Splendid.

My choice is much better this time around. Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris is refreshingly funny. I decided that it'd be alright if I posted on this book, even though I'm only 40 pages in, on account of how I already read 238 pages of a disappointing book this week (read lower post first to understand).

This book reminds me of the movie Office Space, if any one's seen it. Wonderful movie. This novel, set in the land of cubicles in an office in Downtown Chicago, revolves around the lives of several employees, in the midst of a round of lay-offs. All of the employees' lives take a nose-dive as they wait for the impending lay-off that threatens their meager existences as office clerks and secretaries and other non-important office jobs.

What strikes me the most about this book, is that the author never reveals who exactly is narrating, or who is the main character. Throughout the book, at least the 40 pages that I've read, the only reference to himself or herself are things like: We loved free bagels in the morning, we believed, we thought, we got kicked out, he blamed us, you get the point? I believe its called the omniscient point of view. Because the book does go into detail of what each co-worker feels when threatened with the sack. It's interesting, because I've been told that it's rare for a book to be in omniscient POV. I suppose that's what makes me like this book-- it has a snappy, sarcastic, comical voice, or should I say voices, to it. Here are some of the many passages that I've enjoyed so far. In 40 pages or less.


Hank Neary was an avid reader. He arrived early in his brown corduroy coat with a book taken from the library, copied all its pages on the Xerox machine, and sat at his desk reading what looked to passersby like the honest pages of business. He'd make it through a three-hundred-page novel every two or three days.

Layoffs were upon us. They had been rumored for months, but now it was official. If you were lucky, you could sue. If you were black, aged, female, Catholic, Jewish ,gay, obese, or physically handicapped, at least you had grounds.

Others of us didn't like music at all, some preferred talk radio, and there was a large contingent that kept their radios tuned to the oldies station. After everyone went home for the night, after we all fell asleep and the city dimmed, oldies continued to play inside the abandoned office. Picture it-- only a parallelogram of light in the door way. A happy tune by the Drifters issuing in the dark at two, three o'clock in the morning, when elsewhere murders were taking place, drug deals, unspeakable assaults.

I enjoy the words that Ferris wrote, especially his sarcasm and irony. He talks of these office co-workers as though they are sneaky, lazy, disobedient, but good-hearted people who only hope to keep their job without really working for it. Humanity at its best of course.

I was a bad person and snuck a peek at the last few words of the book, and it has me intrigued. It ends with:

But for the moment, it was nice just to sit there together. We were the only two left. Just the two of us, you and me.

Goodness gracious, this makes me want to read more. Even though I have the feeling that Ferris will never reveal the main character . . . oh well. What I don't know, won't hurt me.