Came to the End has been touted for its humor- and it is a funny book- to read it as strictly a spoof of ad agency life would be to diminish what Joshua Ferris has accomplished in his clever novel. Filled with characters that inspire sympathy and revulsion, familiarity and curiosity- often at the same time- this notable first effort captures well what pressure-cooker corporate life can do to the human spirit, no small achievement for any novelist much less a brand new one.
Told from a collective "we" point of view, the characters nevertheless have distinct voices and viewpoints, with their own hopes and desires for life beyond ad life, desires (at times) at odds with their coveted, chosen occupation. Lording over Chicago from their lofty office perches, there's a pervasive sense not only of "how did we get here?" but also a disbelieving, disheartening "so this is it?" in their daily grind. Some resent the hucksterism inherent in the advertising world- despite having fought to be a part of that world- as if the ad world should somehow be more than what is, a corporate job that just so happens to rely on teams of brilliant, creative and quirky individuals for its ultimate success. Worse, by nature some of these unique individuals are nearly the antithesis of the very idea of teamwork, which alone provides some interesting conflict. Characters strive to do their best work, or creatively avoid doing any work, as rumors swirl about layoffs and clients lost and found. With their uncertainties and insecurities surprisingly at odds with their handsome, enviable salaries, they praise and complain, encourage and slander, all the while desperate to avoid the dreaded humiliation of being the next in line to be shown the door. It's this fear of the seemingly inevitable that propels the book forward, and how each character deals with that fear (or its reality) makes the book engaging.
Ferris breaks from the "we" to the first person singular only once, and that's for a stern woman supervisor who's been diagnosed with cancer. Her ruminations on her life and circumstances are poignant without being maudlin, and add an extra, unexpected dimension to the book.
Like other first novels based on real places and events, Then We Came to the End does a fine job of letting outsiders in as it exposes the unglamorous aspects of ad agency life. Readers who spend their allotted time in cubicles and offices anywhere will undoubtedly recognize many of these characters- and maybe even themselves- since corporate life is corporate life no matter where it's found.
Mark Wakely, author of An Audience for Einstein
Entirely Brilliant November 26, 2007
How wonderful to read a modern novel that's ambitious, funny and compassionate.
This is so good that one wonders why it is the first really great novel about the modern workplace: the anonymity, politics and gossiping, the cruelty, crushes and madness. It's extremely funny and desperately moving. Buy it for anyone - I can't think of a single objection that could be raised against it.
 We Are Amused November 25, 2007
Joshua Ferris's debut novel, Then We Came to the End, has drawn attention for its unusual prose device of telling the story in the first person plural. There is no narrator, just an office collective - "we". It may well be the first time it's been done, and, though it might sound off-putting, it works extremely well, unlike the handful of books written in the second person (e.g. "Bright Lights, Big City").
The book is a story of life in an advertising agency on the skids, with the ever-present threat of redundancy picking off the staff one by one. Ferris composes the book as a series of anecdotes and incidents, written in a highly readable, amusing style. For the first 100 pages or so, I enjoyed the book immensely.
The only negative, for me anyway, was I felt that once I'd warmed to the style and good humour of the novel, I was ready for a change of gear. I was ready for some of the character stories to move in unexpected directions, or for major twists in the plot. But that doesn't happen, and the book continues in the same vein.
However, overall this is an enjoyable book that keeps us entertained.
|
