To Give You Something to Go On
When you've only been alive for 25 years, it's pretty difficult to make arguments with any kind of historical perspective, but there's this verse in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes that I always tried to latch onto, maybe because it allows me to look at things from a perspective beyond my years.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
That's why reading Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris makes sense right now. Here's a review that provides a little perspective on the subject matter:
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.
As a third-year law student, it's difficult to read a blog like Above the Law and wonder what all of the layoffs and cutbacks might mean for myself, my classmates, and friends at law schools across the country.
The scale of our current economic problems is by no means confined to the legal profession, but that is simply the sector of the economy whose pulse we are trying to determine on a day to day basis.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
That's why reading Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris makes sense right now. Here's a review that provides a little perspective on the subject matter:
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.
As a third-year law student, it's difficult to read a blog like Above the Law and wonder what all of the layoffs and cutbacks might mean for myself, my classmates, and friends at law schools across the country.
The scale of our current economic problems is by no means confined to the legal profession, but that is simply the sector of the economy whose pulse we are trying to determine on a day to day basis.
Current Reading
Then We Came to the End: A Novel by Joshua Ferris
Then We Came to the End: A Novel by Joshua FerrisLabels: current reading, Ecclesiastes, Joshua Ferris, Law school
posted by Justin @ 3/29/2009 09:11:00 AM
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