I had high expectations for Joshua Ferris’ 2007 debut novel Then We Came to an End. The novel’s milieu is that of an Chicago advertising agency that is facing financial dire straits just after the burst of the Internet Bubble of 2001, the sort of “Hey I can relate to this” theme that validates my workaday feelings of frustration, disbelief, fear, and utter dependance. It’s as familiar and comforting as Dilbert or Office Space, yet the backcover boasts raving endorsements from The New York Times Book Review and other literary illumnaries. Could this be the canonical classic that sets the standard for office lit?
The most conspicuous sylistic element of Then We Came to an End is that it’s written (almost) entirely in the first-person plural. For example, from the opening paragraph: “We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked has something to look forward to at ten-fifteen.” Gradually the individual co-workers who make up the collective “we” are identified and developed. Most are stereotypes and not one of them is entirely likable. They steal, lie, bicker, gossip, and, as the lay-offs ramp up, grow paranoid and spend most of their time thinking of creative ways to pad timesheets and look busy. Overall, a pretty realistic bunch in corporate America.
Like many literary aspiants who atrophy in a bill-paying occupation, I sometimes fantasize about using my deadening existence as the basis for great work of literature, like how Bukowski turned his gig as a postal worker into the sublime Post Office, or how Joseph Conrad’s stint as a steamboat captain in the Congo insprired Heart of Darkness . But Then We Came to an End makes me seriously question if such a thing is possible from the vantage point of the modern office environment. Sure, hijinks like hiding sushi in a detested co-worker’s office or getting into a fight with the office coordinator about purloined desk chairs are amusing, but they hardly speaks for the human condition.
Ferris knows this, and attempts to inject some meaning and excitement into the novel with a variety of heady sub-plots. One characters dies, one has cancer, one is pregnant with a married co-worker’s child, one’s only child is kidnapped and murdered, and one is getting a divorce and suffers a complete mental breakdown that drives him to go on a rampage with a paintball gun. The result is an office that looks nothing like any office I’ve ever heard of, and whatever poignancy Ferris musters comes from these extraordinary circumstances. But then again, what can he do? Attempt to draw significance from a vacuous office where nothing much happens except meetings, lunch, and lay-offs? Would that have been as entertaining?
As a writer and reader, I was intrigued. But as a cubicle denizen, not so much.
